In March 1999, Alejandro Chafuen, then president of an international free-market coalition called Atlas Network, wrote to an executive at ExxonMobil (XOM) to offer the American oil major a friendly note of appreciation.
“On behalf of Atlas and the institutes it supports, we would like to thank you again for the Exxon Corporation’s generous contributions,” Chafuen stated, “and for the confidence you and Exxon have placed in us.”
Included in the letter to William E. Hale of ExxonMobil’s public affairs department was a five-page summary of the global reach and diversity of the activities the corporation funded in 1998, “in whole or in part,” through donations to Atlas Network’s “Energy and Environment: Market-based Solutions”.
Those activities encompassed conferences to address the “global warming scare,” international briefings from prominent climate deniers, and widespread distribution of a book aimed at preventing schoolchildren from becoming “smug crusaders” for climate action. Without Exxon’s financial support, the letter stated, “few of these accomplishments would have been possible.”
It’s long been public knowledge that from the 1990s into the 2000s, ExxonMobil donated to Atlas Network, a U.S.-based coordinating organization for a network of free-market think tanks stretching far beyond North America and Europe.
Now a joint investigation by l’Observatoire des multinationales and DeSmog has revealed correspondence that provides new insights into the relationship between one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies and a network that for decades has worked to advance support for extreme libertarian policies in governments, the media, and public opinion by shaping the “climate of ideas.”
That long game has paid off not only by delaying global action to address the climate emergency, but by catalyzing the growth of a sprawling coalition of free-market think tanks worldwide. Some of them, including the Manhattan Institute, are now reportedly set to wield major influence over the policies of the second Trump administration.
In an emailed statement to l’Observatoire des multinationales, Atlas Network CEO Brad Lips defended the organization’s relationship with ExxonMobil, saying, “those donations from the late 1990s and early 2000s reflect the perspective of our leadership at the time that overzealous environmental regulation, premised on climate change, would be harmful for economic growth in general, and especially for the opportunity to increase living standards in the Global South.”
However, he added, the organization’s focus has now shifted. “By the time I became CEO of Atlas Network fifteen years ago, it was clear that there was little consensus on these topics among our partners. I determined this should not be an area of focus for Atlas Network, as we want to work constructively with all our partners on our key priorities with no concern for where they land on questions of climate science,” he wrote.
Crucial years for climate action
Chafuen wasn’t the only Atlas Network signatory on the 1999 summary letter to ExxonMobil. It was also signed by Paul Driessen, then the organization’s vice president for operations and corporate development (currently a contributor to the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denier think tank).
The goal of this program? To support “market-based solutions” worldwide for hotly debated “issues like global climate change, intellectual property rights, economics, sound science, international treaties and environmental education.”
This proposal and more than a dozen other documents, obtained by the Corporate Genome Project, add to a growing body of evidence that decades of delay in tackling climate change can be traced in large part to industry disinformation efforts quietly negotiated between oil companies and think tanks in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Those were crucial years when governments were making early attempts to control greenhouse gas emissions – and long past the point in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Exxon’s own scientists were telling company executives that “major reductions” in fossil fuel usage would be necessary to avoid “potentially catastrophic events” in the future.
The documents also open a window into how Atlas Network funnelled money from ExxonMobil to libertarian think tanks around the world, seeking to propagate corporate-friendly policies from behind a veil of objective analysis.
A key goal of these think tanks was to incubate right-wing political operatives, some of whom eventually found their way into office. Among them, Argentine official Ana Lamas, identified in the documents as an early beneficiary of Atlas Network support, who is now serving as under-secretary for the environment in the far-right government of Argentinian President Javier Milei.
As an Atlas fellow in 1998, Lamas — then the director of Fundación MEL, a free-market think tank — spent several weeks in the Washington D.C. area, meeting and “working on global warming and other environmental issues” with the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Heritage Foundation, and other think tanks prominent in the climate denial movement.
Lamas also featured in another Atlas Network document showing recipients of travel expenses and honoraria paid to various individuals in 1998 as part of “Global Warming Events in Argentina” during climate talks held in Buenos Aires. The document showed that Fundación MEL received $5,000 from the American Petroleum Institute, the nation’s biggest oil and gas lobby group. Lamas personally received $850, according to the document, though the sources of those funds were not identified.
A quarter-century later, in the run-up to the November 2024 climate conference in Azerbaijan, Lamas echoed Milei’s position that climate change was a problem best left to market forces to solve. Argentina withdrew its climate negotiators a few days after the talks started, without offering an explanation.
Lamas did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Extraordinarily grateful’
Atlas Network spokesperson Adam Weinberg has told l’Observatoire des multinationales that the organization has not received funding from oil or gas companies, or their foundations, for 15 years.
“Atlas Network itself does not advocate for energy, environmental, or climate change policies,” Weinberg said in response to a request for comment on this story.
“Corporate fundraising has never been a substantial portion of Atlas Network’s budget,” said Weinberg.
“The annual budget we raise pales in comparison to many other nonprofit organizations with global missions, and certainly to the taxpayer funds wasted by virtually any government around the world.”
Atlas Network is “extraordinarily grateful” to “many generous individuals and foundations” that fund its work to promote ”individual rights and free enterprise and provide us with the resources to strengthen the worldwide freedom movement,” he said.
ExxonMobil (so named since Exxon’s November 1999 merger with the oil company Mobil) did not respond to a request for comment.
Chafuen, who is now the international managing director of a think tank called the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, did not respond to a request for comment.
Funding a global movement
Atlas Network’s success in obtaining ExxonMobil’s funding for its programs grew out of a shared goal between the two to nurture free-market think tanks around the world.
Beneficiaries of that effort noted in the 1999 program summary included around two dozen free-market think tanks in multiple countries, including China (Unirule Institute of Economics, Institute of World Economics and Politics), India (Center for Civil Society, Liberty Institute), Chile (Libertad y Desarollo), Argentina (Fundación Libertad), and Canada (Fraser Institute).
The many conferences, seminars, and workshops funded by the program on various continents included a series of briefings held in five Argentine cities that gathered hundreds of people to discuss “scientific, economic and technological aspects” of the “global warming scare.” Press coverage of the events “included 8 television and radio appearances, over 12 articles in newspapers and magazines, and 19 interviews.”
In Europe, beneficiaries included organizations such as the Swedish libertarian think tank Timbro, as well as the Civic Institute in the Czech Republic. During this time, the Civic Institute was led by Michal Semin, a Czech journalist, commentator, and conservative Christian figure who attributed the 9/11 attacks to “American elites,” opposed abortion and same-sex marriage, and advocated against “social liberalism.”
Another activity outlined in the document was an initiative known as the “Atlas Fellows Program,” which supported candidates from Argentina, France, Mexico, and Turkey in gaining think tank experience, organizing and attending conferences, and pursuing degrees at George Mason University in Virginia. (The school is a magnet for conservative money that — along with affiliated centers — has received tens of millions of dollars since 2005 from foundations linked to oil and gas billionaires Charles and the late David Koch, according to tax filings.)
Atlas also channeled ExxonMobil money to the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), a U.S. climate science denial think tank then headed by the late Fred Singer.
Chafuen and Driessen reported to ExxonMobil that “Atlas sent packages of books, articles and videos on global climate change science and economics to nine institutes in Asia and Latin America.”
The books — which were distributed from Turkey to Chile via Spain — included Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children About The Environment, a manual to help teachers oppose “irresponsible claims by environmental extremists” and prevent pupils from becoming “smug crusaders whose foundation of knowledge is shaky at best” on issues including fossil fuel pollution.
A separate document, titled “Benefits of Supporting the Atlas Economic Research Foundation,” underscored the organization’s ability to promote pro-business policy reports, while allowing the corporations funding the research to stay in the background.
“Public policy ideas are often most valuable when they are championed by organizations that are not perceived to reflect narrow, parochial interests,” the document said. “Donations made to Atlas, and then given to think tanks at Atlas’s discretion, inject an added measure of independence and credibility into the studies.”
‘Far from settled’
A May 2000 proposal that Chafuen sent to ExxonMobil showed in specific detail the resources that Atlas Network could bring to bear in defending a funder’s interests. Addressed to ExxonMobil executive Arthur G. “Randy” Randol, the cover letter contained a friendly word of warning to the oil major.
Soon, Chafuen told Randol, “global warming alarmists” would use a forthcoming climate report to “convince the United States and other countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,” the 1997 treaty committing rich polluters like the United States to legally binding and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
“In doing so,” the proposal noted, “they will also make clear that climate change temperature records in no way justify immediate, drastic fossil fuel reductions.”
Chafuen was particularly concerned about the IPCC’s upcoming Third Assessment Report, a comprehensive summary of the best available climate science and assessment of future risks to date that was due to be published the following year.
“Proponents of catastrophic global warming theories will soon begin using the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR) and the revised U.S. National Assessment Report in support of their campaigns to convince the United States and other countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,” the proposal stated, along with studies by the the National Council of Churches and the National Academy of Sciences.
“It is essential that congressmen, journalists, ambassadors and other officials in the United States and overseas be made aware that global warming science is far from settled,” Chafuen wrote.
A consensus that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels posed catastrophic risks to the climate had begun to emerge at least as early as 1979, when an ad hoc group of climate scientists gathered that July at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Their deliberations were compiled into Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. Known colloquially as the Charney Report, the study is still regarded as a milestone in climate science for its accuracy in projecting the rate at which human-induced increases in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 would cause global temperatures to rise.
By 2000, two decades of subsequent research had only reinforced the Charney Report’s findings. Chafuen nevertheless seemed eager to demonstrate to ExxonMobil that Atlas Network-backed “independent” scientists could marshall enough evidence to sow doubt.
“Indeed, there is a growing recognition within the scientific community that satellite and other data demonstrate only a slight warming of the earth’s atmosphere — far less than predicted by climate models and global warming alarmists,” Chafuen wrote. “A large and growing number of respected scientists also recognize that natural phenomena may be primarily responsible for observed climate changes, and that human activities may play only a minor role.”
‘A valuable and generous ally’
The project’s goal was to make “congressmen, journalists, ambassadors and other officials in the United States and overseas [aware] that global warming science is far from settled.”
Among the likely candidates for pushing back on the established climate science in the IPCC’s report were well-known climate deniers such as Singer, the late Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, and Robert Balling of the University of Arizona.
Atlas Network planned to spend $17,500 on printing costs alone, as well as thousands more hosting briefings for groups of policymakers, politicians, and “selected church leaders,” along with climate-denier think tanks such as the Heartland Institute. The budget also included $6,000 to cover four days of “briefings to journalists” and $1,500 for press conferences.
Though these were still early days for digital media, Chafuen laid out a detailed online strategy to ExxonMobil, including paying for “banner ads on selected websites,” and $1,500 for creating and posting “internet hyperlinks” that would draw people to pages with information contesting the scientific consensus on climate change.
Atlas promised to keep careful metrics of its influence: “The success of this project will be measured by the number of: ‘hits’ received by websites, articles and op-eds distributed and actually placed, people in attendance at briefings and press conferences, appearances on talk shows and other programs, media interviews, invitations to editorial board meetings and congressional hearings, radio and television stations using materials provided to them — as well as levels of interest generally expressed by target audiences,” Chafuen wrote in the proposal. “Overall funding levels will determine how many of the project components outlined here can be completed within the timeframe specified, and to the standards you have come to expect from Atlas programs.”
The following month, June 2000, ExxonMobil executive Gary Ehlig sent Atlas a $65,000 check “from the ExxonMobil Foundation as support for your continued work on climate change.”
Ehlig wrote that the funds were “intended to support activities related to scientific evaluation of several reports, including the current draft of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report and the U.S. National Assessment Report when it becomes available,” and that he looked forward to “hearing about your activities in the climate change arena as the year progresses.”
But less than two weeks later, Brad Lips,then Atlas Network’s newly-appointed chief operating officer — and today its CEO — wrote back to Exxon with some unfortunate news. Due to “unanticipated circumstances,” the organization “must return ExxonMobile’s [sic] check.”
Lips was conciliatory: “The last thing Atlas wants to do is disappoint a valuable and generous ally.” But, he explained, the organization was no longer confident “that this important project could be accomplished in the matter we had outlined.”
It was not immediately possible to verify how much of Atlas Network’s proposal — if any — was ever implemented.
Captured by corporations?
Despite touting Atlas Network’s close alignment with corporate interests in its fund-raising pitches, senior figures in the organization had begun to question whether it had become too captive to its donors.
In a June 2000 memo, Lips suggested that the network should be cautious about designing projects to oblige particular funders.
“Programs have tended to be planned around particular donors,” he argued. “It would seem more respectable if Atlas determined the broad outlines and goals of its Environment Program before soliciting the support of ExxonMobile [sic] for it, instead of our old process, which was to write a proposal for ExxonMobile [sic] and then label it our Environment Program.”
Lips recommended that teams define their projects before approaching funders, arguing that ultimately this would benefit the network and its corporate backers: “Atlas would maintain flexibility to cater to a new donor’s interests.”
The memo identified potential funders for environmental projects on the themes of science and international regulation: ExxonMobil, chemical company Procter & Gamble, and the American Petroleum Institute.
Whatever his concerns over who would set Atlas Network’s agenda – staff or donors – Lips continued to emphasise the organization’s ability to serve corporate interests in his outreach.
In May 2002, Lips wrote a friendly letter to Nick Welch, an executive at Shell, then an Anglo-Dutch oil major, offering Atlas Network’s support to advance “policy goals.” Welch and Lips had apparently met at a dinner of the Cato Institute, a prominent U.S. libertarian think tank.
“Please keep my name in your files,” Lips wrote, “in case you would like some references in regard to the local allies Atlas has in various countries. (Am I remembering correctly that Russia, Nigeria, and Turkey are among the ones you mentioned last week?)”
Given Atlas’s reach, wrote Lips, “we can help coordinate efforts that address policy goals that represent both of our organization’s best interests.”
Atlas Network’s global ties certainly appealed to ExxonMobil, which used the organization throughout the early 2000s to funnel grants to thank tanks in Africa and Asia, the new documents show.
In January 2004, Lips told ExxonMobil executive Walt F. Buchholtz in an email that Atlas Network had directed funds donated by ExxonMobil for its “Eco-Imperialism and related institutes” program to think tanks in Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh and India, via grants worth between $2,500 and $6,000.
“As we discussed, we will make sure in the future to let grantees from this line know about the origin of funds and the partnership Atlas/ExxonMobil have to assist and promote their good work,” Lips wrote.
A ‘war room’ for Exxon
Atlas Network spotted another opportunity to pitch its services to its corporate backers in the run-up to the COP10 climate negotiations in Buenos Aires in November 2004.
“We are very well-positioned to have a positive influence on the direction of the debate and media coverage in Argentina,” Atlas head Chafuen wrote in a letter to Buchholtz in July 2004. “[W]e have already reserved an ideal facility next to the conference center, which can operate as a home-base or ‘war room’ for our efforts.”
The proposal described plans to win favorable media coverage related to COP10 by mobilizing as many global allies as possible, particularly in “strategic” regions, as well as numerous think tanks where Atlas Network directors were board members or chairs.
Available documents do not make clear whether ExxonMobil accepted this proposal. However, correspondence between Atlas and the corporation during the first part of 2004 show that ExxonMobil had recently given Atlas Network donations of $30,000 and $55,000.
In February 2005, Chafuen wrote to Buchholtz to express his appreciation for a further donation of $45,000.
“I want to personally thank you for your devotion to the Atlas mission,” Chafuen wrote.
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