American Petroleum Institute

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The American Petroleum Institute (abbreviated API) is the largest interest group for the oil and gas industry, including the petrochemical industry, in the United States. The API, based in Washington, DC , has around 600 companies.

Work areas

The institute expresses itself on topics such as the exploitation of deposits, oil consumption, taxes, trade, environmental protection and occupational safety. An important area of ​​work is the development of technical guidelines and standards. The influence of the API extends far beyond the USA.

The technical guidelines issued by the API are comparatively comprehensive and demanding. The guidelines are not drawn up by independent institutions, but by experts from the companies that make up the association.

Specifications for engine oils are available from the API (see: Lube Oil ). Other directives deal, for example, with the execution of machines, oil transport on ships, maintenance of apparatus and the execution of safety devices.

Organized climate change denial

The API had known about the dangers posed by global warming as a result of the burning of fossil fuels since the 1950s , but denied this in public. API employees had already found out in 1954 that burning fossil fuels had led to an increase in the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere, several years before the Keeling curve was published . In 1959, the physicist Edward Teller gave a lecture at a symposium organized by the API on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the US oil industry, in which he discussed the negative effects of global warming such as B. pointed to rising sea levels. In 1965, three days after scientists had informed then US President Lyndon B. Johnson in a report about the dangers of climate change, this report was discussed at the annual general meeting of the American Petroleum Institute. There the then API President Frank N. Ikard addressed the following words to the assembled leading US industrialists:

“This report unquestionably will fan emotions, raise fears, and bring demands for action. The substance of the report is that there is still time to save the world's peoples from the catastrophic consequence of pollution, but time is running out. One of the most important predictions of the report is that carbon dioxide is being added to the earth's atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at such a rate that by the year 2000 the heat balance will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate beyond local or even national efforts. The report further states, and I quote: "... the pollution from internal combustion engines is so serious, and is growing so fast, that an alternative nonpolluting means of powering automobiles, buses, and trucks is likely to become a national necessity."

“This report will undoubtedly stir emotions, arouse fears and prompt calls for action. The key message of the report is that there is still time to save the peoples of the world from the disastrous effects of pollution, but time is running out. One of the most important predictions of the report is that carbon dioxide will be added to the earth's atmosphere through the combustion of coal, oil and natural gas in such an amount that by the year 2000 the heat balance will be changed in such a way that significant climatic changes may occur, over local or even go beyond national efforts. The report goes on to say, and I quote: "... internal combustion engine pollution is so severe and growing so rapidly that an alternative environmentally friendly means of powering cars, buses and trucks is likely to become a national necessity."

- Frank N. Ikard , President of the American Petroleum Institute at its annual general meeting, 1965.

In 1968, and thus around two decades before the public, the API was finally informed by the Stanford Research Institute that the emission of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels would pose considerable dangers for the earth. Among other things, scientists warned the API that man-made climate change could a. would lead to a melting of the Arctic and a rise in sea levels. In public, however, the API denied for decades that the existence of climate change was scientifically sound.

Instead, like other lobby organizations and companies in the fossil fuel industry, the API deliberately undermined climate research and policy in order to maintain its own business goals. Among other things, the API financed climate “skeptical” scientists, conservative think tanks who denied the existence of global warming, and various front organizations for organized climate change denial , including the Global Climate Coalition . This was initially headed by William O'Keefe from the American Petroleum Institute and was very involved in the fight against the US ratification of the Kyoto Protocol . However, it also played a crucial role in the attacks on the IPCC lead authors Benjamin D. Santer , the discrediting of the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC and the IPCC had overall goal; In retrospect, they turned out to be unfounded.

One of the sponsored people is Willie Soon , whose work is cited by many climate "skeptics" as evidence against man-made global warming, but is rejected by climate researchers because of serious methodological and substantive deficiencies.

In June 2020, the American Petroleum Institute - along with ExxonMobil and Koch Industries - was sued by the US state of Minnesota over the decades-long disinformation campaign on climate change that the three actors were running .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ American Petroleum Institute . In: Desmogblog , Retrieved November 20, 2018.
  2. ↑ n-tv news television: drilling banned in the Arctic: Obama drives Trump in the oil parade . In: n-tv.de . ( n-tv.de [accessed on December 21, 2016]).
  3. ↑ a b Benjamin Franta: Early oil industry knowledge of CO 2 and global warming . In: Nature Climate Change . 2018, doi : 10.1038 / s41558-018-0349-9 .
  4. ↑ On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming . In: The Guardian , January 1, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  5. ↑ Quoted from: Benjamin Franta: Early oil industry knowledge of CO 2 and global warming . In: Nature Climate Change . 2018, doi : 10.1038 / s41558-018-0349-9 .
  6. ↑ Oil industry knew of 'serious' climate concerns more than 45 years ago . In: The Guardian , April 13, 2016. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
  7. ^ Riley E. Dunlap, Aaron M. McCright: Organized Climate Change Denial , in: John S. Dryzek, Richard B. Norgaard, David Schlosberg (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society . Oxford University Press 2011, pp. 144-160, esp. 148-150.
  8. ↑ Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher . In: The New York Times , February 21, 2015. Retrieved April 21, 2016.
  9. ↑ Minnesota sues Exxon, Koch and API for being 'deceptive' on climate change . In: Reuters , June 24, 2020. Retrieved June 29, 2020.