"How the fossil fuel industry turned the plan to solve climate change into a plan to save itself"

"In the 1990s, even as they denied the reality of climate change, oil company executives were quietly funding research that favored climate fixes that would protect their businesses.

They poured billions of dollars into the nation’s top universities, building what we now think of as the most prestigious and advanced climate research centers in the world.

With their work bolstered by fossil fuel money and burnished by the reputations of their schools, scientists published papers that legitimized the climate change solutions the industry preferred.

Those solutions steered the conversation away from breaking our dependence on oil and gas, and instead justified an approach of pollute now, clean up later."

An investigative series by ProPublica and Drilled published June 25, 2026. This link is for series mainbar and series landing page. [2]Bylines are in individual stories below.

SEE ALSO:

"Why Carbon Capture Can’t Conceivably Solve Climate Change" (ProPublica/Drilled) [3]

"Beyond Denial: How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study" (ProPublica/Drilled) [4]

"False Promises: Why Carbon Capture And Storage Won’t Fix Our Climate Crisis" (ProPublica/Drilled) [3]