Film Unearthed by Dutch Researcher Demonstrates BP Knew the Risk of Its Products and the Categories of Harms they Would Create
Washington, DC—Ahead of British Petroleum’s Annual General Meeting tomorrow, Dutch think tank Changerism and investigative platform Follow the Money released a new expose on What Makes Weather?, a recently unearthed climate video produced by BP in 1990. Carroll Muffett, President of the Center for International Environmental Law issued the following statement on the investigation and the video:
“Research by CIEL and others have repeatedly documented that BP and other major oil companies were on notice of climate risks from fossil fuels by no later than the 1960s. In What Makes Weather?, BP expressly acknowledged those risks in its own words—demonstrating beyond doubt that the company fully understood the threat posed by its products. More significantly, the images and narration of the film demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the populations most at risk: subsistence farmers in Africa and Asia, coastal communities around the world, and low-lying nations like Bangladesh.
Despite this knowledge, and as documented by Changerism and others, BP spent the next three decades obstructing meaningful climate action while dramatically expanding its production of fossil fuels. Last week’s record-breaking cyclone in Bangladesh and India provides stark evidence of the accuracy of BP’s forecasts and the consequences of its subsequent actions.
As fossil fuel producers face mounting litigation and investigations before courts and human rights bodies worldwide, What Makes Weather? adds to the growing body of evidence that BP and other oil companies understood not only the intrinsic danger of their products but the specific threat to identifiable categories of plaintiffs. With the calculated risks of the past quickly becoming today’s grim climate realities, BP and its investors should be asking themselves “Who will pay?”
For communities worldwide, and the lawyers who support them, the answer is clear.
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