Advocating inaction: a historical analysis of the Global Climate Coalition

Advocating inaction: a historical analysis of the

Global Climate Coalition

Robert J. Brulle

Institute at Brown for Environment & Society, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

ABSTRACT

Ever since climate change became a political issue in the late 1980s, a number

of industry coalitions have formed to oppose mandatory carbon emissions

reductions. One key coalition was the Global Climate Coalition (GCC). This

paper conducts a historical and empirical review of the activities of this coali

tion. This review shows that the GCC engaged in four distinct activities to

obstruct climate action: 1) monitoring and contesting climate science, 2) com-

missioning and utilizing economic studies to amplify and legitimate their argu-

ments, 3) shifting the cultural understanding of climate change through public

relations campaigns and 4) conducting aggressive lobbying of political elites.

Through these activities, the GCC played an important role in obstructing

climate action, both in the U.S. and internationally. Further analysis of similar

coalitions can aid in our understanding of the organized opposition to climate

action.

KEYWORDS Coalitions; Global Climate Coalition; climate change; countermovement

The dramatic testimony of James Hansen and the creation of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 marked the

emergence of climate change as a major public issue, and ampliﬁed calls for

government action to reign in carbon emissions. In response, corporations

with strong ties to fossil fuels, acting in coordination with allied trade

associations, and a number of other organizations mounted a series of eﬀorts

to oppose reductions in carbon emissions (Dunlap and McCright 2015).

These eﬀorts form an amalgam of loosely coordinated groups that can be

understood as the climate change countermovement (CCCM).

One large component of the CCCM is the building and maintenance of

coalitions composed of fossil-fuel related corporations and their aﬃliated

trade associations to oppose mandatory reductions in carbon emissions.

These coalitions have acted to enhance the collective political capacity of

individual corporations by fulﬁlling two key functions. The ﬁrst is to consti

tute and promote the industry’s social identity as a legitimate actor in the

CONTACT Robert J. Brulle [email protected]

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS

https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2022.2058815

political system and thereby manage reputational risks to avoid regulation. To

carry out this responsibility, these coalitions engage in extensive public rela

tions eﬀorts. The second function is to pool economic and political resources

from across the industry sectors to advocate for the coalition’s collective

interests. As such, these coalitions serve as an institutional vehicle for cor

porations to pursue collective strategies in the political arena. Downie (2019,

p. 235) shows that these coalitions ‘act as a command center bringing together

members of diﬀerent organizations to pool resources, share wider information

and mediate conﬂicts to achieve a common purpose within a wider network.’

These coalitions played a critical role in the development of organized

opposition to climate change. One of the earliest such coalitions was the

Global Climate Coalition (GCC), formed by the National Association of

Manufacturers (NAM) in 1989 (Franz 1998). Subsequently, a number of

political coalitions were formed with the same mission (Brulle 2021).

Many of these coalitions continue to obstruct climate action. Yet, despite

their signiﬁcance, there has been very little systematic research on the

nature or structure of these coalitions (see Downie 2018 for an important

exception).

Many of the key arguments and practices used to obstruct climate action

emerged in the late 1980s, led by organizations such as the GCC, as well as the

International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association

(IPIECA) (Bonneuil and Franta 2021) and the Global Climate Council

(Leggett 2001, pp. 10–11). The GCC, as the ﬁrst and largest U.S. domestic

coalition organized to oppose climate action, played an important role in the

development of the approaches other coalitions have utilized to stop or slow

climate action. The repertoire of countermovement actions that this coalition

developed informed future actions to obstruct climate action. Thus a detailed

case study of the actions of the GCC can lend insights into the eﬀorts by

industry coalitions to obstruct action on climate change. The objective of this

article is to conduct a historical and analytic review of the structure, ﬁnances,

and activities of the GCC. I start by framing the conﬂict over climate change

policy as a political and cultural struggle over the dominant understanding of

this issue.

I then discuss the important role played by industry coalitions in

the CCCM. To further document this role, I develop a comprehensive histor

ical and empirical analysis of the role of the GCC in climate politics and

summarize this coalition’s major activities. I conclude the paper with

a discussion of the role of coalitions in climate politics.

Coalitions and the struggle for political and cultural power

The conﬂict over how to address climate change can be seen as a political and

cultural struggle over the dominant understanding of this issue (Brown

1990). From the perspective of cultural sociology, social order is created

2 R. J. BRULLE

through the acceptance of a shared perspective of the situation. This shared

deﬁnition of the situation forms a taken-for-granted reality and deﬁnes

norms for regularized patterns of social interaction (Fligstein and McAdam

2012, p. 9). The shared deﬁnition of the situation in the policy arena are

known as ﬁeld frames. Field frames ‘identify categories of social actors and

their appropriate activities or relationships (Lounsbury et al. 2003, p. 75).’

Field frames take the form of ‘political constructions that provide order and

meaning to ﬁelds of activity by creating a status ordering for practices that

deem some practices more appropriate than others (Lounsbury et al. 2003,

pp. 76–77).’ These ideas form a collective and binding deﬁnition in that

particular ﬁeld. In relationship to climate change, the dominant ﬁeld frame

deﬁnes the use of fossil fuels as the appropriate practice in energy policy and

have linked the availability of cheap fossil fuel energy to a deﬁnition of the

‘good life’. These norms are drawn on to justify continuation of the current

energy system. Hence the struggle over climate change centers on challenges

to the ﬁeld frame of energy policy centered on fossil fuel use.

The maintenance of this dominant ﬁeld frame maintains the economic

and ideological interests of vested interests, especially the fossil fuel indus

tries and conservative groups opposed to government action. Thus the

maintenance of the status quo is in the interests of the incumbents, who

seek to maintain the currently dominant ﬁeld frame. Challengers to this

energy policy seek to substitute an alternative ﬁeld frame, and thus enable an

alternative approach to energy policy (Fligstein and McAdam 2012, p. 14).

Accordingly, the struggle for social change involves a competition between

the dominant ﬁeld frame upheld by the incumbents and alternative frames

developed and championed by challengers. This involves a political and

cultural struggle to transform the ﬁeld frame, and thus redeﬁne what appro

priate energy policy should be. This struggle over what constitutes the

appropriate ﬁeld frame is carried out in both the cultural and political

spheres and involves the exercise of intellectual leadership, compromise,

material incentives, and coercion by incumbents and challengers (Gramsci

1971)

An organized eﬀort to maintain a culture ﬁeld in the face of challenges

takes the form of a countermovement. Countermovements begin when

social movements start to successfully challenge the dominant field frame by

influencing public policy and threatening estab-lished interests (Meyer and

Staggenbord 1996, pp. 1635–1640). To protect their interests, the elite

respond to this threat by fostering countermovements to oppose the

challenging social movements.

The countermovement operates through organizational entities

(Laumann and Knoke 1987, p. 9). Accordingly, to better understand coun

termovements, scholars have focused on the structure and activities of

political coalitions (Poloni-Staudinger 2009). Coalitions are key components

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 3

in the creation and maintenance of collective action and deﬁne formalized

and regular patterns of cooperation in the development of collective action to

impact the policy process (Downie 2019, p. 16). The focus on coalitions

enables the examination of the political and cultural conﬂicts over energy

policy (Dunlap and McCright 2015).

The development of climate change countermovement coalitions

The CCCM ﬁrst emerged in 1989, just after the formation of the IPCC

(Rowell 1996). In the ensuing thirty three years, the CCCM has grown to

include numerous organizations (Dunlap and McCright 2015). These orga

nizations form an amalgam of loosely coordinated actors that can be seen as

a countermovement. This integrated network of organizational relationships

(sometimes termed the ‘denial machine’) exists to inﬂuence the public,

media, and political arenas to slow or stop climate action (Brulle 2018).

One important institutional component in the formation of

a countermovement is the existence of political coalitions. These political

coalitions create the CCCM’s institutional capacity to develop and imple

ment collective political activities (Downie 2019). These coalitions have

played an important role in shaping public discourse about climate change

through their funding of advertising campaigns and coordinating member

organization’s advocacy eﬀorts.

Some of the ﬁrst activities of the CCCM were led by the GCC.

Simultaneously, International eﬀorts to undermine climate science were

carried out by IPIECA, led by Exxon (Bonneuil and Franta 2021).

Additionally the Global Climate Council worked to undermine international

climate eﬀorts (Leggett 2001). The GCC, as the ﬁrst and largest coalition

organized to oppose climate action, established a repertoire of actions that

have served as a playbook for other coalitions to emulate in their eﬀorts to

stop or slow climate action. Thus an analysis of the GCCs actions can provide

important insights into the nature of organized climate obstruction eﬀorts.

Methods of analysis

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a close historical and analytic

examination of the GCC to provide insights into the nature of climate

obstruction eﬀorts. It focuses on four key questions.

●

What were the overall structure and ﬁnances of the GCC?

●

What were the major activities of the GCC?

●

What were the core arguments employed by the GCC in pursuit of its

objectives?

●

What events did the GCC seek to inuence?

4 R. J. BRULLE

To answer these questions, I constructed a historical narrative of the

activities of the GCC from its origins in 1989 until its demise in 2001.

To construct this narrative, I utilized seven diﬀerent sources. First,

I conducted a comprehensive review of both academic and advocacy

group publications that discuss the GCC. I then supplemented this review

by conducting Lexis-Nexis search of all available media utilizing the term

‘Global Climate Coalition’ from 1989 to 2001. This search identiﬁed 842

unique press mentions of the GCC. Third, I reviewed all of the ﬁles held by

the Climate Investigations Center regarding the GCC.

Fourth, I searched

the archives of NAM held at the Hagley Archives in Wilmington, Delaware

for any material relevant to the operation of the GCC. Fifth, I retrieved and

reviewed all eighteen instances of Congressional testimony by the GCC

from 1989 to 2001. Sixth, I reviewed all publicly available tax documents

for the GCC. These included the original IRS 1023 Application for Status

as a Nonproﬁt, and the income tax returns for 1996 and 1997.

Additionally, to compile income and expenditure data, I retrieved the

IRS ﬁling data for the GCC from 1994 to 2001 from the National Center

for Charitable Statistics. Finally, I conducted interviews with GCC and

IPCC oﬃcials.

Where the individual is not available for a current inter-

view, transcripts of previous interviews were obtained. This yielded four

interview transcripts. Organizational membership in the GCC was com-

piled utilizing membership lists provided by the GCC as part of their

Congressional Testimony and press reports on its membership. Where

organizations had interruptions of up to two years in reported member-

ship, but there was no evidence that they had resigned from the GCC,

membership was inferred.

Organizational characteristics of the GCC

From its founding in June 1989 until September 1991, the GCC operated as

an informal committee inside of NAM. In October 1991, the Bylaws of the

GCC were drafted and the formation of the GCC was announced on

27 November 1991.

The organization was structured with a governing

Board of Directors with an Executive Committee created to manage

the day to day activities. It created the position of Executive Director,

assisted by a staﬀ, and a separate Finance Committee to exercise ﬁnancial

oversight. It also authorized the creation of an Operating Committee,

which oversaw the functional implementation of GCC activities. The

bylaws also speciﬁed the creation of seven specialized committees as

follows: Communications, Technology Cooperation, Economic Analysis,

Industry Initiatives, State and Local, International and Science and

Technology Assessment. Little is known about the functions of these

various committees.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 5

Until 1994, there are no ﬁnancial records available for the GCC, as it was

ﬁnancially supported by NAM. Starting in 1994 and running until 2001, the

GCC ﬁled annual information returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

These records indicate that the GCC was funded entirely by membership

dues, based on the size of the company or trade association and whether or

not the organization was on the Board of Directors. Dues for 1994 ranged

between $2,500 and $10,000 per company. Overall funding levels for the

GCC ranged between just over $400,000 in 1994 to a peak of $1.7 million in

1997. Little is known about the budget of the GCC beyond total spending.

Expenses ranged from around $550,000 in 1994 and 2001 to a peak of over

$2 million in 1997. The overall expenditure of funds recorded by the GCC

since its inception totaled $8.3 million (Figure 1).

After its founding in June 1989 with sixteen organizations, the GCC grew

rapidly. By July 1989, when the GCC ﬁrst testiﬁed before Congress, it listed

forty-three members. The GCC listed seventy-two members in September of

1990 and reached its peak membership in June of 1991 with seventy-nine

members.

Membership in the GCC then varied annually between forty-ﬁve

and seventy members until the GCC reorganized as an association of only

trade associations in 2001 (Figure 2).

As noted, GCC’s primary membership was composed of companies and

trade associations from the utility and coal/steel/rail sectors. This is in line

with the ﬁndings of McGregor (2009, pp. 119–124). Each sector’s member-

ship ﬂuctuated between 15% and 30% of the total, but on average each sector

made up approximately 22% of the total membership. Organizations from

Figure 1. Global Climate Coalition Income and Expenses 1994-2001.

6 R. J. BRULLE

the gas & oil sector remained fairly steady at between 14% and 18% of the

total membership, with an overall average of 15%. Both the chemical and

transportation sectors each averaged 12% of the GCC membership

(Figure 3).

The GCC was never primarily comprised of organizations from the gas &

oil sector. However, all of the major oil companies were represented in the

coalition from the very beginning of the GCC by the American Petroleum

Institute (API). Throughout the life of the coalition, organizations from the

utility and coal/steel/rail sectors provided between 30% and 53% of its

membership, with an overall average of 45% of the membership. The actual

distribution of power and control within the GCC remains unknown.

Historical development of the GCC

The GCC existed from 1989 until 2001. During its existence, it went through

four distinct stages, detailed below.

Initial mobilization 1989 to 1991

The GCC was founded in June 1989 as a project of NAM Air Quality Task

Force. It consisted of 16 organizations meeting on a monthly basis (Franz

1998, p. 12). In its ﬁrst public announcement on 23 June 1989, the GCC

stated that it hoped to ‘be the focal point for business participation in

research and policy questions associated with global climate change’

Subsequent research has shown that industry created the GCC in response

to what it considered a ‘very alarmist presentation’ by James Hansen in the

Figure 2. Global Climate Coalition Organizational Membership Levels by Sector 1989-

2001.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 7

summer of 1988 (Levy and Rothenberg 1999, p. 5). After the petro-chemical

industry having been subjected to a mandatory reduction of ozone-depleting

substances by the Montreal Protocol, the GCC was designed to take

a proactive stance to avoid any mandatory reductions in carbon emissions

(McGregor 2008, p. 11).

From 1989 to 1991, the GCC functioned as an informal information

exchange between the organizations in its membership. Its initial actions

consisted of monitoring the scientiﬁc activities of the IPCC, sponsoring

economic research on climate change policies, and providing testimony on

climate change legislation. On 14 July 1989, the GCC released the ﬁrst of

many economic analyses of the impacts of climate change policies that they

commissioned.

This report argued that the 20% reduction in carbon emis-

sions by 2000 that had been proposed in climate legislation would raise

power costs by 20% for industry and 15% for households, leading to adverse

economic impacts. This commissioned report built on the work of econo-

mists who had downplayed the adverse economic impacts of climate change

(Franta 2021, p. 3). The GCC capitalized on this literature in this ﬁrst

deployment of economics to ‘weaken and delay US and international climate

policy’ (Franta 2021, p. 16). This utilization of economics based on the

exaggeration of costs and minimization of beneﬁts became a key component

of the GCC’s strategy to oppose climate action.

Figure 3. Global Climate Coalition Cumulative Organizational Membership by Sector

1989-2001

8 R. J. BRULLE

The GCC testiﬁed before Congress at hearings on climate change on

27 July 1989.

The central points of the testimony were that ﬁrst, the scientiﬁc

evidence of the adverse impacts of climate change were inconclusive, possibly

exaggerated, and did not merit action at this point in time; second, unilateral

action by the U.S. would be inappropriate and counterproductive; and third, any

scientiﬁc research on climate change should involve the participation of industry

scientists and representatives. In the following year, the GCC again testiﬁed

before Congress on 13 September 1990 opposing legislation mandating reduc-

tions in carbon emissions.

Their opposition was based on alleged scientiﬁc

uncertainty and adverse economic impacts. It also noted the need for interna-

tional equity in climate action and argued for inclusion of developing countries in

any global warming agreement. These three arguments: scientiﬁc uncertainty,

adverse economic consequences, and international responsibility became the

core of the GCC’s arguments against climate action. Reporting to the NAM

Board of Directors that year, the GCC maintained that they had become ‘the key

coalition representing industry on this issue.’

In 1991, the GCC testiﬁed before Congress on two occasions regarding the

development of a national energy strategy.

In both appearances, the GCC

continued its rhetorical strategy, repeating its three key arguments against

climate action. The GCC claimed success, maintained that it had shifted

energy legislation to require any climate responses to ‘be thoroughly eval-

uated for their economic, competitive, energy and technical impacts.’

Additionally, since participation in the upcoming 1992 United Nations

Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was open only

to recognized nonproﬁt organizations, the GCC became a formal organiza-

tion, separate from NAM in October 1991 (Franz 1998, p. 12).

In its initial years of operation, the GCC had established itself as

a prominent voice of industry on the issue of climate change. It had grown

from an initial sixteen organizations to a group of seventy-nine organiza-

tions. It initiated a series of activities, including testifying to and lobbying

Congress regarding climate change policy, monitoring, and participating in

the development of scientiﬁc research into climate change, and commission-

ing and promulgating economic analyses on climate change. It also estab-

lished itself as a participant in international climate change negotiations.

These initial formative years thus set up an institutional practice and focus

that would continue throughout the existence of this coalition.

UNFCCC negotiations and opposing the Clinton administration 1992–

1994

Throughout 1992, the primary focus of the GCC was participation in the

negotiations leading up to the signing of the United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Negotiations on the treaty

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 9

started in February 1991.

At this negotiating session, the GCC advocated

for a voluntary approach centering on technology development and empha-

sized the high costs of climate action.

The GCC maintained that projected

reductions of up to 2.4% of GNP and no net economic beneﬁts from taking

action to control climate change (Franta 2021, p. 5). The GCC also continued

to emphasize the uncertainty of climate science.

The day before the IPCC

was to present the ﬁndings of its 1992 Science Assessment, the GCC orga-

nized a press conference featuring Dr. Michaels and Dr. Singer, two well-

known critics of climate science, who argued that there was ‘essentially no

scientiﬁc evidence for global warming’ (Leggett 2001, p. 82). The GCC also

testiﬁed to three separate congressional committees in the spring of 1992.

continued its advocacy for a voluntary approach, focus on technological

innovation, and strong opposition to mandatory reductions in carbon emis-

sions based on its now familiar rhetorical approach focused on scientiﬁc

uncertainty, economic costs, and international concerns.

At the UNCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in May 1992, the GCC was

a prominent actor advocating against any binding reductions in carbon

emissions. It distributed a video ‘The Greening of Planet Earth’

that main-

tained that ‘increased levels of carbon dioxide will increase crop production

and help to feed the hungry people of the world’ (Beder 2002, p. 238). At

a press conference, the GCC emphasized the need for developing countries

to engage in carbon emission reductions at the same time as the industria-

lized countries reduced their emissions. This was ‘a concession that devel-

oping countries would not make’ (Leggett 2001, pp. 96–97) and was designed

by the GCC to be foreclose the possibility of any binding emissions reduc-

tions in the treaty. Giving into U.S. demands, the UNFCCC treaty that

emerged contained no binding carbon emissions reduction. Based on this

result, the GCC urged Senate approval of the treaty.

The UNFCCC was

ratiﬁed by the U.S. Senate by voice vote on 7 October 1992. Reviewing their

eﬀorts for 1992, the GCC maintained that it had maintained ‘a strong and

eﬀective presence’ and celebrated the fact that the treaty did not mandate

carbon emissions reductions.

Following the election of Bill Clinton as President in November 1992, the

GCC shifted its focus to preventing any domestic carbon emission limits.

The UNFCCC required each country to prepare a National Action Plan

(NAP) specifying the speciﬁc steps they would take to address global warm-

ing. Throughout 1993, there was a political struggle over the shape of the

NAP between the imposition of mandatory limitations on carbon emissions

vs. a voluntary program based in technology innovation advocated by the

GCC. The GCC expanded its eﬀorts by hiring E. Bruce Harrison Inc. (EBH)

to conduct a comprehensive PR campaign to support the GCC’s position.

The objective of this campaign was to shift the climate debate and would thus

10 R. J. BRULLE

involve communications eﬀorts to promote uncertainty about climate

science, attract support for the GCC’s position on climate change, and to

foster third-party experts to validate what the GCC was saying.

The GCC lobbied heavily for voluntary limits and testiﬁed four times

before Congressional Committees in 1993.

These testimonies focused

on the adequacy of existing federal laws to regulate carbon emissions, the

need for a voluntary approach, along with pointed references to the

economic damages and the continued uncertainty of climate science.

The GCC’s eﬀorts were rewarded when the Clinton administration

released its NAP in October 1993 that relied entirely on voluntary eﬀorts.

In its report to NAM, the GCC maintained it ‘played a pivotal role in

ensuring that the ﬁnal climate action plan relied on voluntary measures

to achieve its objectives.’

In March of 1994, the UNFCCC entered into

force. This agreement obligated the signatory countries to submit their

NAP and to initiate further discussions and planning for further actions

at the ﬁrst annual Conference of the Parties (COP).

Stopping mandatory international limits on carbon emissions 1995–

1999

With the U.S. domestic climate plan ﬁrmly established under voluntary

standards, the primary focus of the GCC’s eﬀorts to stop climate action

shifted back to the international arena. The UNFCCC had gone into eﬀect,

and with it came the renewed prospect for mandatory restrictions. Thus the

negotiation to be held at the ﬁrst meeting of the UNFCCC COP in Berlin

would be critical. During 1994, it became increasingly clear to the Clinton

Administration that voluntary eﬀorts were inadequate to address climate

change and the administration began preparing to support mandatory limits

at the COP 1 in Berlin scheduled for 1995.

The GCC sought to maintain voluntary limits.

Following its long-

established playbook of casting doubt on climate science, the GCC sponsored

and disseminated a report by Accu Weather just prior to the COP meeting in

April 1995 that maintained that there had been no increase in severe weather

events and that there was no link between severe weather and climate

change.

This report was widely dismissed as inaccurate by climate scien-

tists, who noted that a report by the National Climatic Data Center contra-

dicted its ﬁndings (Gelbspan 1997, p. 38).

In April 1995, the ﬁrst COP convened in Berlin. The GCC attended this

meeting in force, with an oﬃcial delegation of twenty-ﬁve individuals.

Throughout this meeting, the GCC lobbied for no mandatory emissions

requirements. However, the global political momentum for mandatory

action was strong, and in the end, the ‘Berlin Mandate’ was adopted. This

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 11

speciﬁed that future UNFCCC actions need to require ‘quantiﬁed limitations

and reduction objectives within speciﬁc time frames’ along with mandatory

reporting, and penalties for non-compliance.

This outcome was viewed as a disaster by the GCC and led it to redouble

its eﬀorts to oppose international climate action. In July of 1995, EBH

provided the GCC with a comprehensive review of the program’s accom-

plishments and plans for the remainder of 1995 (E. B. Harrison Inc 1995). It

notes its communications accomplishments from October 1994 to May 1995

in obtaining print, radio, and television coverage for the GCC, providing

brieﬁngs and materials to the press, and publishing op-eds and letters to the

editor. The memo then deﬁnes a strategy focused on inﬂuencing key mem-

bers of Congress centered on three key messages that had long been the

litany of the GCC: scientiﬁc uncertainty, economic costs of carbon restric-

tions, and loss of U.S. sovereignty. The campaign would focus on speciﬁc

Congressional districts, recruiting local business leaders to advocate for the

GCC’s position, and work to obtain local media coverage. Additionally, at

the national level, the campaign would work to obtain expanded national

media coverage, conduct speaking forums and press brieﬁngs, and recruit

a third-party economist who would work to advocate for the GCC’s position

in the media. GCC was now engaged in a sophisticated public relations

campaign to inﬂuence elite opinion on climate policy.

In December of 1995, the IPCC released its Second Assessment Report. This

report resolved many key scientiﬁc issues that were uncertain in the First

Assessment Report. Most importantly, it came to the conclusion that “the

balance of evidence . . . suggests a discernible human inﬂuence on global

climate.

This was an incredibly important conclusion. It refuted the GCC’s

constant argument that climate science was too uncertain to show that humans

were changing the climate. In addition, that same month, the GCC received an

internal memorandum from its own scientists showing that virtually all of the

‘science’ arguments advanced by contrarian climate scientists were false, and

that human driven climate change was an established fact.

In spite of its own internal report and widespread knowledge about

climate change by member corporations (Franta 2021), the GCC pressed

on with maintaining that the science of climate change was still too uncertain

to require mandatory emissions reductions. The critical portion of the IPCC

report that supported the determination of a ‘discernible inﬂuence’ was

Chapter 8, ‘Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes,’

whose lead author was Dr. Ben Santer. In order to discredit this IPCC

ﬁnding, the GCC participated in a full-scale attack on Dr. Santer and the

integrity of the IPCC. Santer was accused of politically motivated elimination

of references to scientiﬁc uncertainty and skirting the peer review process.

This eﬀort included a public attack on Dr. Santer at an IPCC presentation,

stories and advertisements in Washington Times and Energy Daily

12 R. J. BRULLE

(Gelbspan 1997, pp. 78–80), and an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by a well

-known climate contrarian, Dr. Seitz (van den Hove and Bettignies

2002, p. 13).

This attack on Santer and the IPCC was immediately answered by the

IPCC’s chair, Bert Bolin. He fully explained Santer’s actions and defended

the integrity of the IPCC process. The charges in the attack were largely seen

to be fallacious and without merit by delegates to the COP. In the Second

COP held in July 1996 in Geneva Switzerland, the UNFCCC parties fully

endorsed the Second Assessment Report. One IPCC oﬃcial characterized the

GCC’s eﬀort as ‘totally ineﬀective’.

The failure of the attempt to discredit

the IPCC was a major setback for the GCC. It could no longer plausibly argue

that climate science was uncertain. Additionally, cracks began to appear in

the GCC after it so forcefully advocated an increasingly credulous position

that anthropogenic climate change was not occurring. In October of 1996,

BP quit the GCC (Leggett 2001, p. 252).

After COP 2, the Clinton Administration changed its negotiating position

and advocated for mandatory reductions in carbon emissions.

This change in

position led the GCC to engage in a major lobbying eﬀort in the U.S. Senate,

testifying in opposition to the treaty in July 1997.

Also, according to the then

CEO of the GCC, William O’Keefe, the GCC had weekly meetings with

members of Congress. They also worked with Senator Robert Byrd and

Senator Chuck Hagel to round up support for an amendment to set strict

criteria for any international climate accord. This eﬀort contributed to the

passage of the Byrd-Hagel Amendment in July 1997 by a vote of 95–0. This

amendment required that any climate accord would have to include reductions

by developing countries and could not result in serious harm to the

U.S. economy. These provisions damaged the credibility of the U.S. because it

showed a lack of consensus among the diﬀerent branches of government about

an international climate accord (van den Hove and Bettignies 2002, p. 13).

Following the Byrd-Hagel Amendment vote, the GCC, in cooperation

with a number of trade associations, formed the Global Climate Information

Project (GCIP) in September 1997. The GCIP launched a $13 million PR

campaign, produced by Goddard Claussen/First Tuesday. This campaign

centered on the argument that the international accord would raise gasoline

prices and harm the economy. The core theme was that ‘It’s not global and it

won’t work.’ According to O’Keefe, this campaign was very successful in

mobilizing public opinion against the Kyoto Protocol (van den Hove and

Bettignies 2002, p. 13). Additionally, the GCC lobbied vigorously at the COP

3 meeting in Kyoto and leveraged its members to lobby against the Kyoto

Protocol.

The GCC’s core arguments against the Kyoto Protocol were

based in the economic harms they projected this accord would cause (van

den Hove and Bettignies 2002, p. 13).

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 13

Despite the campaign, the U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol in

December 1997. The accord required developed countries to reduce their

carbon emissions to 5% below their 1990 levels by 2012. It exempted devel-

oping countries and set up a process of reviewing each country’s progress

toward its carbon emissions reductions and set up a program of greenhouse

gas emissions trading. The signing of the Kyoto Protocol set oﬀ a ﬁrestorm of

opposition. William O’Keefe, the GCC CEO, called the treaty ‘a terrible deal’

and vowed to ‘campaign hard and we will defeat it’.

Senator Trent Lott,

Republican Senate Majority Leader maintained that “the Senate will not

ratify a ﬂawed climate change treaty.

After the Kyoto Accord was signed, the GCC and the GCIP expanded their

eﬀorts to ensure that the Senate did not ratify the treaty. The GCIP, with the

help of the PR ﬁrm Shandwick PA, again partnered with the GCC, assisted by

the PR ﬁrm Ruder Finn, to develop a PR campaign to ‘let the media know

about the glaring holes in the Kyoto treaty, such as exempting developing

nations from strict emission standards.’

According to one GCC oﬃcial, the

GCIP and GCC tried to raise funds for the campaign. However, because most

member companies thought the existing Byrd-Hagel amendment and

Republican control of the Senate served as an eﬀective barrier to ratiﬁcation

of the treaty, ‘the appetite just wasn’t there for it.’

There is no evidence that

there was a signiﬁcant public relations campaign by either organization in

1998. In June 1998, the GCC circulated a study it commissioned by Wharton

Economic Forecasting Associates (WEFA) that estimated the direct impact on

a family of four at $2,700.

In August, an article in the Electricity Daily, citing

an economic study sponsored by the GCC, maintained that the ‘Clinton

Climate Plan Would Kill Coal,’

citing massive economic dislocations of up

to $120 Billion. That same article noted that the White House estimates of the

costs were between $7 billion and $12 billion. This campaign was followed up

with Congressional testimony of the lead author of the WEFA study men-

tioned above on 4 October 1998, which emphasized the adverse economic

consequences of ratiﬁcation of the Kyoto Protocol.

Given the strong Senate objections to the treaty, the Clinton

Administration tried to negotiate a cap-and-trade system at COP 4 in

Buenos Aires, Argentina, in November 1998. The hope was that developing

countries would participate in this process, and thus the requirements of

the Byrd-Hagel amendment would be met. However, this eﬀort failed and

the Kyoto Protocol remained unacceptable to Senate Republicans. Drained

of political capital by the Lewinsky scandal, the administration never did

submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratiﬁcation. The incoming

Bush Administration formally withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in

March 2001.

14 R. J. BRULLE

Post Kyoto dissolution 2000–2001

After the COP meeting in Buenos Aires in 1998, the GCC faded in impor-

tance. Its primary issue, the Kyoto Protocol, appeared to be politically

unviable. It testiﬁed before Congress three further times, twice regarding

the Kyoto Protocol,

and once in opposition to Senate Bill 566, the Clean

Power Act of 2002.

However, with the Kyoto Protocol eﬀectively dead, the

reason for the GCCs continued existence seemed to be in question. It had

already suﬀered a string of highly public defections, starting in 1996, when

BP left the coalition. Pushed by a number of shareholder resolutions

(McGregor 2009, p. 122) and a campaign by Ozone Action, over the follow-

ing years, most of the major oil companies and automobile companies also

quit. As one GCC oﬃcial put it, ‘After Kyoto, many US ﬁrms thought that the

treaty would never be ratiﬁed, so they turned their attention elsewhere.’

In March 2000, the GCC reorganized itself as an association made up only

of trade associations. It kept this form until it went defunct in the summer of

2001, after the Bush Administration had withdrawn from the Kyoto proto-

col. In one ﬁnal compliment, the GCC’s eﬀectiveness was acknowledged in

a meeting with White House staﬀ on 21 June 2001. The talking points for that

meeting

noted that ‘POTUS rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from

you.’ The GCC announced that it disbanded on 29 January 2002.

Discussion

In its opposition to climate action, the GCC followed four practices that have

been identiﬁed by scholars in studies of environmental politics.

Undermining climate science

First, it is clear that the GCC engaged in an extensive eﬀort to undermine

climate science through both disputing scientiﬁc ﬁndings and attacking the

credibility and character of climate scientists. As noted in the GCC

Communications Plan (E. B. Harrison Inc 1995), one of the key objectives

of the coalition was to focus on the ‘continued uncertainty of the science’.

Throughout their publications and press releases, the GCC consistently cited

contrarian scientists and promoted their work. It is unclear whether the GCC

funded contrarian scientists to either produce reports or to sign oﬀ on

editorials as ‘disinterested’ third-party spokespersons. However, the

Climate Investigations Center has discovered an application for funding to

engage in eﬀorts to undermine climate science by Dr. Singer,

lending

credibility to the existence of a ﬁnancial link between the GCC and contra-

rian climate scientists.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 15

The practice of attacking and undermining scientiﬁc ﬁndings to avert

environmental or safety regulations is well-established as part of the public

relations industry’s product-defense strategy. The purpose of such eﬀorts is to

manage the scientiﬁc process and thus ‘manipulate research in ways that

would promote their [industry’s] products or create doubt about the deleter-

ious health eﬀects of their products and manufacturing processes – thereby

enhancing their credibility and proﬁts and shielding them against unwanted

regulation or legal liability’ (White and Bero 2010, pp. 105–106). This practice

originated with the eﬀorts to conceal the adverse health eﬀects of lead in 1918

(Markowitz and Rosner 2002, pp. 36–53) and further developed by the oil

(Conley 2006, p. 23) and tobacco industries (Michaels 2008, pp. 45–59). Given

the historical precedent of the use of PR product defense strategies, and its

employment of E. Bruce Harrison, the leading environmental PR professional

that developed the attack on Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Aronczyk and

Espinoza 2021), the GCC’s adoption of this practice would be expected.

Highlighting the costs of climate action

A major component the GCC’s eﬀort to stop climate action was to conduct

and promulgate economic studies that highlighted the high economic costs

of any mandatory carbon emissions reductions. The GCC’s

Communication Plan (E. B. Harrison Inc 1995) stressed that their message

would focus on the ‘loss of jobs, higher energy costs, diminished competi-

tiveness’ that would result if carbon emissions were regulated. The GCC

sponsored a series of economic analyses

that exaggerated the costs of

mitigating carbon emissions and minimized the economic damages of

climate change. In fact, one of the major authors of these studies for the

GCC, Paul Bernstein stated that they intentionally neglected to fully exam-

ine the costs of failing to take climate action and thus did not tell the whole

story (Franta 2021, p. 12).

The use of economic analysis in opposing environmental action was

pioneered by E. Bruce Harrison (Aronczyk and Espinoza 2021, pp. 96–

126). In order to counter environmental concerns, Harrison developed the

concept of the three Es: Environment, Energy, and Economy. This messaging

strategy coupled environmental quality with abundant energy and economic

growth forming the triad that deﬁned the ‘good life.’ The task for policy then

was to provide a ‘balance’ between the competing components of this triad.

This opened the door for analysis of government environmental policy to

consider the economic costs of environmental action and its impact on the

availability of energy resources. Throughout the 1980s, this framing of

environmental policy became dominant in the U.S. and when the issue of

climate change emerged, it became enmeshed with economic considerations

16 R. J. BRULLE

and the impact on energy supply. When Harrison’s ﬁrm took over the

communications for the GCC, it is thus not at all surprising that this framing

was applied to shift the debate on climate policy.

Shifting the cultural understanding of climate change to oppose

carbon emissions reductions

The third major practice of the GCC was to engage in a vigorous and well-

planned public relations campaign to widely promulgate their rationale for

opposing carbon emissions reductions. It is clear that the GCC paid indivi-

duals to serve as credible ‘third party’ spokespersons to promulgate the

GCC’s positions in editorials (E. B. Harrison Inc 1995). It also engaged in

several paid media campaigns, culminating in its cooperative eﬀort with the

GCIP to design and run a major PR campaign to defeat the Kyoto Protocol.

Finally, the GCC conducted extensive outreach eﬀorts to newspaper editors

and reporters to foster favorable earned media coverage. These activities are

in line with the emerging literature on the important role played by PR ﬁrms

in climate change politics (Brulle and Werthman 2021).

Conducted aggressive lobbying of political elites to stop meaningful

climate action

The ﬁnal major activity of the GCC was to conduct extensive lobbying eﬀorts

focused on international climate change negotiations, Executive Branch

decision making, and Congress. The GCC actively lobbied international

climate negotiations starting with the Rio Treaty process and the subsequent

COP meetings to ensure that there were no binding emissions reductions.

The GCC also conducted extensive lobbying eﬀorts within the Executive

Branch regarding the Climate Action Plan, and also sought to shift congres-

sional legislative eﬀorts. This lobbying eﬀort culminated in the successful

passage of the Byrd – Hagel Amendment, which eﬀectively put an end to the

Kyoto Protocol. These activities are entirely in line with an extensive litera-

ture regarding the important inﬂuence of political lobbying on the nature of

policy action on climate change (Brulle 2018).

The role of coalitions in obstructing climate action

The analysis of the GCC’s activities shows that this coalition engaged in four

key practices to inﬂuence the political process. None of these activities are

unusual or surprising. Rather, they reﬂect a comprehensive political opera-

tion that was designed and executed by leading political operatives and PR

professionals. Additionally, the GCC served as an eﬀective means for

a number of diﬀerent corporations and trade associations from multiple

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 17

sectors to develop a collective political position and to pool resources to

advance their preferred policies. This conﬁrms much of the established

literature on the important role of coalitions in political and cultural con-

ﬂicts. The GCC, as the ﬁrst and largest U.S. domestic coalition organized to

oppose climate action, established a repertoire of actions that have served as

a playbook for other coalitions to emulate in their eﬀorts to stop or slow

climate action. These subsequent eﬀorts by coalitions such as the American

Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the Alliance for Energy and

Economic Growth to obstruct climate action have followed the playbook

developed by the GCC (Brulle 2021). Pioneered by the GCC, a range of

activities including eﬀorts to cast doubt on climate science, the use of

economic analyses to exaggerate the costs and minimize the beneﬁts of

climate mitigation eﬀorts, engaging in vigorous lobbying, and utilizing pub-

lic relations techniques have all become standard parts of the eﬀorts to

oppose climate action. This framework can serve as a template to examine

further eﬀorts and how the eﬀort to obstruct climate action has changed over

time.

This study has some signiﬁcant limitations. It is based on the analysis of

a single coalition. Several other coalitions also opposed action on climate

change (Brulle 2021). A comparative analysis of these diﬀerent coalitions

would add to our understanding of the role of coalitions in the political

conﬂict over climate change policy. Additionally, this study does not

examine the linkages between the GCC and conservative think-tanks

(CTT). The interactions between the GCC, other coalitions, and CTTs is

an important area where more research is needed. Finally, there is a great

deal of information regarding the GCC’s activities that remains unknown.

Further information on the GCC derived from either broader archival

research or legal discovery procedures will be critical for compiling this

information.

So what was the impact of the GCC? There were many inﬂuences on

climate policy, including multiple industry coalitions that opposed climate

action, large corporations, CTTs, and other factors. However, the fact

remains that during the period the GCC existed, there was no successful

government action to limit U.S. carbon emissions. In his case history of the

GCC, E. Bruce Harrison celebrated the success of his eﬀorts for the coalition,

noting that the ‘GCC has successfully turned the tide on press coverage of

global climate change science, eﬀectively countering the ecocatastrophe

message and asserting the lack of scientiﬁc consensus on global warming’

and that the ‘GCC’s eﬀorts to raise awareness of the science and economics of

climate change inﬂuenced the administration’s decision to rely on voluntary

(rather than mandatory) measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its

18 R. J. BRULLE

Climate Change Action Plan.’

Additionally, as previously discussed, the

Bush Administration congratulated the GCC on its eﬀectiveness, noting that

‘POTUS rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you’.

As scholars seek to understand the historical development of U.S. climate

policy, the analysis of the actions of coalitions such as the GCC can make

a major contribution to this task. The GCC was one of several organizations

that successfully worked to stop climate action. Understanding its operation

can provide a guide on how to overcome this obstacle to addressing climate

change.

Notes

1. In this paper, I build on my previous research on the role of countermovement

coalitions in the development of organized eﬀorts to oppose climate action. As

such, I draw extensively from Brulle (2021) in the theoretical framing of this

paper.

2. See Climate Files: https://www.climateﬁles.com/bp/brulle-paper-references-

advocating-inaction-environmental-politics-april-2022.

3. These interviews were conducted under conditions of anonymity and the

transcripts of the interviews cannot be made public.

4. GCC Memorandum from John Cohen, NAM, 11/27/1991.

5. Statement of Jerry Jasnowski before the House Committee on Energy and

Commerce, 9/13/1990.

6. Industrial Energy Bulletin. GCC Forms to Give Business a Role in Debate. 6/

23/1989.

7. Center for Strategic and International Studies 1989. Implications of Global

Climate Policies: A Report for the GCC, Washington DC.

8. Testimony of W. Ross Stevens III, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company on H.

R. 2984 on behalf of the GCC before the House Subcommittees on Natural

Resources, Agricultural Research and Environment and International

Scientiﬁc Cooperation of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology,

7/27/1989.

9. Statement of Jerry Jasnowski before the House Committee on Energy and

Commerce, 9/13/1990.

10. NAM Business Activity Report February 10–20 October 1990, page 9.

11. Statement of the GCC before Congress on 6/19/1991 and 7/30/1991.

12. NAM Business Activity Report 11 February 1991–19 October 1991, page 9.

13. UN 1991. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework

Convention on Climate Change: List of Participants, 12 February 1991.

14. GCC joints industry groups urging INC (International Negotiating

Committee) to look for ﬂexibility and cost eﬀective technology solutions to

global climate change issue. PR Newswire, 2/25/1992.

15. Need for more science and data when assessing eﬀects of climate change, says

former Washington governor. PR Newswire, 2/19/1991.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 19

16. Testimony of Michael Barody to the House Energy and Commerce

Committee, 3/3/1992, testimony of Richard Briggs to the House Energy

and Commerce Committee on 3/19/1992, and the testimony of Michael

Barody to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on 5/12/

1992.

17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep5ptrPN6ns.

18. Testimony of Michael Barody to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on

9/18/1992.

19. NAM 1992. Business Activity Report, January 31–24 October 1992, page 15.

20. Climate Change Debate Needs to be Shifted by Industry, Coal News, 12/14/

1992, page 3.

21. Testimony of Michael Baroody before the House Committee on Foreign

Aﬀairs, 3/1/1993, Written statement of the GCC submitted to the House

Committee on Energy and Commerce, 3/10/1993, Testimony of Jerry

Jasinowski before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, 11/16/

1993, and Written statement of the GCC submitted to the House

Committee on Science, Space and Technology, 11/16/1993.

22. National Association of Manufacturers Business Activity Report,

10 October 1993–5 February 1994.

23. Debate on global warming, Oil & Gas Journal, 8/22/1994.

24. Testimony of Jerry Jasinowski to the House Committee on Energy and Natural

Resources, 5/10/1994.

25. Accu Weather report available in Climate Files.

26. United Nations Conference of the Parties, First Session Berlin, Organizational

Matters: Admission of Organizations as Observers.

27. IPCC Second Assessment Report, Climate Change 1995 Summary for

Policymakers, Page 5, paragraph 2.4.

28. Bernstein, L. 1995 Predicting Future Climate Change: A Primer, draft report,

GCC.

29. Interview Four with former IPCC Oﬃcial.

30. In shift, U.S. will seek binding world pact to combat global warming.

New York Times, 7/17/1996, A6.

31. Testimony of William O’Keefe before the Senate Committee on Environment

and Public Works, 7/17/1997, 1997.

32. ‘GCC Astroturﬁng: Kochs, ExxonMobil, and Others Support Kyoto

Opposition.’ Climate Files.

33. Marathon Talks Produce Climate Treaty, Platts Oilgram News, 12/11/1997,

Vol. 75, No. 240, page 1.

34. Senate set to scuttle global climate treaty, Journal of Commerce, 12/11/1997.

35. Big Biz slates PR blitz to kill global warming treaty, O’Dwyer’s PR Services

Report, February 1998.

36. Interview Three with former GCC oﬃcial, page 6.

37. Studies Find Costs of Kyoto Compliance High, The Electricity Daily, 6/15/

1998.

38. Clinton Climate Plan Would Kill Coal, The Electricity Daily, 8/4/1998.

39. Testimony of Mary Novak before the Senate Committee on Agriculture,

Nutrition and Forestry, 10/4/1998.

20 R. J. BRULLE

40. Testimony of Constance Holmes to the House Committee on Science, 2/4/

1998 and the Testimony of Glen Kelly to the House Committee on Commerce,

Science, and Transportation, 9/21/2000.

41. Written statement of the GCC submitted to the Senate Committee on

Environment and Public Works on 7/26/2001.

42. Interview Two with GCC oﬃcial.

43. Memorandum from Ken Brill to Under Secretary of State Dobriansky, 6/20/

2001.

44. Leading US Anti-Kyoto Association Disbands. Platts Oilgram News, 1/29/

2002.

45. Proposal available in Climate Files.

46. This included studies by Charles River Associates, WEFA Group, NERA

Economics Consulting, EOP Group, DRI, and H. Zinder and Associates.

47. E.B Harrison Inc. Promotional Material, no date.

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This work was supported by the Climate Social Science Network.

ORCID

Robert J. Brulle http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3852-3379

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