Scientists working with one of the world's largest climate research publishers are increasingly alarmed that the company consults with the fossil fuel industry to help increase oil and gas drilling, the Guardian can reveal.
One of the top publishers of books aimed at expanding fossil fuel production is a Dutch company called Elsevier.
The company has supported the energy industry for a decade. Current employees of top oil firms are eligible to be commission authors, editors, and journal advisory board members. The oil and gas industry can benefit from some of the research portals and data services offered by Elsevier.
Several former and current employees say that for the past year, dozens of workers have spoken out internally and at company-wide town halls to urge Elsevier to reconsider its relationship with the fossil fuel industry.
I heard a lot about the company's climate commitments when I was a journal editor.
One of the reasons that the fossil fuel industry's critics are alarmed is that it is one of the few companies that publishes peer-reviewed climate research. Scientists and academics are concerned that the business interests of Elsevier could undermine their work.
Julia Steinberger, a social ecologist and ecological economist who has published studies in several Elsevier journals, was shocked to hear that the company took an active role in expanding fossil fuel extraction.
She said that Elsevier is the publisher of some of the most important journals in the environmental space.
The business model seems to be to profit from publishing climate and energy science, while ignoring the most basic fact of climate action: the urgent need to move away from fossil fuels.
As the fossil fuel industry transitions to clean energy, RELX and its subsidiaries are committed to supporting it. A spokesman for the company said they are not prepared to draw a line between the transition away from fossil fuels and the expansion of oil and gas extraction. She was concerned about publishers boycotting oil and gas firms.
We have to do more, but that shouldn't stop us from doing amazing work over the past 15 years.
Only seven of the more than 2,000 scholarly journals that Elsevier publishes are specific to fossil fuel extraction. The editor-in-chief of Upstream Oil and Gas Technology works for Shell, while the editor of Unconventional Resources is a researcher for Chevron. Gulf Publishing has titles such as The Shale Oil and Gas Handbook and Strategies for Optimizing Petroleum Exploration.
Corporate clients can also receive consulting services from Elsevier. It has been selling a tool to fossil fuel companies for the past 12 years. It's easier to find and access oil and gas reserves, as well as locations for wind farms and carbon storage facilities, with the help of thousands of maps and studies.
The tool cuts research time by 50% and helps identify riskier, more remote areas.
Top climate scientists, including those published in Elsevier's own journals, say that the opposite must happen in order to avert a climate catastrophe. A worldwide decrease in fossil fuel production is required to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less.
We will not comment on the practices of individual companies, but any actions that support the expansion of fossil fuel development are not consistent with the United Nations sustainable development goals.
About a third of RELX's revenues are brought in by Elsevier, which is an astoundingly profitable company. Fossil fuel content is less than 1 percent of the publishing revenue and less than half of the revenue from Geofacets.
We don't think you can just flip a switch, but we do support and enable an energy transition through publications centered on clean energy.
Climate researchers and fossil fuel executives are not the only ones navigating relationships with Elsevier. Multiple other publishers of peer-reviewed climate research have signed on to the UN's sustainable development goals publishers compact while also partnering with the oil and gas industry.
The UK-based publisher Taylor & Francis signed the UN pledge and released its own net-zero commitments while also promoting its partnership with ExxonMobil, the oil company most linked to obstructionism on climate. Another top climate publisher, Wiley, is also signed onto the sustainable compact and publishing multiple books and journals to help the industry find and drill for more oil and gas.
It's problematic and the publishers of peer-reviewed climate research have a unique style.
If the same publisher puts out the papers that show we can burn more fossil fuels and stay within the carbon budget, what does that do to the whole premise of validity around the climate? She said that that is what is concerning about the conflicts.
The relationship between the publisher and oil firms is indicative of how entwined the industry is with other aspects of society, according to Ben Franta, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
He said that it operates to entrench the industry and that it will need to be exposed and reformed to effect a rapid replacement of fossil fuels.
The role of editorial independence is emphasized by the company. Researchers are often in a difficult position because of conflicts.
The assistant director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter was surprised that the company would be working against climate researchers.
It's hard to believe that a company that publishes research about the dangers of the climate and ecological crises is the same company that works with oil and gas companies to extract more fossil fuels.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
