Timeline - Sue Duke Energy

Duke Energy’s top executives have known for decades that burning fossil fuel produces climate-warming emissions and fuels the climate crisis.

Since the 1970s, Duke Energy has colluded with and funded trade associations, public relation firms, and other pro-fossil fuel organizations to conceal the dangers of fossil fuel emissions from the public and decision-makers and to undermine climate action. This was – and continues to be – Duke Energy’s strategy to distract and deceive the public about the harms of their fossil fuels agenda.

Forms of Deception

Downplaying the seriousness of fossil fuel emissions
Coordinating industry-wide public relations campaigns to sow climate doubt
Proposing false solutions to drag out use of fossil fuels, including promoting the “clean coal” pipe dream
Using industry-funded “scientists” and “Science Advisory Panels” to add false credibility to Duke Energy’s opposition to scientific consensus on fossil fuel dangers

Timeline

1968

Scientists warn the electric utility industry about the harmful effects that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels could have on the climate. Duke Energy’s then-CEO, W.B. McGuire was in attendance.
At the same time Shearon Harris, CEO of Carolina Power & Light (one of Duke Energy’s predecessors), joined the Board of Directors of the Edison Electric Institute – a major utility industry trade association that played an outsized role in a decades-long climate deception campaign. He became EEI Chairman in 1971.

1970s

The utility industry — with Duke Energy as a ringleader — contribute to research on the harms posed by fossil fuel emissions.
CP&L CEO Harris helped launch the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) – an industry-wide research body – and later served as its Director. In 1977, EPRI published a journal in which one of its Advisory Councilmembers stated that “the greatest potential risk to the environment from greater coal use is that the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere may increase to the point of causing global climatic changes.”

1980s

Duke Energy and other electric utilities are made aware of even more evidence linking increased fossil fuel use, namely coal, and climate change.
In 1981 Duke Power President & CEO William S. Lee worked on a Department of Energy Research Advisory Board report describing climate change as a “show-stopper” for fossil fuels.
Yet soon after Duke Energy joins partners, including EEI, in kicking off a decades-long climate deception campaign. EEI published a bulletin spewing misinformation about the seriousness of fossil fuel emissions and climate change in criticism of efforts that would reduce carbon emissions, and then-President, William McCollam, Jr., claimed “Any plan calling for urgent and extreme action to reduce CO2 emissions is premature at best.”

1990s

Duke Energy boosts newly-formed anti-climate organizations and their efforts to spew misinformation, even so far as relying on fringe “scientists” to parrot industry-friendly, pro-fossil fuel talking points.
Duke Energy was a leading participant in – and financially supported – the Global Climate Coalition’s (GCC) public relations and efforts to undermine climate science and decarbonization. Duke Energy also funded The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) who spewed false statements concerning climate science and went so far as to cover-up public evidence that debunked fringe climate skepticism.
EEI sponsored a test marketing campaign designed to “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)” targeting Kentucky through the Information Council for the Environment (ICE). ICE’s objectives were to convince the public that global warming was not a serious threat and to create a unified “electric industry voice on global warming” with the help of industry-funded fringe scientists.

2000s

Duke Energy continued working with — and funding — anti-climate organizations to alter public opinion on the links between rising emissions and climate change, and began touting impractical solutions like carbon capture and storage and the idea of “clean” coal to prop up its fossil fuel business.
CFACT published a sample Letter to the Editor for public consumption which stated that “environmentalists tell us that our burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil are responsible for so-called ‘global warming’” … “But it’s their facts, not the atmosphere, that’s full of hot air!”
Duke Energy CEO James E. Rogers, Jr. stated that “the construction of new [coal] plants should occur in a manner that will allow them to capture and store CO2.” On a separate occasion, CEO Rogers claimed that CCS is a “magical technology” that is oversold.
Duke Energy joins the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) – a lobbying and advertising group formed to stop coal regulations. In 2008, ACCCE launched a widespread effort to sell the public on the false promise of “clean coal” and that CCS could tackle all emissions-related problems.