Previously unpublished documents reveal that ExxonMobil funded a coordinated campaign across Latin America aimed at spreading climate change denial and undermining global support for a United Nations-led climate treaty. The campaign was executed in partnership with the Atlas Network, a US-based coalition of over 500 free-market thinktanks and organizations, according to The Guardian.

The documents, including internal correspondence and financial records such as copies of checks sent by Exxon, detail how the Texas-based fossil fuel giant financed the translation and distribution of climate denial literature and the organization of public events featuring known climate sceptics.

Exxon’s funding enabled Atlas Network to translate English-language climate denial material into Spanish and Chinese, and to fly US-based climate change deniers to events across Latin America. These events, held in cities like Buenos Aires, allowed speakers to reach local media, network with policymakers, and cast doubt on climate science.

One such translated booklet, The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty by Fred Singer, claimed there was "no significant scientific support" for the notion of global warming as a threat. Atlas Network partners in the region, including Fundación República para una Nueva Generación in Argentina and Instituto Liberal in Brazil, hosted seminars ahead of the COP4 climate summit in Buenos Aires.

Strategy aimed to undermine UN climate agreements

According to a strategic memo sent to Exxon’s headquarters in Irving, Texas, Atlas emphasized that its work would make the Global South "less inclined" to support climate treaties. "This investment in market-oriented public policies is a vital key to our future prosperity and wellbeing, and to continued strong returns to Exxon’s investors," the proposal read.

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A 1998 letter from Atlas to Exxon praised the company’s “generous financial assistance” and emphasized that the success of its regional activities “would not have been possible” without Exxon’s support. Atlas also reassured Exxon executives that the approach was intentionally “behind-the-scenes,” and that the company would not be publicly credited.

Despite this, the campaign reportedly had a wide reach, connecting local organizations in Latin America with major US right-wing institutions such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. Atlas also facilitated partnerships with the India-based Liberty Institute and translated climate denial content into Chinese.

Carlos Milani, a professor at the Institute of Social and Political Studies of Rio de Janeiro State University, stressed the long-term consequences of such actions. “The atmosphere has a huge historical memory when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions,” he said, as cited by The Guardian. “What happened 30 years ago matters very much.”

Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity, described the revelations as part of "a pretty ugly history," noting that Exxon’s strategy was to sow doubt globally so that climate agreements would stall. “If you could make developing nations skeptical that climate change was a crisis, then you’d never have a global climate treaty,” he said.

Exxon’s hidden hand behind global climate obstruction

Exxon, which has not responded to the new findings, faces ongoing lawsuits alleging it misled the public about the severity of the climate crisis. The company was reportedly satisfied with its support for domestic US organizations by the mid-1990s and began pushing Atlas Network to expand its reach internationally, particularly into Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the former Soviet Union.

In 1998, Exxon sent Atlas a $50,000 donation, equivalent to nearly $100,000 today, to support the growth of “international groups which have the ability to influence government policies.”

As Brazil prepares to host COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belém in November, the consequences of decades of climate inaction are becoming increasingly visible. In October, scientists warned that the Earth had likely passed the threshold for irreversible coral reef collapse due to high emissions. The Amazon rainforest, too, faces the risk of irreversible ecological collapse within 10 to 20 years without drastic global intervention.

It is worth mentioning that decades before these newly revealed documents, ExxonMobil’s internal scientists had already acknowledged the risks of fossil fuel emissions on global warming as early as the 1970s and 1980s. Despite this, the company chose to publicly downplay or deny the science in the following decades, opting instead to finance misinformation campaigns aimed at protecting its financial interests.

A growing number of lawsuits in the United States, including those brought by state attorneys general, now accuse Exxon of deliberately misleading the public and investors about the risks of climate change, a strategy similar to tactics once employed by the tobacco industry.