Atlas Network

How Exxon And Atlas Network Worked To Block Global Climate Action

December 9, 2024 Anne-Sophie Simpère, DeSmog. Educate! Atlas Network, climate crisis, ExxonMobil, History, Oil and Gas Industry, Science Denial

In March 1999, Alejandro Chafuen, then president of an international free-market coalition called Atlas Network, wrote to an executive at ExxonMobil (XOM) to offer the American oil major a friendly note of appreciation. “On behalf of Atlas and the institutes it supports, we would like to thank you again for the Exxon Corporation’s generous contributions,” Chafuen stated, “and for the confidence you and Exxon have placed in us.” Included in the letter to William E. Hale of ExxonMobil’s public affairs department was a five-page summary of the global reach and diversity of the activities the corporation funded in 1998, “in whole or in part,” through donations to Atlas Network’s “Energy and Environment: Market-based Solutions”.

A Secretive Network Is Fighting Indigenous Rights

October 11, 2023 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. Educate! Atlas Network, Australia, Canada, Indigenous Rights

A campaign to deny Indigenous peoples a voice in Australia’s national Parliament is using tactics similar to an earlier conservative legal battle against First Nations communities in Canada, a new research paper argues. That’s no coincidence, according to the paper’s author Jeremy Walker, because think tanks linked to these efforts in Canada and Australia belong to a secretive U.S. organization called the Atlas Network that’s received support from oil, gas and coal companies and operates in nearly 100 countries. “The coordinated opposition to Indigenous constitutional recognition by the Australian arm of the Atlas Network we can assume is motivated by the same intentions underlying the permanent Atlas campaign against climate policy [globally],” writes Walker.

Meet The Shadowy Network Vilifying Climate Protestors

September 15, 2023 Amy Westervelt and Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. Educate! Atlas Network, Climate Justice, Germany, State Repression

Earlier this year, news footage began making the rounds on social media of young activists from the German climate organization Letzte Generation (Last Generation) being assaulted by their fellow citizens as they obstructed streets in an effort to draw attention to the German government’s inaction on climate. A young woman, with her hand glued to a road was ripped off the road by her hair; a young man was run over by a truck driver; a passerby punched the protestors and was cheered on. A few months later, German police raided the homes of Last Generation activists and seized their bank accounts. It all seemed like a gross overreaction to a pretty tame form of protest.

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