Summary
This document was included in an academic study published by Robert Brulle in the journal Environmental Politics in April 2022, which we detail on this page.
The document, which appears to have been written in 1994 or 1995, is a summary of the campaign E. Bruce Harrison and his PR company ran the Global Climate Coalition. This document is stunning as it lays out the internal objectives of the GCC, the strategies and techniques deployed and the results they felt they had achieved. It confirms many things we knew and opens dozens of new questions about the extent of the GCC’s influence peddling campaign. The full text is below the link to the scanned document.
Source Document
Full text of the document:
Case Histories
Media Relations
The Global Climate Coalition
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was created to coordinate business participation in the domestic and international debates concerning global warming science and policy. With international policymakers, special interest groups and the media pushing for strict controls on emissions of greenhouse gases linked to alleged global warming, businesses faced the real possibility of increased energy taxes – or other draconian actions that would burden industry, the U.S. economy and, ultimately, the consumer.
Harrison designed and implemented a media relations effort to communicate two key messages: First, that scientific evidence for global warming is not strong enough to warrant drastic actions; and second, that regardless of science, actions must be evaluated in terms of potential economic costs.
Harrison delivered these messages through an aggressive campaign which included responding quickly to press coverage and any key policy decisions or announcements, media tours for GCC officials and third-party experts, editorial board visits, op-eds by scientists and economists, briefings for key environmental reporters, press releases, a monthly newsletter, and exposure at key media conferences such as the Radio and Television News Directors Association conference.
Results:
GCC has successfully turned the tide on press coverage of global climate chance science, effectively countering the eco-catastrophe message and asserting the lack of scientific consensus on global warming.
GCC actively influenced the debate over carbon taxes during the budget deliberation in Congress, emphasizing potential economic damages. Strict energy taxes were left out of the final agreement.
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 emission in its Climate Change Action Plan.
GCC has responded to every major domestic and international policy announcement and new scientific finding regarding climate change, often generating press coverage or getting GCC’s viewpoint included in national news stories.