Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon – some of the largest technology firms in the world – have all vowed to confront the climate crisis and have each set goals to slash planet-heating emissions. But they have also hired US lobbyists that work with the fossil fuel companies that are worsening global heating.
Apple has contracted lobbyists who also work for the Koch Industries network, well known for its work to undermine confidence in climate science and stymie action to cut emissions, as well as the coal mining company Peabody, among other fossil fuel companies, according to F Minus, a new database of state-level lobbying disclosures.
Microsoft has hired a lobbyist who also pushes the interests of ExxonMobil to lawmakers, while Google shares lobbyists with at least seven fossil fuel companies, including Kinder Morgan, the Colonial Pipeline Company and the American Petroleum Institute. Meanwhile, Amazon, which has come under severe pressure from some employees to do more on climate, has fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists in 27 different US states.
“Big tech goes to great lengths to be seen as green, but its lobbying strategy tells another story,” said James Browning, executive director of F Minus. “Big tech is empowering and enabling the fossil fuel industry by retaining its lobbyists in dozens of states. Retaining mainstream tech companies helps these fossil fuel lobbyists cloak their radical agenda in respectability.”
Browning said the lobbyists used by big tech have had tangible impacts in frustrating attempts to tackle the climate emergency, citing efforts by Amazon’s lobbying firm to push for a 2021 bill in Ohio to prevent local governments from shifting away from fossil fuels. Microsoft’s lobbying firm, meanwhile, worked against another 2021 bill, this time in Colorado, aimed at helping communities most affected by the climate crisis, Browning said.
All of the big tech companies were contacted for comment on the apparent conflict with their stated climate goals, with only Microsoft issuing a statement in response. “There is no ambiguity or doubt about Microsoft’s commitment to the aggressive steps needed to address the world’s carbon crisis,” a spokesman for the Seattle-based software company said.
The use of lobbyists who also work to further the aims of fossil fuel companies is jarring given the climate pledges made by the leading technology companies. Apple has boasted of its progress in cutting emissions and vowed that its entire supply chain will be be carbon neutral by 2030, while Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has called climate change the “biggest threat to our planet” while rolling out a fleet of electric delivery vehicles and promising to get the online retailer to net zero emissions by 2040.
Microsoft and Google have also set lofty climate goals, and all of the companies have made forays into the renewable energy arena and said they support concerted global action to curb dangerous global heating.
These stated ideals haven’t always played out in practice, however. A report released last year found that many of the largest tech companies are relying heavily on the offsetting of emissions, through tree planting or other methods that have been questioned as viable reduction strategies, rather than actual cuts to pollution.
Big tech has also been previously accused of siding with different interest groups that have opposed ambitious climate action, such as a previous, ultimately aborted, attempt by the Biden administration to pass major climate legislation in 2021.
The F Minus database highlights an alarming link between lobbyists who are acting on both sides of the climate crisis, according to critics who have called for companies to align behind their espoused values.
“We must end the revolving door of lobbyists moving from fossil fuel corporations to groups working on climate issues,” said Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman whose district spans a slice of California’s Silicon Valley, including Apple’s headquarters.
“Even here in California, a state at the forefront of climate innovation, we are battling the influence of fossil fuel interests. Reforms that reduce the power of special interests are needed if we want change.”
