Donald Pearlman

Donald H. Pearlman (December 8, 1935 – August 13, 2005) was an American lawyer and oil industry lobbyist. He is primarily known for his opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change and his efforts to stall or prevent the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. His lobbying efforts were dramatized in the 2024 play Kyoto.

Biography Donald H. Pearlman was born in Portland, Oregon, on December 8, 1935. He attended Grant High School in Portland, and in 1957 he graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in economics. In 1960 he received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School and joined the Oregon State Bar. He worked as a clerk for Chief Judge John R. Ross in Nevada from 1960 to 1962, before becoming a senior partner at Portland-based law firm Keane, Harper, Pearlman & Copeland, where he worked from 1962 until 1982.

He was active in the Republican Party during college and worked on the unsuccessful congressional campaign of former partner Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain in 1976. In 1982, Pearlman moved to Washington, D.C. to become an executive assistant to the secretary of energy (1982–85) and the secretary of the interior (1985–89) while these posts were held by Donald P. Hodel, who was his classmate in high school and his roommate at college. In 1988, he received an Honor Award for Outstanding Service from the Department of the Interior. After the presidency of Ronald Reagan was over, Pearlman began working for the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Patton Boggs in 1990, where he established himself as an expert in matters concerning global climate change. He was described by Greenpeace director Jeremy Leggett as being extremely successful at blockading progress. After Pearlman was dubbed a "high priest of the carbon club" in Der Spiegel, young Greenpeace volunteers began following him from meeting to meeting dressed as monks.

Climate scientist Joseph Alcamo said that while climate researchers only wrote down undisputed statements in their report prior to COP1, Pearlman's team questioned every line and engaged in "endless hair-splitting". Due to Pearlman's influence, Alcamo consequently said that the final report no longer reflected the majority scientific opinion. Pearlman insisted that there was no scientific consensus and that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was divided on the issue.

In November 1995, at a plenary meeting in Madrid ahead of the IPCC Second Assessment Report, delegates agreed to the conclusion that there is a "discernable human impact on the global climate". After this point, Pearlman's strategy changed in favor of attacking both the science and the scientists themselves. Climate scientist Ben Santer later recalled that Pearlman had confronted him in Washington, D.C. on May 21, 1996, where Pearlman "screamed" at him for what he claimed were unauthorized changes to the chapter of the report that Santer had been responsible for. In reality, the IPCC had authorized these changes, and Santer said that Pearlman was well aware of this because he was present in Madrid when these changes were discussed. Pearlman also worked with John Shlaes, the executive director of the lobbyist group known as the Global Climate Coalition, and the two submitted a letter co-signed by 6 industrialists which claimed that a mistake in a press release proved that some scientists were "trying to use the IPCC to persuade policymakers and the public of their personal views concerning climate change science and policy issues". Pearlman and Shlaes also attacked the IPCC for what they claimed was ill-defined terminology and for supposed violations of procedural rules.

Pearlman recognised from the beginning that the Kuwaiti and Saudi delegations would more reliably take the side of the oil industry than would the United States, and these countries served as proxies for the fossil fuel industry to exert its influence over climate negotiations. Founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, Kert Davies, said "He was using the Saudis as the doer on the floor of the plenary" because "They were kind of willing puppets for a guy who knew how to screw things up at the COPs".

In a 2001 memo by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs of the U.S. State Department, Pearlman's Climate Council was described as "one of the most ardent opponents of the Protocol, and on behalf of its coal and other industry members, has actively worked against most U.S. government efforts to address climate change." The memo also said that the Climate Council "prefers to keep a low profile", and that it "is dedicated to informing policy on domestic and international climate change". The 1995 article in Der Spiegel said that Pearlman perceived himself as a defender of the American way of life, and that since America's wealth was built on the oil industry, it was ultimately against the interests of the United States to set limits on fossil fuel usage.