How BP shaped the Wedges climate paper: Oil giant's role in landmark carbon capture research

A ProPublica and Drilled investigation reveals how BP executives helped shape the influential 'Wedges' climate paper from Princeton researchers. The 2004 paper made solving climate change seem straightforward by promoting carbon capture and storage alongside continued fossil fuel use. BP donated $15 million to Princeton's Carbon Mitigation Initiative, reviewed drafts, and suggested language that became part of the paper's title. The paper oversold carbon capture as already deployed at industrial scale, a claim that stretched the facts. Today, carbon capture still faces major financial and technical hurdles. Critics say the Wedges framework made climate solutions look too easy and helped keep fossil fuels dominant for another two decades, crowding out investment in renewable alternatives that could have replaced carbon-heavy energy entirely.