Supply Chain Linkages and the Extended Carbon Coalition

Abstract

Which firms oppose action to fight climate change? Networks of input sourcing and sales to downstream customers ought to propagate and reinforce opposition to decarbonization beyond direct emitters of CO2. To test this claim, we build the largest data set of public political activity for and against climate action in the United States, revealing that the majority of corporate opposition to climate action comes from outside the highest-emitting industries. We construct new measures of the carbon intensity of firms and show that policy exposure via carbon-intensive inputs and sales to downstream emitters explains this large volume of opposition from non-emitting industries. Sixty-six percent of U.S. lobbying on climate policy has been conducted by an extended coalition of firms, associations, and other groups that have publicly opposed reducing carbon emissions. Public opposition to climate action by carbon-connected industries is therefore broad-based, highly organized, and matched with extensive lobbying.