‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us all

In a powerful new three-part docuseries, the oil industry is put on trial as the extent of climate change awareness is revealed

There is a moment in the revelatory PBS Frontline docuseries The Power of Big Oil, about the industry's long campaign to stall action on the climate crisis, in which the former Republican senator Chuck Hagel reflects on his part in killing US ratification of the Kyoto climate treaty.

In 1997, Hagel joined with the Democratic senator Robert Byrd to promote a resolution opposing the international agreement to limit greenhouse gases, on the grounds that it was unfair to Americans. The measure passed the US Senate without a single dissenting vote, after a vigorous campaign by big oil to mischaracterise the Kyoto protocol as a threat to jobs and the economy while falsely claiming that China and India could go on polluting to their heart's content.