http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1501646,00.html
Revealed: how oil giant influenced Bush
White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance
John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday June 8, 2005
The Guardian
President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to
the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from
ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other
industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the
Guardian.
The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for
discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce
widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the
administration and its role in helping to formulate US policy.
Article continues
In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of
state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is
found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement"
in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its
advice on what climate change policies the company might find
acceptable.
Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon
executives and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential
alternatives to Kyoto.
Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in
the US government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by
Greenpeace under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is
not the case.
"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on
input from you [the Global Climate Coalition]," says one briefing note
before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US
industry group, which was dominated by Exxon.
The papers further state that the White House considered Exxon "among
the companies most actively and prominently opposed to binding
approaches [like Kyoto] to cut greenhouse gas emissions".
But in evidence to the UK House of Lords science and technology
committee in 2003, Exxon's head of public affairs, Nick Thomas, said:
"I think we can say categorically we have not campaigned with the
United States government or any other government to take any sort of
position over Kyoto."
Exxon, officially the US's most valuable company valued at $379bn
(=A3206bn) earlier this year, is seen in the papers to share the White
House's unwavering scepticism of international efforts to address
climate change.
The documents, which reflect unanimity between the company and the US
administration on the need for more global warming science and the
unacceptable costs of Kyoto, state that Exxon believes that joining
Kyoto "would be unjustifiably drastic and premature".
This line has been taken consistently by President Bush, and was
expected to be continued in yesterday's talks with Tony Blair who has
said that climate change is "the most pressing issue facing mankind".
"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but
these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White
House is being written by the world's most powerful oil company. This
administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen
Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night.
"The prime minister needs to tell Mr Bush he's calling in some favours.
Only by securing mandatory cuts in US emissions can Blair live up to
his rhetoric," said Mr Tindale.
In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don
Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid
adviser to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have
followed the US line against Kyoto.
The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the
secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says
"works against most US government efforts to address climate change",
is said to be to "solicit [his] views as part of our dialogue with
friends and allies".
ExxonMobil, which was yesterday contacted by the Guardian in the US but
did not return calls, is spending millions of pounds on an advertising
campaign aimed at influencing politicians, opinion formers and business
leaders in the UK and other pro-Kyoto countries in the weeks before the
G8 meeting at Gleneagles.
.
|
