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In
Brighton and Hove last month, Greenpeace activists were
busy jumping up and down in protest against the US oil
giant, Esso. But does anyone really expect oil companies
to be green? Will Cottrell reports.
 Latest
statistics show that over 95% of European families own
a car and ownership is set to sharply increase over the
next decade. In April more than 200,000 people in the
UK bought new cars. Unleaded petrol and cleaner engines
have helped reduce pollution but a doddering transport
infrastructure and increased car-reliance mean reducing
pollution levels is an ever more distant prospect.
Yet,
on a breezy Saturday afternoon last month, Greenpeace,
Friends of the Earth, People and Planet and other assorted
green groups took to the streets of Brighton and Hove
as part of a national protest which they claim was the
biggest against global warming to date. The target was
the American oil giant, ExxonMobil, who, greens claim,
is the backroom power blocking agreement on the Kyoto
climate-change treaty.
Which
is all very well, but may leave the average motorist feeling
a little confused. Everyone knows petrol companies, like
cigarette manufacturers, are just as bad as each other.
Aren't they?
Jolly
Green Giants
Certainly,
the world's largest company - ExxonMobil, parent company
of Esso - does little to dispel this idea. In the last
year even Esso's shareholders have taken to criticizing
the company's radical stance on climate change. Publicly
it maintains a concerned face, yet a campaign of what
Greenpeace calls 'dirty tricks' starkly undermines this
position.
In
September 2002, in a spat with the International Panel
for Climate Change (IPCC), Esso tried to remove a resolution
that acknowledged global warming is a product of 'human
activities'. The amendment was rejected.
In
response, last month Esso sent a memo to the White House
demanding the removal of the British chairman of the panel,
Robert Watson, suggesting that they replace scientists
with 'aggressive agendas'.
Esso's
intimate connections with the White House more or less
guarantee that Watson will lose his job: having intensely
lobbied Bush to ditch the Kyoto treaty, Esso took out
advertisements describing it as 'fundamentally flawed'.
Two months later Bush described the treaty as "fatally
flawed in fundamental ways".
Esso
also refuses to invest in renewable energy claiming that
its own experiments prove that it doesn't work.
Standing
on the other side of the green divide is the UK's BP,
perhaps the greenest oil company around, which has, famously,
decided it is now 'beyond petroleum'.
Along
with its fancy new logo the British behemoth has rapidly
become the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the
world and runs a pilot tree planting project in south-west
Australia, planting 500,000 trees a year. In January last
year BP was the first company in the world to introduce
an emissions trading system, in line with the Kyoto protocol.
Together
with Shell, BP has committed itself to cutting their own
emissions of greenhouse gases by ten per cent from 1990
levels and both companies invest in emissions-reduction
projects in 'developing' countries. Shell estimates that
its 135,000 hectares of plantations recycle 1.2m tonnes
of carbon a year (Shell's emissions are estimated at about
180m tonnes per year).
Yet
BP itself has admitted its re-branding exercise of two
years ago was 'a mistake', increasing suspicions as to
whether oil companies can really re-invent themselves
as a jolly green (petrol) giants. Indeed, the company
has been accused of human rights abuses after a BP-trained
army unit viciously attacked trade union and environmental
activists in Columbia.
Global
technofixes
As
a result of the difficulties inherent in turning an oil
company 'green', the oil industry recently became the
proud parents of a brand new idea on global warming -
swiftly dubbed the 'technofix'.
The
idea involves disposing or storing CO2 so that emissions
don't get into the atmosphere, allowing the oil industry
- if the idea works - to carry on with business as usual.
There are two types of storage site: disused oil or gas
fields, or underground water sources; CO2 is captured
from where it is produced then either buried or dissolved.
The
Norwegian oil company Statoil has been injecting about
1m tonnes of CO2 per year since 1996 into the Sleipner
West gas field in the North Sea, and ExxonMobil is considering
a massive re-injection of up to 100m tonnes of CO2 per
year from the Natuna gas field in the South China Sea.
'Technofixing'
is expected to be a key plank for future action on climate
change. In June, the technology was endorsed by someone
not reknowned for his green credentials - George W Bush.
Bush's Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, is equally enthusiastic.
"Carbon sequestration is an important option to study,
because it offers a way to address the global warming
issue without having to make radical overhauls of our
existing energy systems," he said.
Concern
remains, about whether oil companies - or even twenty-first
century science - can deal with the complexities of managing
a global eco-system. Ben Matthews, a climate scientist
formerly at the university of East Anglia, comments: "The
global climate is a highly non-linear system determined
by complex feedback processes, and we still have a poor
understanding of how it works. Most new experiments do
not work the first time as expected. But if we tinker
with the whole world, we only get one chance."
There's
one thing that everyone agrees on, however: this is an
issue that's not going away.
More
info:
www.stopesso.com
www.theecologist.com
What makes you protest?
Mark
Rowley, Student
"This sort of thing gives people a sense something's
happening. That's the most important thing. There's so
much we can do about global warming - we're the people
that are causing it. It's great because you get to talk
to the people about climate change, and try to talk to
them into buying a bike."
Eddie
Richardson
Civil servant
"I'm very concerned about Esso's attitude towards
climate change and the influence that they're having on
the most powerful nation on the planet. They try and tell
you that they have no influence over the most powerful
nation on earth, but they obviously do. Social justice
and that kind of thing really bothers me. I just don't
like to see people being bullied."
Richard
Mallender
Telecoms Project Manager
"For me getting home watching the TV has never been
enough. Things can get better and things can improve -
but only if you get up and do it yourself. And you get
together with other people and help out - you can't do
everything on your own. So I do it because it helps things
move along a bit, if everyone does a bit then things do
change and things get better."
Allan
Pegg
Financial advisor
"I care about my children's future. I think unfortunately
in this country we're a bit laissez-faire about things
that matter. We've seen recently in France that people
were concerned about people like Le Pen coming to power
so they got on the streets. People need to care about
what matters."
Mandy
Kasafir
Copywriter
"Gandhi said that you must be the change you want
to see in the world and I believe everybody can take responsibility
for a bit of change. A lot of people think that one person
can't make a difference but I've seen very special people
throughout the world like Nelson Mandela and mother Teresa
do some amazing things."
Veronica
Kelner
Database Administrator
"I don't have a car and I really don't like the idea
of non-renewable resources. I would like to encourage
people to use public transport and not use a car. In a
place like Brighton a lot of people can directly benefit
from not having a car - if you try to find a parking place
it's incredibly difficult so on a very local scale it's
hugely important people feel empowered to look for alternatives."
Simon
Williams
Communications officer, Green party
"It's very easy to leave action like this to other
people, but if everyone did that nothing would change.
I have become very politically aware partly through being
an activist in the Green party and have moved from passively
accepting news to doing something about it. Even if I
just do a little bit I'm still doing something, and that
makes me very satisfied."
copyright New Insight 2002
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