"IT'S THE CLIMATE, STUPID!"
Oil Companies' Role in Price
Protests Under Attack
Oil company collusion with petrol
protestors is part of a continuing
campaign to undermine world action on
dangerous climate change, Friends of
the Earth charged today.
In November, world governments meet
in the Hague to try to rescue the 1997
Kyoto agreement to cut emissions of
climate changing gases including carbon
dioxide. Tony Blair and John Prescott
played a leading role in getting
agreement in Kyoto, and hope to play a
similar role at the Hague. This will be
difficult or impossible if the UK and
other European Governments have already
buckled in the face of petrol price
protests.
The oil company with most petrol
stations in Britain is Esso (Exxon).
Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest oil
company, has an appalling record on
climate change. It:
• denies that burning fossil fuels
is a major factor in climate change
despite all evidence to the contrary; •
claims that climate change is
exaggerated, not real, or too costly to
deal with; • has funded the Global
Climate Coalition (GCC), an
industry-funded lobby group dedicated
to stalling action to cut the emissions
that cause climate change.
In 1997, Exxon and others led a $13
million dollar advertising campaign in
the US with the strapline "It's not
global and it won't work". The ads
claimed that US consumers would face
rises in petrol prices because of
Kyoto. In April 1998, the New York
Times revealed plans for a $6 million
dollar campaign by the American
Petroleum Institute to attack the
scientists who establishing the extent
of man-made climate change. Funders
included Exxon and Chevron.
Commenting, FOE Director Charles
Secrett said:
"For days the media has been
wondering why the oil companies have
been colluding with the petrol
protestors. The answer is, it's the
climate! On the one hand, we are told
the protests are entirely peaceful and
police action would be inappropriate.
On the other hand, we are told that the
oil giants are so worried about the
safety of their staff that tankers
cannot move.
The truth is that these protests
suit the oil companies down to the
ground. Not because they care if prices
are cut - their profits are sky high
after recent rises. The high politics
of this dispute is all about climate
change. Two months before the vital
Hague talks, protests break out all
over Europe, the part of the developed
world that has led the way to reducing
emissions of climate changing gases. If
European Governments crumble in the
face of this pressure, all hope of
progress at the Hague will collapse.
Oil barons will rejoice, but the
millions of victims of climate
disasters will pay a terrible
price."
-- IAN WILLMORE MEDIA
CO-ORDINATOR
(020)7 566 1657 (w)
(020)8 885 3779 (h)
07712 843220 (mobile)
(020)7 490 0881 (fax)
_____________________________
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
"Friends of the Earth, you didn't
see them around when people were
talking about petrol prices, did you?
These are people who run to ground when
it gets really difficult."
Deputy Prime Minister John
Prescott
BBC
21st July 2000
_____________________________
Any personal opinions do not
necessarily reflect the policy of
Friends of the Earth, particularly in
so far as they concern politicians with
whom we may have to do business in
future.
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