ExxonMobil's attempts to stop the world tackling climate change
When President Bush announced that the US would be pulling out of the Kyoto Treaty in March 2001, the mark of the fossil fuel industry was all over his policy. One company stands out from the rest in its efforts to bring about Bush's climate climb-down. For more than a decade, ExxonMobil (or Esso in Europe) has been working consistently and systematically to derail any international action to tackle global warming.
ExxonMobil has engaged in more than a decade of dirty tricks. It has a two pronged strategy of attack:
- undermining the accepted scientific consensus on climate change
- deliberately misleading the public and policy makers over the economic implications of tackling global warming
Greenpeace's new report 'Esso - a decade of dirty tricks' details the history of Esso's attempts to use its power and money to stop international action on global warming. Esso (ExxonMobil in the US) is the world's biggest corporation, making record profits of over $17 billion last year. Last year, the company spent $7.9 billion on oil exploration and nothing on renewable energy or green fuels.
Dirty trick 14:
During the Kyoto negotiations in December 1997 the GCC produced a press briefing stating: 'Economic damage [of Kyoto] could empty American pockets millions of job losses, higher gasoline, food and heating bills.' It claimed that 'US sovereignty is at risk', that 'Negotiating test gives a UN body - dominated by developing countries - permanent license to control US economic growth, without senate ratification or domestic legislation'
