Bush and Esso number 1 global warming villains

When President Bush announced in March 2001 that the US would be pulling out of the Kyoto Treaty, the mark of the fossil fuel industry was all over his policy. One company stands out from the rest as having done more than any other to bring about Bush's climate climb-down. For the last 10 years Esso (ExxonMobil in the US) has been working consistently and systematically to derail any international action to tackle global warming. While Esso's opposition to Kyoto is no secret, it has also been engaged in a concerted effort to turn its opinion into policy, through the covert funding and support of industry lobbying organisations and climate-sceptic scientists.

As ExxonMobil's Vice President (HSE) - Frank Sprow - has admitted: "Companies that produce and use fossil fuels, oil, coal and gas, have a vested interest in the outcome of the climate change debate."1 None more so than Esso, the world's most profitable company, with $18 billion profits a year from oil, coal and gas and no investment in renewable forms of energy. Faced with the possibility of emissions limits of global warming gases, Esso seems prepared to stoop to any level to protect profit over planet.

It is unlikely that the full extent of Esso efforts to sabotage international action on climate change will ever be known, but some of their dirty tricks have been revealed.