The Sky is Not the Limit: - Carbon Trade Watch

2.4 Corporate ‘good guys’?The third tactic of corporations is newand firmly splits the corporate worldneatly in two. There are theExxonMobils who are ‘old-school’, diehardobstructers and deniers.Campaigners have targeted Exxon,and it is well known now that they areagainst the Kyoto process, firmlybelieving that industry can solve theproblem if left to take voluntary action.A memo from Exxon to the Bushadministration in February 2001suggested that the US lobby get rid ofthe then head of the IPCC, BobWatson, who is an outspoken andradical scientist whose views Exxondislikes. 1 At the subsequent election inApril 2002 for the head of the IPCC,the US voted against Bob Watson andhe was ousted. A coincidence, or anexample of the kind of listening earthat a US $1,200,000 campaigncontribution can buy. 2And then there are BP, Shell andEnron who are at the forefront ofreinventing themselves as being ‘goodguys’. In 1998 Kenneth Lay, the CEOof Enron, sent a letter to Bill Clintonwhich requested that he do as muchas possible to harm the credibility ofthe climate sceptic scientists. Enronsaw that Kyoto, “would do more topromote Enron’s business than willalmost any other regulatory initiative,”and was one of the main proponentsof emissions trading. 3 Along withexpensive PR campaigns such asBP’s environmental ‘BeyondPetroleum’ make-over, these‘progressive’ corporations havesuccessfully advanced the concept ofthe Public-Private-Partnership (PPP).name ofcorporation$ spent onrenewables% of totalinvestmentsBPAmoco 50 million 5 3Shell 100 million 6 0.1ExxonMobil insignificant 7 insignificantChevronTexaco275 million 8 2.8Based on projections for the current and futureinvestments compared with total expenditure for2001. 9corporate engagement in internationalprocesses, best epitomised by whathappened at the WSSD inJohannesburg in 2002. There were nolegally binding agreements reached atthis second Earth Summit. Instead,over 280 PPPs were showcaseddemonstrating a lack of political will tomake strong decisions and theenthusiasm of corporations to takecontrol of solutions. 4By making low-cost investments inenvironmental projects, BP hasreshaped public perception of them,making it possible to continue‘business-as-usual’ having deflectedcriticism onto less sophisticatedcorporations such as ExxonMobil. Thisthird approach is a development of16