A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

24 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradingBrowne, chief executive of BP. Yet Browne,who oversaw a switch of BP’s logo to agreen and yellow starburst adorned with theslogan ‘Beyond Petroleum’, proclaims that‘global warming is real and needs to be addressednow’. 84 Ron Oxburgh, head of Shell,conceded in 2004 that climate change madehim ‘very worried for the planet’. 85In a 2005 publication, the World BusinessCouncil on Sustainable Development outlineskey areas for future action on climatechange, including efficiency, nuclear energy,government support for energy researchand development, and technologytransfer to the South. It neglects to mentionany measures for phasing out fossilfuels before they are exhausted. 86Finally, the World Bank, which has consistentlyobeyed the 1981 demand of the USTreasury Department that it play a lead rolein the ‘expansion and diversification of globalenergy supplies to enhance security ofsupplies and reduce OPEC market powerover oil prices’, 87 scorned the August 2004recommendation of its own review commissionthat it halt support for coal extractionprojects immediately and phase outsupport for oil extraction projects by 2008. 88The commission, chaired by former Indonesianenvironment minister Emil Salim,had pointed out that such extractive projectsdid nothing to promote the Bank’s statedmission of alleviating global poverty.From 1992 through late 2004, the WorldBank Group approved usd 11 billion in financingfor 128 fossil-fuel extraction projectsin 45 countries – projects that will ultimatelylead to more than 43 billion tonnes ofcarbon-dioxide emissions, a figure hundredsof times more than the emissions reductionsthat signatories to the Kyoto Protocol arerequired to make between 1990 and 2012.Another usd 17 billion has gone for otherfossil fuel-related projects. In 2004-2005,the World Bank Group spent usd 7.6 billionin fossil fuel-intensive sectors (37 percentof its total lending for the year) withonly marginal efforts to address the climatechange implications. 89 More than 82 percent of World Bank financing for oil extractionhas gone to projects that export oilback to wealthy Northern countries. Bankfinancing for fossil fuels outpaces renewableenergy financing by 17 to one. 90 Someof the biggest beneficiaries of Bank fundinginclude Halliburton, the oil contractor,Shell, ChevronTexaco, Total, ExxonMobil,and other fossil fuel com panies. 91 Yet in2005, the Bank was assigned a key role intackling climate change by the G8 group ofeconomic powers. ‘Let’s work together fora climate-friendly future,’ said Bank president,Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architectsof the US war on Iraq. 92