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REVEALED: HOW OIL GIANT INFLUENCED BUSH
WHITE HOUSE SOUGHT ADVICE FROM EXXON ON KYOTO STANCE
By John Vidal,
The Guardian
Wednesday June 8, 2005

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1501646,00.html

President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the
Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil,
the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US
State Department papers seen by the Guardian.

The documents, which emerged as Tony Blair visited the White House for
discussions on climate change before next month's G8 meeting, reinforce
widely-held suspicions of how close the company is to the administration and
its role in helping to formulate US policy.

In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state,
Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found
thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping
to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what
climate change policies the company might find acceptable.

Other papers suggest that Ms Dobriansky should sound out Exxon executives
and other anti-Kyoto business groups on potential alternatives to Kyoto.

Until now Exxon has publicly maintained that it had no involvement in the US
government's rejection of Kyoto. But the documents, obtained by Greenpeace
under US freedom of information legislation, suggest this is not the case.

"Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on
input from you [the Global Climate Coalition]," says one briefing note
before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry
group, which was dominated by Exxon.

The papers further state that the White House considered Exxon "among the
companies most actively and prominently opposed to binding approaches [like
Kyoto] to cut greenhouse gas emissions".

But in evidence to the UK House of Lords science and technology committee in
2003, Exxon's head of public affairs, Nick Thomas, said: "I think we can say
categorically we have not campaigned with the United States government or
any other government to take any sort of position over Kyoto."

Exxon, officially the US's most valuable company valued at $379bn (£206bn)
earlier this year, is seen in the papers to share the White House's
unwavering scepticism of international efforts to address climate change.

The documents, which reflect unanimity between the company and the US
administration on the need for more global warming science and the
unacceptable costs of Kyoto, state that Exxon believes that joining Kyoto
"would be unjustifiably drastic and premature".

This line has been taken consistently by President Bush, and was expected to
be continued in yesterday's talks with Tony Blair who has said that climate
change is "the most pressing issue facing mankind".

"President Bush tells Mr Blair he's concerned about climate change, but
these documents reveal the alarming truth, that policy in this White House
is being written by the world's most powerful oil company. This
administration's climate policy is a menace to humanity," said Stephen
Tindale, Greenpeace's executive director in London last night.

"The prime minister needs to tell Mr Bush he's calling in some favours. Only
by securing mandatory cuts in US emissions can Blair live up to his
rhetoric," said Mr Tindale.

In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don
Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid adviser
to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have followed the US
line against Kyoto.

The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the
secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says "works
against most US government efforts to address climate change", is said to be
to "solicit [his] views as part of our dialogue with friends and allies".

ExxonMobil, which was yesterday contacted by the Guardian in the US but did
not return calls, is spending millions of pounds on an advertising campaign
aimed at influencing politicians, opinion formers and business leaders in
the UK and other pro-Kyoto countries in the weeks before the G8 meeting at
Gleneagles.

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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