Big oil stokes the fires for the planet to burn
BP promised to go 'beyond petroleum'. But carbon remains at the heart of big energy firms
February 7, 2008 12:01 AM
There is a parallel universe in operation out there. Politicians try to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, while business executives lay plans to expand their carbon footprint.
While the pace of negotiations on a post-Kyoto treaty has picked up, and the European Union has outlined new schemes for increasing the price of carbon, oil companies seem intent on ensuring carbon remains at the centre of their businesses.
BP was once promising to go "beyond petroleum" and turn itself into a broadly based energy group under John Browne.
But his exit seems to have triggered a U-turn, with new boss Tony Hayward taking BP into Canada's dirty tar sands and abandoning schemes for a revolutionary carbon capture and storage operation at Peterhead, Scotland.
Meanwhile rival Shell has been putting increasing amounts of investment into its tar sands business and various other "unconventional" gas projects, while selling off its once-proud solar operations in Asia and elsewhere.
Many green groups have always been highly sceptical of the claims made by these and other oil companies. Parts of Big Oil talked about sustainability and renewables yet the level of actual investment in them were always pitiful compared to the sums put into hydrocarbons.
It is worrying that under the guise of energy security, Jeroen van der Veer at Shell and Hayward at BP seemed to be abandoning even a figleaf of environmental respectability and going all out for oil.
With crude prices at $100 per barrel and record profits to be made, its easy to see the allure to executives frightened by their failure to find, or hang on to, reserves in the way they found easy in the past.
Russia, Venezuela and other developing countries are pushing the big multinationals about and seizing their assets. At present, Van der Veer and Hayward are more worried about that than pleasing public opinion in the west.
But in the longer term they are digging their companies' graves. When proper carbon pricing does eventually kick in, these businesses will find themselves with heavy liabilities round their necks. Like the tobacco companies, oil executives could one day find themselves in court. But for now, they seem willing to stoke the fires for the planet to burn.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/2008/02/big_oil_stokes_the_fir...
