by frog
Exxon has publicly admitted that its funding of climate change deniers is causing problems for action on climate change. It took the Greenpeace campaign, ExxonSecrets, a long time but patience and hard work has born fruit and they are to be congratulated.
So which groups is Exxon dropping? According to Reuters, gone from the funding list in 2008 are the George C Marshall Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), Frontiers of Freedom… and others.
These groups are what you might call the “engine room” of the climate denial industry.
But even Exxon’s walking away from them now.
The company started dropping groups in 2006, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute being the first to go. Last year, it dumped the Heartland Institute, which organised the biggest denial conference for a long time, in New York in March.
The other groups were all co-sponsors of the Heartland conference which concluded, surprisingly enough, that global warming isn’t happening.
Now, hopefully any propaganda funding of climate deniers that inhabit our part of the world might also start to dry up (notwithstanding of course proper scientific scepticism). We might even be able to fund some more real research based on finding solutions rather than preventing action.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Tue, June 10th, 2008
Tags: climate change, denier, exxon, funding, greenpeace, heartland institute
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Uh oh. BP and others won’t be happy Exxon has joined the “liars” about the climate changing.
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The climate always changes, Valis.
As for Exxon, follow the money. Look into Innovest Strategic Value Advisors advice to Exxon.
I imagine there will be very few decenting voices in the corporate world against AGW before long – there is simply too much money to be made by going along with it.
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Be a sport BP, can we burn you at the steak (sic). Go on I’m needing to warm up.
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Flying on my broom is actually carbon neutral.
Agreed that global warming can not arrive soon enough. Brrrr……….
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So little place to hide when even the corporates finally start to get the message. You have our sympathy
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Valis, did you not read my post? Don’t you think that selling carbon credits might have **something** to do with it?
Even I’m looking into it. An unprecedented licence to print money….
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Well, you’d think a bunch of supposed Marxists might get some credit for supporting a market mechanism, but I guess that’s asking too much. We always wanted a simple carbon tax, but the right wingers and those afraid of them scuttled that, so we must move on and put a price on carbon by what means are available now. Time’s running short, you know. And I love the thought of you contributing to reducing emissions! I’m quite sure it won’t be as lucrative as trashing the environment though, but we all have to make our own investment decisions.
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The term “useful idiots” springs to mind….
You should be very suspicious when any big business gets behind this.
Everywhere I look lately, there are people talking about green business opportunities. They’re right, of course. You can make money out of, quite literally, nothing.
>>I love the thought of you contributing to reducing emissions
Why? I’ve been carbon neutral (positive) for years.
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Valis,
Didn’t you hear that the IEA has recommended that carbon emissions be costed at US$200 per ton?
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Thanks, I’ll tell the Greens to be very suspicious about big business. I’m sure they hadn’t thought of that. Really, they’re on to it. Frog just started a greenwash page today. And they’re the rosy idealists! The mere fact that big business sees something to take advantage of is a reflection that society is starting to get the message. Jeanette and others have been banging this drum for decades, so its good to see some notice being taken and we shouldn’t be at all surprised that some will try to take advantage. The whole reason the Greens are threatening to vote against the ETS is that it is looking like it will only benefit traders, without benefiting the environment. Of course, even this isn’t enough for Peter Dunne, who wants to ensure this happens by gutting the bill even further.
No I hadn’t heard about $200 per ton. That would sure provide a lot of incentive for energy efficiency and new technologies though. I sure hope the Greens are successful in negotiating a bill that, as they say, provides meaningful reductions in emissions, is fair on all sectors of the economy and provides a means of protecting those households most at risk.
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But Valis, you’re the one suggesting Exxon has “got the message”.
>>ETS is that it is looking like it will only benefit traders
The entire, global cap n trade scheme achieves nothing, other than benefit carbon traders. Remind me of New Zealand’s (incorrect) rationale for joining Kyoto, again?
>>$200 per ton. That would sure provide a lot of incentive
Kiss goodbye to New Zealand having a 1st world economy. Or dump Kyoto. Choose.
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I really don’t know all the reasons Exxon has changed their tune, but no longer funding AGW deniers is a good thing and I applaud it.
NZ joined imperfect Kyoto because, like the ETS for local emissions, it was the only game going to try to reduce global emissions. The alternative is not acceptable. All the parties now accept an ETS in some form is necessary except for Act. You are welcome to that company.
Your choice is false as only countries that successfully transition to a low emission, low fossil fuel economy will be worth living in before long.
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A key rationale was economic.
They said we’d be fools not to join, because we would earn millions per year by selling credits. Turns out they got their sums wrong. It will cost us millions per year. So, if it was good enough to say we must join *because* we’d earn millions, then the reverse holds true: if we *lose* money, we should pull out.
I don’t expect consistency from politicians in this arena, however.
>>Your choice is false
No it isn’t. Even $50 p/t would make most farming in NZ non-viable. What do you think $200 US per ton would do to this country?
The cure is worse than the cold. Our emissions won’t change squat, no matter what we do.
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BP,
1) An oil company is hardly going to make dosh out of “selling carbon credits”. Coz they’re at the debit end of things.
2) We’re doing less than almost any other 1st world economy when it comes to cutting our carbon use. Your claims that us starting to catch up with where most of Europe has already go to will “destroy our economy” appears to lack any evidence or rational argument. You’re making unsupported economic claims. You owe us evidence. Pony up.
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Don’t expect me to defend Labour on that one! I agree their rationale was bogus.
The 2003 Agriculture MoU was written to exempt farming so long as they worked on developing means to reduce their emissions. Of course, they have not been held to it and Labour has deferred their liability under the ETS beyond 10% to 2018 to give them more time. But it is only methane were the technologies don’t currently exist. There are technologies to deal with nitrous oxide and fertiliser production now. There is no reason to fear for farming, who are being treated with kid gloves.
It is just not reasonable to argue that reducing our emissions won’t also reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. If you’re so worried about cost, you should be keen to see this happen because the price of oil isn’t coming down anytime soon and we won’t be using all that coal.
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Sigh.
Exxons low-cost optimizations become carbon credits. Carbon credits are then re-sold. The cost to optimize is insignificant compared to the earnings for the carbon credits. The biggest polluters (in terms of multi-national scale of operations) gain the most for doing the least.
>>you’re making unsupported economic claims
You haven’t been reading the submissions, have you. Start here:
scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0805/S00191.htm
I also have a good friend, an economist, who worked on New Zealand’s Kyoto risk assessment. He can provide you with calculations that would make your head spin, but you’d probably need to buy him a few drinks first…..
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BP,
Only if they’re first assigned credits to optimize. The best way to set up a cap-n-trade scheme is to auction off the initial rights, rather than to hand them out to the current polluters (I know, NZ’s not taking that approach).
As for the claims by Meat and Wool New Zealand: bollocks! You might not have noticed, but they are a touch biased. Average farm income in New Zealand is skyrocketing. Haven’t you noticed? That’s what’s holding our dollar so inconveniently high (I’m an exporter: I feel the pain of that).
The reason Kyoto’s going to cost us is because our greenhouse gas emissions are amongst the highest per person in the world. The solution is to *reduce*emissions*. So what’s the govt done about that? It’s over been 10 years since National first proposed a Carbon Tax, and at current rate it’ll be another 7 before the flawed ETS finally comes fully into effect.
As for their concerns that the price of carbon is an “unknown factor”: that is why there is a carbon futures market – to enable people to buy off their risks. Farm groups in NZ are extremely canny at hedging against moves in commodity and currency prices: they know what futures are.
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I didn’t know the Nats ever supported a carbon tax. It became Green policy in 1993. Why did the Nats help scuttle it when we had the chance in 2005? Just politics?
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icehawk, Possibly the biggest hurdle we face in emulating the European approach to reducing carbon emissions is that it’s harder to outsource primary industries and their emissions to developing nations. Our attempts to export manufacturing jobs to asia hasn’t been very effective at reducing CO2 emissions because we don’t generate enough electricity from coal to make manufacturing a substantial part of our national carbon footprint. We lack the range of heavy industries that most Eu countries were able to close. We have one steel mill and one aluminium smelter, and their small by European standards.
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Exxon has always been a climate change “liar” – ie always denying it.
It has been RUNNING the denial movement. Organising it, funding it, plotting with the deniers to take down the science. It employs climate scientists who have been involved in the IPCC from the outset.
Exxon was at the forefront of the Global Climate Coalition (big fossil fuel industry group formed in the early 90′s), funding dodgy science, challenging the science, funding the think tank campaigns, running anti climate science advertisements.
Exxon’s former CEO Lee Raymond chaired the American Petroleum Institute’s climate committee for years, as with the GCC, again running campaigns questioning the science.
We have so many documents showing Exxon to be right in the middle of this denial campaign – from the court case against the EPA regulating C02 to communications strategies aimed at sowing doubt about the science across the USA. It never just sat back and funded the groups – it worked alongside them and helped plan – and run – the strategies.
This is a company that NEVER admits it’s wrong – look at the Valdez spill – it still hasn’t paid out compensation to those whose livelihoods were destroyed by the spill. It has funded dodgy science to say “it’s all fine” when you can still find oil on the shores of Prince William sound and the rest of the scientific community finds otherwise.
So for Exxon’s shift in this regard is highly significant. Its own scientists would not have let them do this if they were convinced AGW wasn’t happening.
So if even Exxon is now questioning the denialists, it’s something the denial world should sit up and take notice of. Rats leaving a sinking ship?
And regarding cost: Exxon has always argued that Kyoto-type programmes would negatively impact on its economic bottom line, so it’s hardly likely that the company has suddenly thought that it’d make money from AGW.
The motivation is much more based on a reality check on the science.
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