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From:"Europe, Inc. - Regional & Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power", Corporate Europe Observatory, published by Pluto Press
CHAPTER 17
THE WEATHER GODS: CORPORATIONS PROFIT FROM CLIMATE CHANGE THREAT
The verdict is in: the globe is getting hotter. Public, scientific, and growing political consensus has been reached about the need for urgent action to combat climate change. Yet official CO2 emission reduction targets are clearly insufficient given the magnitude of the problem. International climate negotiations have been transformed into trade agreements which grant Northern countries and their corporations the right to pollute through the increased use of market-based 'solutions'. The responsible profiteers are several coalitions of extremely powerful and influential transnational corporations (TNCs). These lobbies -- which include well-known oil, automotive, mining and chemical companies in the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan -- have made use of a number of different strategies in order to protect and inflate their climate- damaging profits.
According to the 2,500-scientist Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate." [1] heir warning is echoed by the 2,000 economists who have confirmed that the threat of warming is enough to warrant 'preventative steps'. [2] Yet greenhouse gas emissions continue to be spewed into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. Years of negotiations have resulted in a mere 39 industrialised countries agreeing to a pitifully low collective reduction of 5.2 percent by 2012. In fact, a global reduction of 60 percent is needed in the first half of the next century in order to avoid cataclysmic climate change. [3]
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was celebrated by the nations of the world as the first legally binding treaty which sets limits to greenhouse gas emissions. But not only are the reductions written into the Protocol paltry; the agreement also helps to turn greenhouse gases into a commodity. Emissions trading, joint implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the three industry-inspired market-based 'solutions' enshrined in the Protocol, will allow industrialised countries and their corporations to avoid real measures to combat climate change. By sidestepping government regulation, these commercial escape mechanisms exclude the participation of citizens' and environmental organisations and will delay real improvement. Profitable Solutions Emissions trading allows the 39 governments committed to collective reductions under the Protocol to trade the right to pollute among themselves. This can potentially lead to very dangerous scenarios. For example, Russia and Ukraine committed to stabilising their emissions at 1990 levels in Kyoto, and the dismantling of inefficient Soviet industries has already led to a drop of more than 30 percent in CO2 emissions. Under emissions trading, this reduction could be 'bought' by an industrialised country which could then increase its own emissions proportionately. Joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) involve the trading of `emissions reduction units' obtained in special projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These projects can be carried out among industrialised countries (JI) or between one industrialised and one southern country (CDM). The Clean Development Mechanism will supposedly facilitate the transfer of funding and technology for energy efficiency measures to southern countries. However, it also permits rich countries and TNCs to evade their own climate responsibilities by dumping reduction burdens on the Third World.
Since the introduction of these market-based solutions in 1997, subsequent international climate negotiations have been deadlocked around their implementation rather than addressing the urgent matter of the insufficiency of current reduction commitments. The November 1998 negotiations in Buenos Aires [4] were bogged down by the divisive question of the extent to which these so-called 'flexible mechanisms' can be utilised. Industry and countries including the United States hope to avoid any ceiling on the amount of their reductions that can be achieved `abroad'. Southern countries and the European Union, on the other hand, are wary of the risk that the US will not take any measures at home, and prefer to set limits on the use of such schemes.
Climate Spoilers Around the World
An unprecedented global offensive launched by oil, automotive, mining, chemical and nuclear interests is behind the adoption of market-based solutions to the climate crisis. Long before Kyoto, these lobbies were already busy orchestrating their multi-billion dollar campaign. Urgent warnings were issued that economic disaster, massive unemployment and loss of competitiveness would ensue if climate commitments were adopted. Industry claimed to have the climate situation under control. They argued that carbon and energy taxes and other regulations should be avoided at all costs in the name of international competitiveness. The solutions, they claimed, lay in voluntary agreements between governments and industry and an unimpeded free market permitting the development of new and improved technology. The climate lobbies managed to shift the debate into a realm dominated by technocratic solutions and corporate concerns like securing profits and strengthening global dominance.
The following is a sample of the preponderance of powerful coalitions, public misinformers and phoney scientists that make up the climate disruptors club.
The USA: the Boldest Offensive
The United States, responsible for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, has been the headquarters of the most aggressive attempts to avoid binding commitments. Industry lobby groups have poured millions of dollars into PR campaigns denying the existence of climate change and confusing public opinion. Moreover, they have insisted that any binding agreement should also include southern countries , despite the fact that these nations emit only a fraction of total global greenhouse gases and the historical responsibility for emissions rests on the industrialised world. [5] Hypocritically, corporate groups have also lobbied Southern countries to reject any environmental obligations that could hinder their development. Since the 1997 Kyoto Conference, US lobby groups have focused both on preventing the ratification of the Protocol an d simultaneously fighting against a ceiling in the use of flexible mechanisms -- securing a 'win-win' situation for industry no matter what happens.
The most outspoken and confrontational US-based lobby group battling the climate agreement and reduction commitments is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC). Created in 1989 by the infamous PR company Burson-Marsteller, the GCC's membership includes the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco, Chevron, Chrysler, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Mobil, the National Mining Association, Texaco, Union Carbide, and until recently, British Petroleum and Shell. [6] Over the past several years, the GCC has waged an extensive, multi-million dollar disinformation campaign. Its dirty tactics have included creating public scepticism through scientifically dubious glossy reports featuring dire warnings about mass unemployment resulting from emissions reduction. Its members attend climate negotiations meetings en masse, and demand that southern countries commit to the same reductions.
The GCC also funds and promotes sceptical scientists to sow confusion about the very existence of climate change. This is a common tactic used by US industry in the climate debate: investing large sums in supporting global-warming sceptical 'scientists' to counter well-reviewed evidence put forward by the IPCC and other legitimate experts. In addition to taking part in extensive speaker's tours across the nation, the sceptics have been put on stage as expert witnesses in state and the federal legislatures. The prominence given by the media to these fake scientists lends them automatic public credibility.
In the aftermath of Kyoto, which the GCC described as "unilateral economic disarmament" [7] for the United States, the coalition has slightly changed its strategy to openly campaign against US ratification of the Protocol . In an attempt to further perplex the public, the GCC has portrayed the EU's relatively more progressive climate policies and highly-developed clean technologies as a deliberate attack on the US economy. The EU, it claims, "appears less interested in preventing harmful interference with the global climate than in engineering restrictions on the US economy and more favourable economic conditions for its own member countries which have failed to sustain viable economies".[8]
The US-based Business Roundtable (BRT), comprised of the CEOs of more than 200 large corporations including Amoco, Chevron, Chrysler, Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Shell and Texaco, has played multiple cards in the climate debate. They have harped on the uncertainty of climate science and pushed for 'long term approaches' which involve emissions reductions by southern countries, voluntary industry agreements and flexible mechanisms. In Jun e 1997, well in time for Kyoto, the BRT launched a million dollar advertising campaign on climate change which urged the US administration not to rush headlong into restrictive policy commitments. The Roundtable's arguments have been reinforced by large donations to the Democratic Party (more than US$11 million in 1996) and a total disbursement of $57 million to members of Congress during the past two elections. [9] Not surprisingly, President Clinton's climate policies neatly mirror BRT viewpoints.
The BRT regularly conveys its demands to Clinton and other US authorities through personal meetings and letters. One letter, addressed to top US negotiator Stuart Eizenstat and leaked to Friends of the Earth, spells out t he Roundtable's demands for the 1998 Climate Summit in Buenos Aires. Among other things, the message bluntly instructs the US delegation not to accept limits on emissions trading, suggesting that 80 percent or more of the national commitment could be met in this way. The BRT also demands full involvement in the Protocol for southern countries, particularly China and India which currently emit 1/20th as much carbon as the United States. Even so, the letter makes no secret of the fact that "participation in full global trading actually puts southern countries at a competitive disadvantage". [10] The letter also warns of the danger of loss of competitiveness with the EU if the use of the Kyoto market-based `solutions' is limited. "The more restrictions on trading, the more Europe improves its competitive position, which is probably not a surprise to you and your delegation w ho are veterans in dealing with the EEC." [11]
Another player on the US scene is the Global Climate Information Project (GCIP). This enormous industry coalition, run by PR firm Shandwick (see chapter 2), consists of groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council, and mining and trade unions including the United Mine Workers of America and the AFL-CIO. In September of 1997, the GCIP launched a US$13 million dollar advertising campaign designed to spread misinformation about climate change. One series of ads portrayed the GCIP as global environmentalists concerned about growing CO2 emissions in the South and stressing the unfairness of exempting these countries from binding commitments.
In fact, many of these climate coalitions are no more than PR front groups, which lends a fake neutrality to the corporate players behind them. Such is the case with the Information Council for the Environment (ICE). Created in 1991 by a coalition including the National Coal Association, the Western Fuel Association and the Edison Electrical Institute and managed by PR firm Bracy Williams, the ICE put $500,000 into an advertising blitz to "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)". [12] One if its members, coal company Western Fuel Association, produced its own $250,000 video, The Greening of Planet Earth, which argues that one benefit of climate change would be an extended growing season.
One of the most cynical aspects of the climate debate is the double role played by Northern-based TNCs in their dealings with Third World countries. In October 1997, Exxon Chair Lee Raymond addressed the 15th World Petroleum Congress in Beijing about the urgent need for Asian governments to continue to fight emissions regulations for at least the next two decades. Talking on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute (which includes British Petroleum, Chevron, Elf, Exxon and Shell), Raymond cautioned that southern countries would lose foreign investment if binding targets were adopted at the upcoming Kyoto conference. On the home front, however, the oil industry's gloomy message is that commitments will mean massive job losses and reduced economic growth in the US due to industry's forced relocation to less-regulated countries.
International: Trading with Climate
Two groups operating at the international level have been very diligent in lobbying for the right climate for industry. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, se e chapter 16), a coalition of 125 CEOs of transnational corporations founded in 1990, specialises in the strategic deflection of the growing challenge of the environmental movement on climate and other issues. By promoting self regulation and spouting out sustainable development rhetoric, the WBCSD has helped its member TNCs to simultaneously green their images and push for unregulated economic growth and free market globalisation. It is worth noting that the corporations active in the supposedly green WBCSD -- including Dow Chemical, Shell and Dupont -- have also been involved in aggressive campaigning against agreements on greenhouse gas emission reductions.
Together with the Japanese industry lobby Keidanren, the WBCSD and ICC organised an International Conference on Business Initiatives for Mitigating Climate Change in Kyoto. Björn Stigson, then President of the WBCSD, expressed his pleasure there with the outcome of the Climate Summit. "One of the major outcomes of Kyoto was the recognition that business is a key engine that will drive us towards a more sustainable future." [13] Both the WBCSD and the ICC tout the clean development mechanism (CDM) as the most promising solution to the climate crisis. This is not surprising, as it will provide ample possibilities for TNCs to win new markets in southern countries.
The WBCSD has kept busy on various fronts since Kyoto. It runs the International Business Action Plan on Climate Change which promotes CDM projects between its members and southern countries; it cooperates closely with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the creation of a mechanism for trading greenhouse gas emissions; and is simultaneously advising the World Bank on its planned carbon investment fund. Some of these activities can truly be said to contribute to climate mitigation; however, the Business Council's proposals never go beyond those that are profitable for industry.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC, see chapter 18), probably the most powerful corporate lobby group on earth, has similar strategies and demands: voluntary action from industry, global commitments which include southern countries, market instruments, and nuclear energy as a viable and sustainable solution. The group's enormous resources give it a formidable lobbying capacity. In October 1998, two weeks before the Buenos Aires Climate Summit, the ICC sent a 30-person delegation to Dakar, Senegal. The mission, which included representatives from Shell, LaFarge, Texaco, Mobil and Chevron, met with energy and environmental ministers from more than 20 African countries in order to tempt them with promises of technology transfer and foreign investment in exchange for support for the CDM.
Hot Air: the European Corporate Lobby Groups
European corporate lobby groups operate under rather different political circumstances than do their US colleagues. In Europe, environmental policies are generally higher on the political agenda than they are on the other side of the Atlantic. Energy taxes (not even under consideration in the US) have already been introduced in a number of countries, although on a very limited scale. The EU is currently discussing an energy tax, although this is accompanied by a decided lack of ambition and plenty of foot dragging. Finally, the existence of climate change is undisputed in the European political arena.
Given these more challenging conditions, the most influential European business lobby groups such as the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), the employers' organisation UNICE and the chemical industry federation CEFIC, decided upon a subtler approach to the climate debate. European industry has yet to accept binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Instead, it has concentrated on promoting voluntary action, industry's alter native to government regulation. Business claims that if the responsibility for solving environmental problems were left to them, the result would be the swift introduction of technological improvements to increase energy efficiency. The Clean Development Mechanism, joint implementation and tradable emissions are also promoted as the wisest solutions to the climate change problem.
UNICE: Fighting Binding Targets
When asked to comment on the US Global Climate Coalition's offensive against climate commitments, a spokesperson from UNICE, the European employers' confederation (see chapter 4), took a softer approach. "UNICE is not questioning the scientific aspects in such an aggressive way. We have a completely different approach -- climate change has really become a matter of public concern, and we consider preventive measures necessary." [14] Nonetheless, UNICE (as well as the ERT and CEFIC) considered the EU's proposal for Kyoto for a 15 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2010 unreasonable. "The Commission's very partial and very simplistic analysis greatly underestimates the cost to industry of meeting the EU's greenhouse gas reduction targets," explained Zygmunt Tyszkiewicz, former UNICE Secretary-General. [15] UNICE argues that any international agreement should include southern countries, and prefers a more relaxed target of 2020 for the CO2 emissions reductions agreed in Kyoto. "The fight against climate change will take 50 years," says UNICE spokesperson Daniel Cloquet. [16]
ERT: Sessions Behind Closed Doors
The European Roundtable of Industrialists (see chapter 3), which includes numerous companies with vested interests in climate change accelerating sectors, worked hard to avoid emissions reductions. As Assistant Secretary-General Caroline Walcot put it, "We want to scrap discussions on percentage cuts ... There are people among us with some conscience stirred, but we do not want a quick-fix solution." [17] In the run-up to Kyoto, representatives from the ERT's Environmental Watchdog Group held a series of meetings with European decision makers, making the point that "the best agreements are those proposed by industry." [18]
High-level meetings behind closed doors are an ERT speciality. At a preparatory meeting for the Kyoto Summit in October of 1997, the ERT met with other corporate groups and top politicians "to work on the 'bracketed text' of the Convention". [19] NGOs were not invited, so as not to "impede progress." [20] The ERT has also strived for a common corporate agenda for Kyoto, pushing for a 'positive action' approach which would allow industry t o reap the full potential economic benefits of an agreement. As Caroline Walcot explains: "The International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association has been pushing for a harder stance. We have been trying to persuade them, and the Americans and Australians, to be less rigid." [21] The group apparently feels more satisfied with the results of Kyoto than does UNICE: "It is a very good outcome for the EU, because we know we can deliver." [22] The ERT's main pursuit now is to continue promoting voluntary initiatives by industry as a means of delivering emissions reductions.
CEFIC: Protecting HFCs
CEFIC, which consists of national chemical industry federations as well as companies like Bayer, British Petroleum, ICI, Monsanto Europe, Norsk Hydro, Novartis, Repsol, Rhône-Poulenc, Shell, Solvay and Union Carbide, initiated a special mission to prevent HFCs (hydrofluorocarbonate compounds) from being included in the Kyoto agreement. [23] Although alternatives to these dangerous chemicals are currently available, CEFIC proposed leakage reductions and efficiency improvements rather than a phase out. Chemical industry pressure persuaded the EU to exempt HFCs from its greenhouse gas reduction goals, but in the end, the Kyoto Protocol included them in the `basket' of gases to be reduced. CEFIC bitterly complained: "This does not properly take into account the efforts of industry to substitute HFCs for CFCs and HCFCs in the early nineties in order to protect the ozone layer." [24]
Fighting Ecological Taxes
The three major European industrial lobby groups all oppose a Europe-wide energy tax, a proposal that would greatly help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. UNICE argues that such a tax would destroy industry's global competitiveness and would neither create jobs nor significantly reduce CO2 emissions. [25] In the case that the EU decides to proceed with the implementation of an energy tax, however, UNICE demands the impossible: "International conditionality and ... a total tax exemption for sectors with sharp exposure to international competition." [26] The ERT's Caroline Walcot is equally clear: "Governments should understand t hat tax schemes will only hurt industry. If you help industry to be more competitive, we would be better able to invest in solutions. We are saying 'no taxes'." [27] CEFIC has also successfully dodged the imposition of an energy tax over the past years. CEFIC's Director for Climate Issues Bent Jensen recalls attempts by then Environment Commissioner Carlo Ripa de Meana to introduce such a tax back in 1991. "We took a very hard step on that. He left Brussels in a hurry. Really, industry did not want this taxation." [28]
Consequently, there is scant hope for an EU-wide energy tax. Weak attempts in 1992, 1995 and 1997 were quickly snuffed by the unbending opposition of industry and a few member states. The most recent move, a watered-down compromise known as the Monti Proposal forged in 1998 [29], was surprisingly rejected in the European Parliament by a coalition of conservatives and New Labour MEPs. [30] Ironically, a recent Parliament resolution on climate change states that the Monti Proposal would not even be sufficient to achieve Kyoto's greenhouse gas reductions. Without a CO2/energy-tax, the EU's commitments for greenhouse gas emissions reduction seem impossible, a s measures proposed by member states are clearly insufficient to achieve the level of cuts required. Moreover, EU plans like the Trans-European Networks (TENs, see chapter 8), a 400 billion ECU programme for new transport infrastructure projects, and the liberalisation of energy markets, will make it almost impossible to achieve the proposed targets. The TENs alone are predicted to increase CO2 emissions from the transport sector by 15 to 18 percent. [31] Additionally, newly liberalised energy markets will reduce energy prices and consequently increase consumption and CO2 emissions.
Avoiding Regulation
CEFIC has a long tradition of introducing voluntary commitments in order to avoid government regulation of the chemical industry's environmental performance. [32] Like the ERT and UNICE, the chemical lobby umbrella promotes voluntary agreements on energy efficiency and joint implementation -- particularly with Central and Eastern European countries -- as an alternative to regulation. [33] But the most active and sophisticated approach to promoting self regulation in the climate debate has come from the ERT. In preparation for the Kyoto Summit, the ERT's Environmental Watchdog Group issued a glossy report outlining "how to choose the right policies for Europe". [34] In the report, the ERT calls for voluntary action by industry and market-based solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As encouragement, the report presents a number of factories in which ERT member corporations have invested in new technology and reduced CO2 emissions. However, overall figures of the status of global CO2 emissions by the TNCs united in the ERT are suspiciously absent. Based on these isolated examples, the report recommends technological development, joint implementation and tradeable emission rights as the ways forward. Alarmingly, it also alarmingly concludes that the market should "enable the further use of nuclear power as a source for carbon-free energy." [35]
The ERT seems very confident that its strategy of corporate environmentalism will take the wind out of the environmental movement's sails. As Caroline Walcot puts it: "The green groups are creaking with age ... The lesson from COP-2 was that they just don't recognise that it is a different world, with different needs. All they succeed in doing is making it more difficult for industry to take positive action on a voluntary level." [36] UNICE's post-Kyoto demands prioritise long-term voluntary agreements as well as the unlimited use of flexible mechanisms. The employers want to be fully involved in the implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism, joint implementation and emission trading, demanding not only that no ceiling is imposed in the use of these instruments, but that the `emission reductions units' are fully tradable between all three. From the UNICE perspective, this should remove any need to further regulate or tax European industry. [37]
Climate Change: a Comeback for Nuclear Energy?
Climate change offers the last chance for a nuclear comeback in Europe, where many countries are intending to shut down nuclear power plants and the Swedish and German governments have committed to complete nuclear energy phase outs. Both the ERT and UNICE promote nuclear energy as a viable solution to climate change, and the nuclear industry has its own active lobby groups which claim that investments in nuclear energy, and a new generation of 'inherently safe' power plants, are the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By institutionalising the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Kyoto Protocol breathed new life into the future of European nuclear companies. The sector is lobbying for nuclear technology to be included as one of the possible CDM options so that its activities can be expanded to new markets. With this goal in mind, the nuclear lobby registered more than 150 lobbyists at the Buenos Aires Climate Summit.
What the nuclear lobby neglects to mention is that nuclear power indirectly causes enormous CO2 emissions through energy-intensive activities such as the construction and decommissioning of reactors, the extraction, processing, transport and reprocessing of nuclear fuel, and the storage and treatment of nuclear waste. Furthermore, nuclear power is the least cost effective -- not to mention the most dangerous -- method of producing electricity. Foratom, the European nuclear industry lobby, cynically insists that energy efficiency and renewables will not be sufficient to avert climate change. Predictably, the nuclear industry myopically views climate change as "the best friend we have had in the past 40 years". [38] Economic Globalisation versus Climate Policies Global climate negotiations are just one of the many arenas which have been captured and are being controlled by the corporate sector. The economic and political power of TNC s has become a serious barrier to effective action against global warming. As countries' economies are reoriented from local, regional and national markets towards production for the global economy, the TNC threat to relocate has become a common theme, and 'international competitiveness' the paramount objective.
The burden is now on citizens' movements all over the world to increase pressure on governments to adopt real solutions to the climate crisis rather than caving in to corporate threats, misinformation and greenwash. A closer look at TNC attempts to appear environmentally responsible exposes the irreparable damage that would result if corporations were left to their own devices in countering climate change. In fact, it is the corporate strategy of consolidating and globalising unsustainable Northern lifestyles and consumption patterns that constitute one of the most serious threats to the earth's ecosystems today. And it is the deregulated global economy t hat has created such a dramatic political dependency on TNCs, making it ever more difficult for governments to reject the corporate climate agenda.
NOTES
1. IPCC, Second Assessment Report, 1995. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was jointly established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme in 1988, in order to: (i) assess available scientific information on climate change, (ii) assess the environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change, and (iii) formulate response strategies. [Back to Text]
2. "Economists call for carbon taxes", ENDS Environment Daily, 14 February 1997. [Back to Text]
3. This was agreed at the Kyoto Conference in December 1997. Kyoto was the Third Conference of the Parties (COP-3) to the UNFCCC, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (also known as the `Climate Convention'). The Convention, which aims to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level which would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system, was signed by 154 countries at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. 84 nations signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which is a development of the Convention containing specific targets and timetables. 39 industrialised countries under the Protocol have agreed to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. The European Union agreed to an 8 percent overall reduction, the United States to 7 percent, Japan to 6 percent, while Australia was allowed to increase emissions by 8 percent. Still far from entering into force, the Kyoto Protocol requires ratification by 55 of the Parties accounting for at least 55 percent of total CO2 emissions. The Protocol was open for signature from 16 March 1998 to 15 March 1999 at UN Headquarters. By 15 March 1999, 84 governments had signed the Protocol, but only seven countries (Maldives, Antigua and Barbuda, El Salvador, Panama, Fiji, Tuvalu and Trinidad and Tobago) had ratified it. [Back to Text]
4. The Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-4) to the Climate Convention took place in November 1998 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. COP-4 delayed nearly all important issues until the next COP in 2000. Parties adopted the Buenos Aires Action Plan, which sets a deadline of 2000 to complete work on the rules governing the Kyoto flexible mechanisms with priority to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); the financial mechanisms to assist Southern countries; and the development and transfer of technology.[Back to Text]
5. In 1998, the US Senate passed by a vote of 95-0 the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which states that the United States should not be signatory to any protocol that excludes southern countries from legally binding commitments o r that causes serious harm to the US economy.[Back to Text]
6. Under pressure by critique from environmental groups, BP left the GCC in 1996. Shell left in early 1998. However, both companies are still members of the American Petroleum Institute (API). After having unsuccessfully lobbied the US government not to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the API now lobbies the US Senate not to ratify the Protocol. [Back to Text]
7. "Business Organizations Pledge Fight to Block Approval of Kyoto Pact". Statement of William F. O'Keefe, then Chair of the Global Climate Coalition.[Back to Text]
8. Global Climate Coalition web site: <http://www.globalclimate.org>.[Back to Text]
9. Ozone Action web site: <http://www.ozone.org/>.[Back to Text]
10. Letter from Robert N. Burt, BRT Chairman of the Environmental Task Force, to Stuart Eizenstat, 10 November 1998, quoted in Friends of the Earth press release "Leaked Letter Tips US Hand at Climate Summit", 12 November 1998.[Back to Text]
11. Ibid.[Back to Text]
12. Quoted in: Bob Burton and Sheldon Rampton, "Thinking Globally, Acting Vocally: the International Conspiracy to Overheat the Earth", Center for Media & Democracy, PR Watch, vol. 4, n. 4, 4th Quarter 1997.[Back to Text]
13. Björn Stigson, WBCSD President, "Kyoto: Where Do We Go From Here?", Earth Times, 17 December 1997.[Back to Text]
14. Phone interview with Daniel Cloquet, 24 October 1997.[Back to Text]
15. Zygmunt Tyszkiewicz quoted in "...While UNICE Attacks Plan From Inside", ENDS Environment Daily, 23 October 1997.[Back to Text]
16. Phone interview with Daniel Cloquet, 24 October 1997.[Back to Text]
17. Phone interview with Caroline Walcot, 24 October 1997.[Back to Text]
18. Ibid.[Back to Text]
19. Passages in international treaties under negotiation that have not yet been agreed upon are usually put in brackets. Often several alternative bracketed text versions are included in the draft treaty text.[Back to Text]
20. Phone interview with ERT's Caroline Walcot, 24 October 1997.[Back to Text]
21. Ibid.[Back to Text]
22. Caroline Walcot, quoted in: "Mixed European Reactions to Kyoto Deal", Ends Environment Daily, 11 December 1997.[Back to Text]
23. The report Refrigeration & Global Warming: An Independent Review of the Role of HFC Refrigerants was published in October 1997 and funded by the European Fluorocarbon Technical Committee (EFCTC), a sector group of CEFIC.[Back to Text]
24. CEFIC position paper, "Post-Kyoto Views on Climate Policies", 12 June 1998.[Back to Text]
25. UNICE Opinion on the Proposal for a Council Directive on Taxation of Energy Products, 6 May 1997.[Back to Text]
26. Letter from UNICE Secretary-General Zygmunt Tyszkiewicz to Commission President Jacques Santer, 6 February 1997.[Back to Text]
27. Phone interview with Caroline Walcot, 24 October 1997.[Back to Text]
28. Phone interview with Bent Jensen, 23 October 1997.[Back to Text]
29. Designed by Single Market Commissioner Mario Monti, the proposal (Energy Tax III b) recycled the previous one but gave member states two options. The first was to impose minimum excise duties on electricity, coal and gas over long transitional periods; the second, to avoid UK strong opposition to taxing domestic fuels, was to hike existing excise duties on road fuels, allowing member states to set a zero rate for electricity, gas and coal.[Back to Text]
30. Green MEPs blamed the New Labour MEPs for having given in to the pressure of the industry lobby. Source: ENDS Daily, 10 February 1999.[Back to Text]
31. Missing Greenlinks, Greenpeace Switzerland, 1995.[Back to Text]
32. Given the proviso that no new taxes are levied on energy, the chemical industry has made a unilateral commitment to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent between 1990 and 2005 in its Voluntary Energy Efficiency Programme (VEEP) programme.[Back to Text]
33. CEFIC introduced a set of voluntary rules to "discourage the European Commission from inventing a European equivalent to the Toxic Release Inventory, a law passed in the United States in the aftermath of the Bhopal gas disaster that requires corporations to report their chemical releases to the public". Quote taken from: Joshua Karliner, The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization, Sierra Club Books, 1997.[Back to Text]
34. ERT, Climate Change: An ERT Report on Positive Action, Brussels, April 1997. The Environmental Watchdog Group is made up of directors from the environmental and health departments of ERT member corporations.[Back to Text]
35. Ibid.[Back to Text]
36. Phone interview with Caroline Walcot, 24 October 1997.[Back to Text]
37. UNICE, EU's Strategy Responding to Climate Change, UNICE input to COP-4 in Buenos Aires, Brussels, October 1998.[Back to Text]
38. Quote taken from: "German Elections Threaten Meltdown for Nuclear Power in EU", European Voice, 14 January 1999.[Back to Text]
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