This is interesting. Via John Quiggin, ExxonMobil seems to have decided that global warming's real after all and should dedicate its lobbying efforts to designing CO2 control rules that spread the burdens of compliance widely rather than focusing in on energy firms (I think I may agree with this position on the merits and am certainly willing to explain why I agree, but before I do I think I'll hold out for a check from Exxon) narrowly. As part of the flip, Exxon is no longer going to fund the Competitive Enterprise Institute, producers of the hilarious "they call it pollution, we call it life" pro-carbon ads. CEI actually has a very broad pro-business, anti-regulatory agenda so they'll presumably be able to raise money from elsewhere.
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Exxon Flips
14 Jan 2007 01:29 pm
Comments (12)
They realized they were getting bad PR, so they're making cosmetic changes. But their efforts to fight real progress on global warming will not slack a bit. Let's not be naive.
The burdens of "CO2 control rules" will by definition fall most heavily on fossil fuel companies, because fossil fuels are what's creating the damn CO2.
Yglesias, presumably you recognize the need to remove all fossil fuel subsidies?
Of course the bulk of the burden on emission reduction will fall on the largest producers of CO2. However, a smaller producer may have some technical wherewithal or other efficiency that may allow them to reduce emissions in a way that ExxonMobil cannot or can't realistically be forced to do by incentive.
A program like carbon credits (or similar "market" program) can, when properly funded and regulated, breed such innovation from smaller companies that larger companies will pay for the carbon credits, then adopt as the number of credits fall. Now the fact that these ideas depend on proper regulation drains all hope of success, given the government in charge of regulation and funding is controlled by the same dollars that are least interested in improving the situation and give us the flat-earth holocaust denial science garbage in the first place.
Garamond12, interesting. Blair is going to be peeved.
I'm sorry, but isn't this just stupid on their part?
Now they've changed the question to "soak the oil corporations responsible" instead of "is it necessary to soak anyone." This is not a winning position to be in.
Before the legislation and lawsuits, how likely was Phillip Morris to regulate their own tobacco production? What they did early on they did for show. Its the same process at work here.
This is just another instance or greedy people trying to position their corporation to withstand the oncoming onlsaught, and perhaps profit from it. Better late than never you say? Well apparently it took an election to change their minds, and if that isn't the rock bottom of moral bankruptcy I don't know what is.
These people are supposed to be leaders?
Well, its good that they waited until global weather patterns have become totally unhinged to stop their lying ways, and start trying to evade any responsibility for cleaning up the mess. If it took this far for them to admit that the problem is real, at what point will they start to realistically address solving it? Will that be before or after the end of life on this planet as we know it? (My bet is after)
I imagine what this is really all about is to kickstart a new campaign, namely that carbon sequestration is the only solution to our problems, and the US govt should pay us tons of money to start working on it.
As I see it, the three serious players in solving this problem (I personally don't believe it will be solved, but bear with me) are
- nuclear
- biofuels
- sequestration
(Yeah, yeah, I have forgotten your favorite scheme of wind, tidal power, solar based on new magic technology no-one knows about except you, fusion, prayer and so on; this post is about actual solutions as opposed to things you do to show you are part of the right team but which, realistically over the next thirty years aren't going to be at best [for wind] more than 10% of the solution. The only realistic solution that is not in these three I've listed is some sort of massive die-off of the human population and while I personally think this is a great idea, it generally isn't that popular and is unlikely to be sponsored by most governments.)
All three of these, of course, present most tempting boondoggle targets. A flexible company (BP for example) could easily get into all three. But Exxon seems to have some sort of pathological aversion to flexibility, which make me think the only one of these three that really appeals to them is sequestration (which is basically business as usual plus this one side addition). This meshes just fine with Bush's mindset, of course.
If this crew had any sense, they'd be working day and night to get sequestration so aggressively into the US psyche that they next (presumably Dem) administration couldn't back us out. I suspect that they're just cottoning on to the fact that they've probably left it too late, that two years and a Dem congress isn't going to get them there, but they'll do what they can while they can.
When Exxon jumps, Bush jumps..
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1990071,00.html
Maynard, I can't see BP making a big push into nuclear -- that's going to be GE, Toshiba, and a couple of European and South African companies -- but they've already become a major player in wind generation, and I suspect biofuels might well be next. Browne's discovery of anthropocentric climate change turned out to be not just morally correct but well-timed for business reasons. This isn't at all surprising to me, although it probably is for some in the executive suite at Exxon.
Comments closed January 28, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
This post is calling out for a picture of greedy oil man or some such.
Posted by otto | January 14, 2007 1:54 PM