As reporting on Friday suggested that some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies are trying to shed their “bad guy image” ahead of upcoming UN climate talks, a number of environmental and climate campaigners are issuing a quick retort: Do not trust them for a Parisian minute.
“The first step towards getting a meaningful climate agreement is to kick oil companies and other corporate polluters out of the process.”
—Ben Schreiber, Friends of the Earth
Though it contains no U.S. companies, an international group calling itself the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative—which includes BG Group Plc, BP, Eni SpA, Pemex, Reliance Industries Ltd., Repsol SA, Saudi Aramco, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Statoil AG and Total—held a press conference and issued a joint statement on Friday to declare its support for policies that would help world governments meet their agreed goal of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2°C this century.
“Our shared ambition is for a 2 degree C future,” said the CEOs of the companies. “It is a challenge for the whole of society. We are committed to playing our part. Over the coming years we will collectively strengthen our actions and investments to contribute to reducing the GHG intensity of the global energy mix. Our companies will collaborate in a number of areas, with the aim of going beyond the sum of our individual efforts.”
However, as critics were quick to note, the language of the industry coalition was short on details and, in the end, even lacked consensus on what kind of approach these companies are actually willing to endorse.
According to Ben Schreiber, director of the U.S. Climate and Energy Program at Friends of the Earth, people should put little stock into what the world’s most polluting companies are pitching ahead of the COP21 climate talks in Paris that begin at the end November.
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