The case against ESSO - EXXON

The Stop Esso campaign 12apr01

ExxonMobil, the biggest (oil company), is also the world's most powerful climate change sceptic.
If the world's biggest purveyor of fossil fuels ever accepts openly that global warming is real, that
may turn out to be more important to the planet than any Kyoto deal.
The Economist, December 2000

We know we have a giant target painted on our chests.
- Ken Cohen, Esso's head of government relations and public affairs in the US,
The Guardian, 17 April 2001

Our weather is careering out of control. Global warming will bring more floods and chaos to Britain and increasingly extreme storms, drought and disease worldwide. The culprit is pollution from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. It is time to break our dependency on oil - if we don't we will wreck the planet for ourselves and future generations.

Esso are fuelling climate catastrophe. Rather than working to provide people with clean energy, Esso continue their reckless search for more oil - Esso are even lobbying for access to the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. More oil simply means more floods, storms, drought and disease. And more profit for Esso.

Esso continue to deny the link between their business and global warming, and use their power and dollars to derail international negotiations on action to save the climate.

What makes Esso worse than the rest?

1. They are the power behind Bush's throne

Esso gave $1,086,080 to the Republicans last year - more than any other oil company. 91 % of their political donations went to the Republicans. As soon as George Bush became president, he said that the United States would pull out of international agreements to stop global warming - exactly the policy that Esso were promoting.

2. They have been the most active company undermining Kyoto - and have supported corporate lobbying organisations to do the same

Esso use their wealth and power to stop any international action on climate change. Esso ran an advertising campaign in the US press condemning the Kyoto Protocol and lobbied Bush to pull out of the UN climate negotiations. Esso also fund multi-million dollar propaganda fronts to dismiss the case for action to protect the climate. Using tactics perfected by tobacco companies, these campaigns confuse the public and policy makers about global warming and sap the political will to address it.

Recent Public Statements

Two days before President Bush's inauguration, Esso published an Op Ed in the US press outlining their recommendations for "An Energy Policy for the New Administration" stating that "the unrealistic and economically damaging Kyoto process needs to be rethought." 2. Another recent advertisement declared that "the Kyoto Protocol approach would be a serious mistake." 3

Global Climate Coalition (GCC)

For years, Esso supported the GCC, the industry front-group that took a lead role in undermining initiatives to solve global warming and continues to lobby against climate protection (its website proclaims "Good Riddance Kyoto").

Esso are no longer members of the GCC, but not by choice. Taking the lead from BP, who left in 1997 after admitting that climate change required action, large-scale defection of companies such as Ford, Texaco and General Motors occurred in 1999-2000. Esso, however, refused to leave. The GCC decided that only trade associations would be suitable for membership, and finished off its corporate programme. 4

American Petroleum Institute (API)

Esso are financial supporters and sit on the board of the API. Lee Raymond - chief executive of Esso - was the chair from 1995 to 1997. In 1998, Esso helped plan a $7 million API PR offensive to undermine scientific consensus on the threat of climate change. The plan stated that "victory will be achieved when those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality." Among other tactics, API planned to recruit and train "independent scientists" without any track record of participation in the climate debate to undertake media work against established climate science and the Kyoto Protocol. 5

US Council for International Business (USCIB)

Esso are members of USCIB, a corporate lobby group that actively support the Bush Administration's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. The USCIB wrote to Bush on 11 April 2001, suggesting that "the US should move quickly to chart a path forward that will avoid the Kyoto Protocol's unrealistic targets, timetables and lack of developing country participation." 6

3. Esso don't care about climate change and continue to deny the link between their business and global warming.

The world is heating up. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world's top scientists, recently confirmed that fossil fuels such as oil are causing global warming. They predict that increasingly extreme weather will put millions of people's lives at risk. Over one hundred and sixty governments agree. Esso are still claiming that: "scientifically unfounded scare scenarios were and continue to be promoted in an effort to justify the (Kyoto) Protocor. 7

Lee Raymond, chief executive of Esso, has said: "We do not now have sufficient scientific understanding of climate change to make reasonable predictions and/or justify drastic measures... Some reports in the media link climate change to extreme weather and harm to human health. Yet experts see no such pattern." $

However, the IPCC predict that: . We will experience more heat waves and floods; in Europe river flooding will increase over much of the continent. . Glaciers and polar ice will continue melting, with a chance that we may lose the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets completely. This could add around six metres to global sea level. . The greatest impacts will be on the world's poorest people in parts of Africa and Asia - those least able to protect themselves from rising sea levels and increased drought and disease. 9

UN and UK government scientists predict that by 2080, 94 million people around the world will be at risk from flooding every year as a result of global warming. 290 million additional people will also be at risk from malaria. 10 By 2025, increasing drought will mean that five billion - or two out of three people - will lack sufficient water and millions more will starve. »

4. Esso have a history of misleading the public and their investors by using selective, outdated or incorrect scientific studies

A scientist who authored the report on temperature data for the Sargasso Sea, which is used by Esso to refute the claim that global warming worldwide was happening, has said "1 think the sad thing is ExxonMobil is exploiting the data for political purposes." 12

Lee Raymond, Esso's CEO, has made his case elsewhere by citing a petition signed by "17,000 scientists" dismissing global warming. The petition had already been discredited, after it was found not to have been organised by climate scientists and to have misled recipients into thinking it came from America's respected National Academy of Sciences, which it did not. Signatories included fictional TV characters. 13

5. Esso don't believe renewable energy has a future

"With no readily available economic alternatives on the horizon, fossil fuels will continue to supply most of the world's energy needs for the forseeable future." 14 - Lee Raymond, chief executive Esso, 1997

Four years on, Denmark gets 10% of its electricity from wind power, set to increase to 50% by 2030. Yet Esso continue to dismiss the potential of renewable energy, suggesting that "non petroleum sources of energy" are merely "fashionable". 15

The company refuse to invest in any renewable energy projects, in contrast to BP and Shell, who will each have invested $500m over the next three years. Instead, Esso are aggressively expanding their oil and gas production, and lobbying for access to search for new oil in pristine areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

6. They are the biggest company in the world

Esso made $17.7 billion (£12 billion) in profits worldwide last year - the biggest ever profit for any company. In the first three months of 2001 they made $5 billion. They are set to spend $7.9 billion this year on oil and gas exploration and production - and not one dollar on renewable energy or green fuels.

Esso operate in 200 countries. They produce 4.5 million barrels of oil and gas each day. Esso are one of the country's largest petrol retailers, with some 1500 filling stations. Around 70% of the population lives within two miles of an Esso petrol station.

Esso choose to wreck the climate. We can choose not to buy Esso's products. Boycott Esso now.

"As a citizen, sometimes direct action is necessary to make a positive contribution to something you care about."
Esso UK website

References

1 Centre for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org

2 Op Ed, 18 January 2001

3 Moving Past Kyoto, Op Ed, 17 April 2001

4 Campaign ExxonMobil, How ExxonMobil is misleading Shareholders, Policy makers and the Public about Global Warming, 2001

5 American Petroleum Institute, Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan, 1997

6 letter from Thomas Niles, President of the USCIB, to President Bush, 11 April 2001

7 Op Ed, 17 April 2001

8 ExxonMobil, Global Climate Change -A Better Path Forward, April 2000

9 Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on Impacts, Adaptaion and Vulnerability, February 2001

10 Climate change and its impacts, DETR, October 1999

11 Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on Impacts, Adaptaion and Vulnerability, February 2001

12 Dr Lloyd Keigwin, December 2000, quoted in How ExxonMobil is misleading Shareholders, Policy makers and the Public about Global Warming, Campaign ExxonMobil, 2001

13 ibid

14 speech at the World Petroleum Congress, Beijing, 13 October 1997

15 Harry J. Longwell, Senior Vice President of ExxonMobil, Spindletop speech, 10 January 2001