Poor ExxonMobil - For Years It's Been "Misunderstood" On Climate Policy - WP

[hatrack]

When it comes to the issue of climate change, Exxon Mobil says it has been misunderstood. "Many people want to stick us in a bucket that says we want to deny this," said the company's vice president for public affairs, Kenneth P. Cohen, during a conference call this week. "That is flat wrong."

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Asked whether the company would favor a cap-and-trade method of limiting greenhouse gases, Cohen said, "The devil's in the details. That's neither a yes nor a no. It's a definite maybe." Exxon Mobil has a lot at stake. According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the carbon dioxide emitted by the end users of all of Exxon Mobil's products is greater than the emissions of all but five countries.

The company has been the poster child of denial among those convinced of global warming. It opposed the Kyoto climate change treaty. In 2001, it pressed the Bush administration to remove an outspoken scientist from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2005, a White House official accused of altering scientific reports to cast more doubt on global warming went to work for the company. The company has also been accused of financing policy groups as surrogates for sowing doubts about the causes of global warming. The Competitive Enterprise Institute received about $2 million over seven years. Cohen said that Exxon's foundation, which he heads, decided in 2005 to cut funding, though that came to light only last fall.

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Exxon's 2006 report on "Tomorrow's Energy" said that "the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere poses risks that may prove significant for society and ecosystems." But on the same page, it said that "gaps in the scientific basis for theoretical climate models and the interplay of significant natural variability make it very difficult to determine objectively the extent to which recent climate change might be the result of human actions." At the annual shareholder meeting last May, the testiest moment came when chief executive Rex W. Tillerson responded to a question about the company's skeptical stance on climate change in the face of a growing scientific consensus. Tillerson said that "scientific consensus" was an "oxymoron."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020902081.html

[blue cat]

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http://exposeexxon.com/movie/