Major corporations seek green image on climate policy but fund coal lobby front group

[RedEarth]

Posted on Friday, February 22, 2008


Major U.S. corporations that are part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which has called for strong legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, also have funded a coal-industry front organization that is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to undermine support for such legislation. The front group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, has sponsored CNN presidential candidate debates at which no questions were asked about global warming. Corporate greenwashing? Media sellout?



Business Week reported this story on February 20: “Green—Up to a Point—Despite their eco-rhetoric, some USCAP members are supporting efforts to undermine restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions.” The article leads with:

When 10 of the largest U.S. corporations and four environmental groups joined forces last January to lobby for federal regulations to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions, it was seen as a watershed in corporate environmentalism. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), comprising 27 companies from General Electric (GE) to General Motors (GM), won praise from enviros by endorsing cuts—10% to 30% of heat-trapping emissions within 15 years and 60% to 80% by 2050—to avert some of the severest consequences of global warming.

Behind the scenes, however, several companies that belong to USCAP are simultaneously supporting efforts and organizations that oppose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases or promote policies that would make the USCAP reductions nearly impossible to meet....

Quoted in the article:


Frank O’Donnell, president of Washington-based Clean Air Watch: “Many of these companies want the image of being green but are putting their money on the other side of the issue.”

Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s coal program: “If you’re serious about stopping climate change, you don’t dig the hole deeper by building new coal-fired power plants.”

“How much longer will USCAP’s true believers allow some members to play both sides? ‘We don’t want to give members a free pass,’ says David Hawkins, director of the climate center at Natural Resources Defense Council, which belongs to USCAP: ‘We do expect them to exert pressure on other organizations.’”

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership Web site describes the partnership as follows:


United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) is a group of businesses and leading environmental organizations that have come together to call on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. USCAP has issued a landmark set of principles and recommendations to underscore the urgent need for a policy framework on climate change.

Source Watch has this on Amercians for Balanced Energy Choices:


Formed in 2000 to develop astroturf support for coal-based electricity, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) promotes the interests of mining companies, coal transporters, and electricity producers. A domain name search reveals that ABEC’s website is registered to the coal industry trade organization Center for Energy and Economic Development.

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/uscap_abec/

[Donnachaidh]

1. yet more *watch the shiny keys over here* while we

continue doing the dirtying up of the planet over HERE. Every time I see a *We're GREEN* advert I want to throw a shoe at the TV set.

[physioex]

2. It's time we took things in our hands.....

I hope more people do this but I pay a little more to purchase wind power.

[Kolesar]

3. The article is implying that GE and GM are funding the coalies and that's BULLSHIT

Borderline slander

[Nihil]

4. Maybe because that's the truth (as far as GE is concerned anyway)

> GE says it agrees with CEED that coal must play a key role in the
> future energy mix and that it is pursuing ways to burn coal more cleanly.

Sounds like GE are "funding the coalies" in their own words.

I'm sure that it if really was libel (=written rather than slander=spoken)
then GE's division of lawyers would be salivating.

I will concede that there was no reference tying GM to the coalies but,
given their ties with other parts of the fossil fuel industry, it is hardly
beyond the bounds of suspicion ...

:shrug:

[Kolesar]

5. Still no proof ... eom

[Nihil]

6. GE admitting that they do it *is* pretty good proof (i.e., not "bullshit") ...

They do it. They admit they do it. What's your problem with accepting that?
:shrug:

[Kolesar]

7. It does not say that in the article..eom

[Nihil]

8. Last try

The OP link is to a news digest so you have to follow the link in the
referenced excerpt to get to the full article (in Business Week) ...

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_09/b4073000596425.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story


Fourth paragraph starts:
> GE says it agrees with CEED that coal must play a key role in the future
> energy mix and that it is pursuing ways to burn coal more cleanly.

i.e., the bit I quoted upthread.

QED

(Edited to remove snark in case you were honestly confused rather than just
blindly defending GE.)

[Kolesar]

9. GE says it agrees with CEED that coal must play a key role in the future energy mix and ...

... "that it is pursuing ways to burn coal more cleanly. "

They presume that they can make CO2 sequestration work. I hope they can too, otherwise there will be absolutely no way to keep the grid going.

This is the problem with the issue. The writers don't know the topic:

Ben Elgin is a correspondent for BusinessWeek in the San Mateo (Calif.) bureau, a position he assumed in September, 2000. Elgin covers Internet companies. Before BusinessWeek, Elgin was a senior editor and features editor at Sm@rt Reseller magazine. He was also an associate editor for ZDNet. Elgin is a graduate of the University of California at San Diego.

[Nihil]

10. Finally!

:toast:

> They presume that they can make CO2 sequestration work.

I wasn't arguing whether they were hiding behind the "clean coal"
facade or just being overt about continuing to burn coal, just the
fact that they are continuing to transfer money to the coal industry.

> I hope they can too, otherwise there will be absolutely no way
> to keep the grid going.

You are more optimistic than I.
I think that they will continue to "keep the grid going" without any
care about the effect on the environment, just as long as the consumers
money keeps coming into their pocket (with a cut going out to their
good friends, the coal industry, as always).

:shrug:

Sadly, I doubt that Ben Elgin is any worse than most newspaper journalists
that create articles posted here (i.e., excluding the stuff from Science,
Nature, New Scientist, and maybe a few others) but YMMV.