Yes, people really are getting the message about greenwashing and, at least for the moment, some of it is being stamped down upon. I highlighted an appalling advertisement by Lexus in March 2008, which had been banned for claiming “High performance, Low emissions, Zero guilt”. Lexus subsequently toned down their adverts, but still implied that driving one was environmentally acceptable.

The full story is told in The Guardian:

A national press advertising campaign for a Lexus hybrid four-wheel drive car has been banned after it claimed it was “perfect for today’s climate”.

Viewers complained that the ad misleadingly implied that it caused “little or no harm” to the environment.

The press ad, for the Lexus RX 400h, made the claim: “perfect for today’s climate. (And tomorrow’s) … Driving the world’s first luxury hybrid SUV makes environmental, and economic, sense …”

Four complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Authority that the claims were misleading because “they implied that the car caused little or no harm to the environment and gave a misleading impression of the car’s CO2 emissions in comparison with other vehicles”.

Lexus said that the use of the word “climate” in the ad was meant to operate at “two levels”.

One was that in the current economic market the Lexus was offered with attractive financial packages, the other that hybrid cars were more environmentally friendly.

Lexus said that it did not claim that the vehicle caused “little or no harm” to the environment, just that it was more environmentally friendly than standard premium SUV vehicles.

But the ASA said the ad implied that the vehicle’s emission rate was low in relation to all vehicles and that readers were likely to understand that “the car caused little or no harm to the environment”.

The watchdog concluded that the ads were likely to mislead and banned the ads.

Lexus said it amended the copy after receiving the complaints.

If it only takes 4 complaints to get an advert banned, it must mean the ASA are getting pretty strict on greenwashing. If only this were the case in the rest of the world.

I’ve been getting some really transparent, awfully sad examples of greenwash lately, which suggests that the bandwagon is full and those that didn’t jump on in time are running after it in desperation. The big boys like BP, Ford, Exxon and DuPont have greenwashing off to a fine art, which is why articles like How To Spot Greenwash are so popular – people suspect and just want to check.

On the other hand, it’s very amusing to see the pathetic examples I’m sent, if only because it gives me a chance to knock their press release back into their faces with interest. Here’s a really awful one I got only today…

GO GREEN TO MANHATTAN WITH NEW YORK OVERNIGHT

New Transcontinental Package Service Pledges Carbon Offsets;

Outperforms Majors on Price, Offers LATE Pickups

www.nyovernight.com

Los Angeles, CA, September 17th, 2008 — New York Overnight today announces a new green shipping service!! Entertainment and production industry moguls have always enjoyed the best airline service from Los Angeles to New York. However, these valuable customers’ overnight deliveries still get the same old treatment from traditional shippers such as FedEx and UPS while their fuel surcharges have gone sky-high. A new yet experienced player promises to change the landscape of overnight delivery: New York Overnight. New York Overnight combines value, convenience and–in a first for the industry-a greener footprint as well with carbon-neutral, 100% offset emissions.

New York Overnight, through an agreement with industry-leading Climate Clean, whose clients include Nike, Veev and the Environmental Media Association [must look them up – Ed.], is now offsetting 100% of the emissions for its Los Angeles-New York to Los Angeles shipments.

Of course, overnight shipping with a conscience doesn’t come cheap. It comes cheaper–MUCH cheaper. In fact, a one-pound package shipped from Los Angeles to New York via New York Overnight cost only $14.21 while FedEx charges $42.31 (with a 20% discount) and UPS charges $43.66 (with a 20% discount). That’s a 67% savings over its two biggest competitors. Further, New York Overnight will guarantee their Los Angeles-New York prices for at least one year.

Finally, while other shippers’ customers engage in the daily scramble to make deadlines, or worse, make it to the airport, New York Overnight makes office pickups as late as 7:00PM.

“We’re pleased to enhance our service offering with carbon neutrality,” says New York Overnight founder, Inna Waary. “Our clients in the entertainment, banking, apparel and pharmaceuticals industries have long relied on us. We’ve built a reputation for quality, service value and above all, complete reliability. Now we can offer a little something extra-a contribution to our future. That doesn’t come overnight-it comes over a lifetime.”

Hilary Morse * PMG
8265 Sunset, Suite 106 * Los Angeles CA 90046
W) 323 337 9042 * C) 310 717 9592

My response was short and to the point…

Alternatively, Hilary, you could just stop being in one of the most polluting industries in the world that has built up expectations of the possibility of ultra-quick delivery and ended up having no alternative but to offset (for all the good that is). If Americans didn’t expect to be able to get goods from one side of the country to another overnight then they would be able to use overland transport – preferably rail, a mode of transport that has been killed off by the air industry. As it is, you are trying to greenwash us with something that isn’t even necessary to greenwash; just do it a different way.

Keith Farnish
www.unsuitablog.com

As we all know, offsetting was only invented to allow the consumer culture to carry on as normal, with less guilt. Of course, the lack of guilt is an illusion – like everything else in the Culture Of Maximum Harm – you should feel guilty if you want to get a parcel from LA to New York overnight! They are not talking about replacement kidneys here, they are talking about DVDs, sneakers, advertising proofs and all that really important (ha!) stuff.

Get a grip people!

Everyone loves carbon offsetting, don’t they? The environmental campaigner trying to green their lifestyle; the holiday maker cancelling out their flight emissions; the large corporation pretending that it is dramatically cutting its emissions…offset and the atmosphere is your oyster — everyone’s happy!

I’m kidding, of course.

Carbon offsetting is, well I don’t need to tell you what happens if you have a storage problem in your house and you build a big shed — it fills with crap, doesn’t it? If you’re producing thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide the metaphorical “shed” is a mixture of all the nice projects you’re sponsoring to build wind turbines, plant trees, send energy saving lightbulbs to the poor people and maybe throw a few tonnes of carbon dioxide underground for good measure. But it can’t happen properly unless you have some standards, and a nice catchy name, and a serious logo…as long as you are still running the show.

The Voluntary Carbon Standard is big industry’s answer to the age-old problem of keeping the economy growing by shifting the problem elsewhere. Short of bagging up all the CO2 thrown out by manufacturers, energy producers, deforesters, miners and countless other greenhouse gas producing activities, the VCS has allowed corporations to throw a massive cloak over their activities, all garnished with some lovely official ribbon:

“The Voluntary Carbon Standard Program (VCS Program) includes the standard (VCS 2007) and the Program Guidelines 2007. VCS Version 1 (v1) was released on 28 March 2006. VCS Version 2 (v2) was released on 16 October 2006 as a consultation document and did not replace VCS v1 as the applicable standard for project developers and validators and verifiers. The VCS v2 consultation document has been withdrawn. This is the VCS 2007 that replaces VCS v1 as the applicable standard. Additional guidance related to the VCS 2007 is included in the Program Guidelines 2007.”

That little snippet from http://www.v-c-s.org/docs/VCS%202007.pdf all sounds very formal and above board, and that’s because the companies involved in creating the documents do this kind of thing all the time in audits, accounts, projects and so on. As long as they stick to standards, no one can accuse them of trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

But that sort of misses the point entirely. VCS is about offsets, not reducing emissions.

VCS was set up by The Climate Group (I mentioned their work here) and another “Astroturf” known as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which I will attack fervently in a future post, along with IETA, who basically provide the tools so that businesses can trade carbon (i.e. spend their way out of guilt).

It gets even more sinister when you look at the people who put the standards together:

The VCS Steering Committee volunteered long weeks of their company and personal time over a two year period to develop the VCS. The following people participated on the Committee:

* Jan-Willem Bode, Ecofys
* Derik Broekhoff, World Resources Institute
* Mike Burnett, Climate Trust
* Robert Dornau, SGS
* Steve Drummond, CantorCO2e
* Mitchell Feierstein, Cheyne Capital
* Yoshito Izumi (Observer), Taiheiyo Cement
* Mark Kenber, The Climate Group (co-chair)
* Adam Kirkman, WBCSD
* Andrei Marcu, International Emissions Trading Association (co-chair)
* Erin Meezan, Interface
* Ken Newcombe, Goldman Sachs
* Mark Proegler, BP
* Robert Routliffe, Invista
* Richard Samans, World Economic Forum
* Marc Stuart, Ecosecurities
* Einar Telnes, DNV
* Bill Townsend, Blue Source
* Diane Wittenberg, Californian Climate Action Registry

Just to the take the first 5 in the list (it’s in alphabetical order, and there’s no way of telling how much each person contributed):

Ecofys

Business sector energy advisors

World Resources Institute

Think tank that promotes economic growth as a “solution” to climate change

Climate Trust

Large scale offsets seller

SGS

Business certification consultancy

CantorCO2e

Emissions trading platform provider

Can you see a pattern emerging here. Try looking at the others in the list, too: it’s all about business as usual, and we’re not fooled.

For more information on the folly of offsets, go to http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/10/19/selling-indulgences/

Incredible, a nation acting in the best interests of the planet. Ok, it’s Norway, and they do have lots of gas and oil, but even so, a snub of this magnitude deserves to be highlighted, especially when it involves one of the most destructive corporations on Earth:

The Norwegian government has launched an unprecedented attack on the UK mining giant Rio Tinto, selling a £500m holding in the company after accusing it of “grossly unethical conduct” relating to environmental damage.

The Norwegian Ministry of Finance released a statement yesterday saying it had “decided to exclude the company Rio Tinto from the Government Pension Fund – Global, due to a risk of contributing to severe environmental damage”.

The government has blocked its $375bn (£213bn) sovereign wealth fund, known worldwide as its “oil fund”, from investing in Rio over its mining operations in Indonesia, in a move that could drive other investors to review their holdings in the group.

(from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ethical-investors-attack-rio-tinto-924661.html)

The bloody struggle between native West Papuans whose land was stolen from them by the Indonesian government in the 1960s has been well documented, and it is such a stark example of corporate / government injustice that I made a point of highlighting it in A Matter Of Scale:

The tribal people of West Papua live in a manner that is entirely alien to most of modern humanity. According to Bernard Nietschmann: “The people of West Papua are different in all respects from their rulers in [Indonesia]: language, religions, identity, histories, systems of land ownership and resource use, cultures and allegiance.” Imagine, for a moment, living in such a way that you had no concept of outside rules, beliefs and culture; when, suddenly, the land you have nurtured for centuries with delicate care is ripped away from you to be handed to a corporation intent on mining it for metals, leaving the land in tatters and thousands of tonnes of toxic spoil leaching poison into the ground. This is precisely what happened in the years following 1967 under the despotic leadership of President Suharto of Indonesia (who also forcibly took control of the country following a military coup in 1965). Two large mining companies from “democratic” nations; Freeport, based in the USA, and Rio Tinto Zinc, a UK / Australian conglomerate; were handed the mineral rights for a large part of West Papua in return for generous donations to the Suharto regime. Despite Suharto’s bloodthirsty behaviour across his empire, including responsibility for the slaughter of half a million Indonesians in 1965, the CEO of Freeport, James Roberts, called Suharto, “a compassionate man.”

The native West Papuans have never had the land returned to them, primarily because there is no profit to be made in giving a peaceful, nature respecting people stewardship of a region under which there are rich mineral resources to be plundered.

Now go back to the article in The Independent, and read the responses of the Rio Tinto PR machine:

A Rio spokesman said the company felt “surprise and disappointment” at the decision, adding it had come out of the blue after the company had held meetings with the ministry.

Rio countered the claims [of the Norwegian government] in a written statement to the government that it “maintains the highest environmental standards at all its operations wherever they are located, and it contributes technical support to its joint venture partners to ensure that the most appropriate solutions are identified and implemented”.

No mention of human rights abuses, of course — they are totally undefendable — and the “highest environmental standards” must be referring to the industry’s own definition, in which case this is a combination of both an absurd reframing of what environmental protection means, and a phenomenally large pile of greenwash.

Norway, for today The Unsuitablog salutes you!

I feel like a cyclist with my mouth open sometimes — keep moving forwards and the flies will just pop in from time to time. Some of those flies will be big and nasty…like this one I received from a PR company this morning:

Hello Keith,

One of the ironies of the modern era is that computers haven’t helped us to use less paper. Instead we are using vastly more than ever before. This is absolute disaster for the environment. One fifth of all wood harvested ends up as paper. Pulp and paper is the fifth largest consumer of energy and in the US paper accounts for 40 percent of all solid waste.

So why do computers cause us to use so much paper?

To be sure it’s easy to print documents out and paper is portable. Another major reason is that we are still using antiquated paper and pen to sign and execute contracts. DocuSign is helping to change that with its end-to-end contract execution service that lets companies process and sign documents on the Web.

Now Fidelity Investments has jumped on board with DocuSign and will be rolling out the company’s e-signature and electronic contract execution services to thousands of independent advisors. Not only does this save time and money for the advisors while improving security, it also greatly reduces the need to print, fax and use overnight delivery services to hand-deliver documents. Instead, documents are sent, signed and processed over the Web.

We see Fidelity’s adoption of e-signatures as a major advancement in the way that financial institutions work and a sign that there is a greener future ahead. Can I arrange for you to speak with executives from Fidelity Investments and DocuSign, as well as a customer, to give you their impression of how this service works industry works.

Please let me know if you have questions or need more information.

Brian Edwards
McKenzie Worldwide PR
(503) 863-2002
briane@mckenzieworldwide.com

Well, of course I’m going to speak to a load of corporate executives and give them some free advertising — after all that’s what The Unsuitablog does all the time, isn’t it? How stupid does a person have to be to send such an e-mail to this web site? I suppose as stupid as they have to be to think that people are going believe a company like Fidelity Investments actually care about the planet.

Let’s take a look at the kind of investments this new, ethical Fidelity are offering today…

Powershares Aerospace & Defense Portfolio

The top ten holdings of this investment fund which focusses on the tools of war are as follows:

Honeywell International, Inc. (“defence” technology manufacture)
Lockheed Martin Corporation (primary arms manufacture)
Boeing Company (“defense” airplane manufacture)
United Technologies (“defense” airplane manufacture)
General Dynamics (“defense” shipping manufacture)
Raytheon Company (primary arms manufacture)
Northrop Grumman Corporation (primary arms manufacture)
ITT Corporation (“defence” technology manufacture)
Textron, Inc. (“defence” equipment manufacture)
L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. (“defence” technology manufacture)

Claymore/SWM Canadian Energy Income

Primarily invests in oil sands (the most polluting form of energy) and other heavily polluting energies. Top ten are:

Oilsands Quest, Inc. (oil sands)
Canadian Oil Sands Trust Trust Unit (oil sands)
Penn West Energy Trust Trust Unit (oil and gas)
Suncor Energy, Inc. (oil and gas)
Baytex Energy Trust Trust Unit (oil sands)
Imperial Oil (oil sands)
OPTI Canada Inc. (oil sands)
UTS Energy Corp (oil sands)
Enerplus Resources Fund Trust Unit (oil and gas)
Canadian Natural Resources, Ltd. (oil sands)

Market Vectors Global Agribusiness ETF

This is a big one – $1.6billion worth, in companies resposible for changing the way nature works or just destroying it. Top ten are:

Syngenta AG ADR (GMOs)
Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Inc. (fertilizer mining)
Deere & Company (deforestation)
The Mosaic Company (fertilizer mining)
Monsanto Company (GMOs)
Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (GM soybean processing)
Wilmar International Ltd (palm oil production)
IOI (palm oil production)
Yara Int’l (fertilizer manufacturer)
Agrium, Inc. (fertilizer supplier)

This is just a small sample of the kinds of products you can buy from Fidelity — the company that are promising “a greener future ahead” — out of many more that contain every awful company that you can imagine. In short, Fidelity offer investments in all of the least ethical companies on Earth, and by implication that makes Fidelity a completely unethical company, and thus by further implication, by linking themselves in a press release with Fidelity, that makes Docusign a completely unethical company as well. And finally, by sending out this e-mail, supporting both Fidelity and Docusign, that makes the company who sent it to me — McKenzie Worldwide PR — a completely unethical company too.

(Oh, and by the way, the reason companies use so much paper is to churn out endless amounts of crap telling us why we need them…)

Children should get out more; they need to discover the world for themselves, connect with this world and understand that life does not exist in a bubble of technology or commerce. In fact, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 31 states:

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

Pretty unequivocal. In the UK (for this is the focus of this article), a charity called Playday, also have this to say:

– All children need opportunities to take their own risks when playing; they need and want challenge, excitement and uncertainty in play.
– Through play, children can learn how to manage challenge and risk for themselves in everyday situations.
– Opportunities for children to take risks while playing are reducing, as increasingly health and safety considerations are impacting on children’s play.
– Adults should provide for children and young people to have adventurous play opportunities.

Which reinforces the UN Convention in a very positive way. In short, children should be playing as much as possible, without interference.

Interestingly, Article 32 of the UN Convention says the following:

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

For a while now Persil, or rather the manufacturer of this detergent, Unilever, have been running a campaign called “Dirt Is Good”, the implication being that it doesn’t matter how much mess kids get into, it’s all part of being a child. Of course, by running a campaign that links such a positive message with what is — if we are being perfectly honest here — a bunch of cleaning chemicals, Unilever get big kudos for their positive attitude but, more importantly for them, get big sales.

Is this child exploitation? According to the UN Convention Article 32 any such exploitation would be completely unacceptable — and while this is bread and butter to a huge corporation, a charity like Playday really should know better than to let commercial interests get in the way of good clean fun.

Then there is this list…

Pentasodium Triphosphate Builder
Sodium Silicoaluminate Builder
Sodium Carbonate Peroxide Oxidising Agent
Sodium Dodecylbenzenesulfonate Surfactant
Aqua Bulking Agent
Sodium Carbonate Buffering Agent
C12-15 Pareth-7 Surfactant
Sodium Acetate Tablet Disintegrant
Tetraacetyl Ethylene Diamine Oxidising Agent
Sodium Silicate Builder
Sodium Sulfate Bulking Agent
Sodium Stearate Surfactant
Ethylene Diamine Tetra Methylene Phosphonic Acid Ca/Na salt Sequestrant
Maize Starch Bulking Agent
Parfum Fragrance
Citric Acid Builder
Cellulose Gum Anti-redeposition Agent
Dimorpholinopyridazinone Optical Brightener
PVP Dye Transfer Inhibitor
Sodium Acrylic Acid/MA Copolymer Structurant
Simethicone Antifoaming Agent
Sodium Chloride Bulking Agent
Sodium Bentonite Softness Extender
Sodium Polyacrylate Structurant
Glyceryl Stearate Emulsifier
Protease Enzyme
Sodium Polyaryl Sulfonate Surfactant
Amylase Enzyme
Lipase Enzyme
CI 74160 Colourant

That is the full ingredient list for the best selling form of Persil, the biological liquid. I’m not going to go into the chemistry of this list, but it would be fair to say that to blindly go into a trusting relationship with this product, containing all of these substances — whether as a parent, charity or most importantly, a child who usually has no choice over what their clothes are washed in and what substances pour into the waste water system and eventually into rivers, lakes and seas — is pure folly.

Persil is a commercial product; it exists to make money for business. Never forget that.

I’m really, really sorry. I had no idea at all that I was living a terrible life, but it took those folks at BP to pull me back into the real world. According to their Greencurve there’s so much more I could be doing to make my life greener. Look at the graph (sorry “curve”) above and you can see I’m nowhere near “Aspire!” — whatever that means. I must be re-educated by BP.

Here’s what they say I should do to be greener (and my feelings):

“Try to travel when other people aren’t. This keeps you from wasting gas starting and stopping and can cut down your energy use considerably.”

(But I almost never drive — there was no option for going everywhere by foot, bus or train.)

“Wash your car at a car wash. 85% of car washes’ water is reclaimed and their systems are much more efficient than ours.”

(I never wash my car; the rain does it for me. It uses no energy and wastes no water.)

“For outdoor lighting, use solar. It’s easier to find than you might think (on most home and garden furnishings websites, do a search for “solar lighting”)”

(But…but…I don’t have any lights in my garden.)

“Start a recycling program in your neighborhood, local community center or school — anywhere a lot of paper is used.”

(Please sir, my council already do collect my recycling, and I don’t produce much waste anyway. And what about everything apart from paper?)

Gosh, how castigated I am feeling.

This is what is known as “conchoice” — consumer choice with the emphasis on the “con”. As I write in A Matter Of Scale:

Consumer choice would be far better entitled “Conchoice”, a term describing the true level of choice that individuals are provided with, should they find themselves within the consumer culture. Benjamin R. Barber puts it like this: “The apparent widening of individual consumer choices actually shrinks the field of social choices…For example, the American’s freedom to choose among scores of automobile brands was secured by sacrificing the liberty to choose between private and public transportation. This politics of commodity…offers the feel of freedom while diminishing the range of options and the power to affect the larger world.” The individual is being conned: there is no choice.

Look at the way you are currently living: you can “choose” between plasma, LCD, cathode ray tube or Internet TV, but not having a television is inconceivable to most people in the consumer culture; you can “choose” between shopping at Walmart, Aldi, Tesco, Carrefour or any other supermarket, but not using a supermarket is impossible for hundreds of millions of people who need to buy food and have no way of growing it themselves.

How much of your life was simply picked off the shelves of the Conchoice Mall, and how much of it came out of a conscious decision to live in that particular way?

I recommend you try out the Greencurve yourself, and have a think about the “choices” BP are presenting to you. This is not BP’s world, it is your world, and you can make your own choices, regardless of what a polluting oil giant might think. Tell them where to stick their “Greencurve”.

A few years ago, before I had hit the “green curve” (as BP like to call it — more of that in another post) I bought a dishwasher. I still have one — not the same one, which eventually broke down irreparably, but an identical model which someone else was throwing out — and because my hot water doesn’t come from renewables yet, but my electricity does, we still use it. It’s a Bosch, an “AA” rated one, which means it doesn’t use much electricity or water. But (big but) we don’t actually produce a lot of washing up compared to the average family; we reduce the need to wash before actually washing. That’s just common sense.

When Bosch — who, quite frankly, exist solely to sell appliances — come out with an advert entitled “Planet savers” (note my annotation in the picture, being rather cross when I read it) I have to be very suspicious indeed. The implication is that their products are actually saving the planet. Forget the fact that you might have no washing up at all to do, or you boiled your washing up water on a wood stove — if you buy a Bosch product then you are SAVING THE PLANET!

Does that seem a little disingenuous on behalf of the planet to you? Like all “techno fixes”, when you imply technology has a critical part to play in the restoration of the Earth’s natural systems and habitats to their previous state, you are effectively saying that nature can’t do things well enough on its own. That is certainly true when bombarded with pollutants and greed-driven destruction; but remember that the pollutants and greed-driven destruction are the result of human (more accurately, Civilized Human) agency. Nature doesn’t need technology — commerce and growth needs technology.

It gets worse, though. You might not be able to read the small print at the bottom of the advert, so here it is, with the original emphasis shown:

“Trust your instincts. Bosch manufacture some of the most energy and water efficient appliances available. Where possible we use materials labelled for environmental recycling and because we believe product performance need not be compromised to embrace the planet we live on, they are designed to give you the best results every time. To discover more and a chance to win a trip to Florida including a live space shuttle launch and other Disney themed prizes, visit WALL.E at www.boschappliances.co.uk/wall.e”

Words fail me. I only have so much tolerance for bullsh*t.

I may have covered this before but excuse me while I spit a few more feathers at watching this 30 second advert again.

“I guess it is easy being green!”

Absolutely — tell corporations you don’t need their global sickness in order to lead a good life.

(And what the hell is that metal monster doing on top of a beautiful mountain?)

Corporations, basically, run the world: what they do influences billions of people, not just in terms of the environmental impact of their activities, but in making people think that the corporate way is the best way. It’s not quite that simple — corporations are an intrinsic part of the greater cultural behemoth that is known as Industrial Civilization; they are the engines that consume the resources and the humans that are too easily taken in by their lies — and the people who say “yes” to the corporations become part of that machine, and as responsible for the ills of the Earth as anyone else.

But, corporations are still the engines, and when they say, “Do it!” then it happens. When they say they are going to set greenhouse gas targets, then they will get what they want, on their own terms, because you trust them.

A coalition of 99 companies is asking political leaders to set targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and to establish a global carbon market.

The business leaders hope their ideas will feed through the G8 into the series of UN climate meetings that are aiming to produce a successor to the Kyoto Protocol when its current targets expire in 2012.

(from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7464517.stm)

Have you seen the list of companies, and their demands? Why not read it for yourself.

This is the crux of the policy:

The framework should respect the prerogative of national governments to employ the domestic policies best suited to their own national circumstances. It should encourage all clean technology options to be considered. It should be pragmatic and focus on the most cost-effective emissions abatement possibilities in the short run, particularly in energy efficiency and forest conservation. It should stimulate the international market for products and services that can help the economy adapt to those impacts of climate change that now cannot be avoided. It should be designed as a fair and flexible, international policy framework that can evolve and grow in the long run, stimulating ever wider and more meaningful participation by countries and industries.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the way that the real imperative to remove the sources of anthropogenic global warming and let the Earth return to a state by which it can heal itself has been thrown out in place of lily-livered demands to stimulate product demand and carry on business as usual in every way possible. Screw dealing with the cause of the problem; let’s make a whole new economy out of it!

The devil is in the detail, and the detail is very interesting…

– All major economies, including developing ones such as China and India, should be included in the post-Kyoto deal, with richer countries committing to deeper and earlier emissions reduction. (The nice, logical lead-in)

– Governments should aspire to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (Less than even the IPCC are demanding, and it’s only an “aspiration”)

– Governments and businesses should urgently explore bottom-up approaches to reducing emissions (Meaning what, exactly?)

– A global carbon trading system should be established as soon as possible (This is the real target! Corporation love trading energy. This is a massive get out from action.)

– Emissions caps should be applied flexibly across industry, with some sectors allowed leeway to preserve competitiveness. (What! So what exactly is the global economy competing with? This is a massive get out as well.)

But it’s no surprise when you read the names of the corporations on the Steering Board:

Alain J. P. Belda, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Alcoa, USA (Metals)
Martin J. Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer, American International Group (AIG), USA (Finance)
Michael R. Splinter, President and Chief Executive Officer, Applied Materials, USA (Manufacturing)
Oleg V. Deripaska, Chairman, Supervisory Board, Basic Element Company, Russian Federation (Energy, Metals, Construction, Aviation)
Willie Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, British Airways Plc, United Kingdom (Aviation)
Josef Ackermann, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank AG, Germany (Finance)
James E. Rogers, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Duke Energy Corporation, USA (Energy Generation)
Pierre Gadonneix, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Electricité de France, France (Energy Generation)
Phirwa Jacob Maroga, Chief Executive, Eskom, South Africa (Energy Generation)
Vyatcheslav Sinyugin, Chief Executive Officer, JCS RusHydro, Russian Federation (Energy Generation)
José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras, Brazil (Oil)
Jeroen Van der Veer, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Netherlands (Oil)
Solomon D. Trujillo, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra Corporation, Australia (Telecommunications)
Peter Bakker, Chief Executive Officer, TNT NV, Netherlands (Global Distribution)
Tsunehisa Katsumata, President, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan (Energy Generation)
Lars G. Josefsson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vattenfall AB, Sweden (Energy Generation)

All but two of these companies have a huge amount to gain from carbon trading, but most importantly, they are setting the agenda before anyone else gets a look in. As I said, the corporations always get what they want, and this will be no exception.

It’s a good thing we can see through it all, and are doing our best to bring down Industrial Civilization: aren’t we?