Few Cheer Oil Giant's Earth Day Award

by Danielle Knight

An international coalition of organizations known as the "Earth Day Network 2000," which includes the World Watch Institute and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), presented the award to the company's chief executive Sir John Brown in the visitor's lobby of the United Nations.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, and Dennis Hayes, chairman of the Network, said Browne had shown "astonishing" leadership in breaking away from other oil industry groups opposing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Before it merged with U.S.-based Amoco, British Petroleum (BP) won the support of several environmental groups when it announced in 1997 that it agreed with scientists that the cause of global warming stems from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released through the burning of fossil fuels, including coal, oil and gas.

BP America also announced it would reduce the company's fossil fuel emissions by 10 percent below 1990 levels -- a commitment that far exceeded the goals set for industrialized countries under the Kyoto treaty.

The company set up an internal system for trading emissions with help from the Environmental Defense Fund and pledged to increase its investment in solar technologies ten-fold, as part of its general strategy to build a new renewable energy market.

"The time to consider climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are a part," Browne said.

Early this month, BP Amoco announced it was investing $45 million to create the world's largest solar company, BP Solarex.

Greenpeace and other groups, however, charged that despite Browne's portrayal of BP Amoco as a leader in solar energy, the company had a far greater investment in fossil fuels -- which emit the heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"As director of BP Amoco, John Browne has created an environmental fantasy of epic proportions," said Gary Cook, a campaigner with Washington-based Greenpeace.

Even after investing in Solarex, nearly all of the corporation's recent investments were in fossil fuels, Cook said.

Solar investments had actually declined to less than 0.1 percent of the overall company portfolio. "For every $10,000 BP Amoco spent on oil exploration and development in 1998, $16 was spent on solar energy." he said.

When the company recently announced its negotiations to acquire California-based ARCO oil company, it stated that the merged company will spend $5 billion in the next five years on exploration and production in oil-rich Alaska.

"BP Amoco spent $100 million -- more than double the investment in Solarex -- on the lawyers and advisors fees for buying ARCO," said Cook. "At this rate, we may soon have to give John Browne another award for his leading role in the remake of "Some Like it Hot."

Adam Kolton of the Washington-based Alaska Wilderness League said that the company is the leading force behind opening up the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge in arctic state of Alaska for oil exploration.

"I think a lot of environmental groups have been misguided," he told IPS. "In some ways BP has been a lot worse than some of the other oil companies."

Cook and Kolton pointed to the $450 million Northstar project -- the first undersea pipeline in the arctic -- to transport oil from offshore to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

The Army Corps of Engineers recently released a eight-volume final environmental impact statement on the project that concluded there would be a one in four chance of a large oil spill at some point in the 15-year lifetime of the project.

A major oil spill from a pipeline break or tanker spill in the icy conditions would devastate the area's marine life, said Melanie Duchin, spokeswoman for Greenpeace in Anchorage, Alaska.

The coast near Northstar, is important habitat for migrating bowhead whales, spotted seals, polar bears, and other marine mammals. The Nuiqsut, an Alaskan indigenous group relies on the area for hunting.

"Cleaning up an oil spill in Arctic conditions it next to impossible, especially in broken ice conditions," Duchin said.

Last week in London, Native groups from Alaska went to the company's annual shareholder meeting charging that the continuing drive for new oil threatens their culture and livelihood.

"Already we are witnessing dramatic changes in our Alaskan climate from the burning of fossil fuels, and an oil spill...would effectively destroy our abundant wildlife and our native cultures in the process," said Allan Hayton.

"Sir John Browne...will you cancel the Northstar, and commit your company to not drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?" he asked.

The oil giant was also mentioned in a recent report on the financing of environmentally destructive projects, published by the Environmental Defense Fund, the California-based Pacific Environment Resource Center and other international groups.

BP is a leading part of a consortium of companies which operates the Ocensa oil pipeline in Colombia, which has been a hot spot for confrontations between the Colombian army and guerrilla groups.

Right-wing paramilitary groups, which claim they are protecting the pipeline from insurgents, have been accused killing 11 people, according to the report released last month at a conference in Washington. In October 1998, guerrillas attacked the pipeline causing a huge explosion that killed 56 villagers.

The consortium reportedly failed to comply with host country environmental laws resulting in oil spills and destruction of the forest, it said.