ExxonMobil (Esso) gets what it paid for with new US climate policy

President Bush's new US climate policy, which would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions by about 36 percent over the Kyoto targets, looks like it came direct from the boardroom of oil giant ExxonMobil.

"Controversy over Enron continues to rage but it's about time the spotlight was turned on ExxonMobil," Greenpeace climate campaigner Benedict Southworth, said. "Exxon spent six times more than Enron lobbying Capitol Hill and with this climate policy it got what they paid for."

" Under this plan carbon dioxide emissions will increase even faster than in the last five years and this policy will do nothing to help stabilize long term greenhouse gas concentrations as promised. This plan amounts to nothing more than a wish list from Exxon to allow it to continue 'business as usual."

The policy links emissions to economic growth, a move which ensures that only a prolonged economic recession will actually reduce CO2 emissions. Official US predictions for GDP growth throughout the next decade are about 3.1 percent. The US administration has also refused to set mandatory reduction targets for industry relying instead on "incentives, voluntary challenges or public recognition" to 'encourage' rather than force businesses to reduce pollution.

The US is the world's biggest greenhouse polluter, responsible for 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The new policy widens the gulf between the US and the rest of the world, which looks set to agree legally binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions later this year.

"ExxonMobil has scaled new heights in its self-serving action to manipulate climate policy. The environment movement and responsible governments around the world can be expected to react against ExxonMobil for this latest, outrageous act," said Southworth.