Shell Boss Warns Of Global Warming 'Disaster' The Independent, 26 Jan 2005
Governments, not oil companies, must act now on global warming or there will be a "disaster", the chairman of Shell's UK arm warned last night. Delivering the annual business lecture hosted by the environmental group Greenpeace, Lord Oxburgh laid responsibility for tackling greenhouse gas emissions squarely at the feet of government. Lord Oxburgh, a former chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, is one of the two chairmen at Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant. He heads the UK half of the business. He insisted last night that it was not up to the likes of Shell to reform their behaviour and reduce their supply of fossil fuels. "Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalist society. If we at Shell ceased to find and extract and market fossil fuel products while there was demand for them, we would fail as a company. Shell would disappear as any kind of economic force," Lord Oxburgh maintained. He said it was up to government to provide a new regulatory framework that would reduce the incentive to consume fossil fuels, the burning of which produces carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming. If government failed to do this, there "will be a disaster" he said, pointing to the environmental consequences of a rise in the earth's temperature. Lord Oxburgh said that Shell would be prepared to accept this kind of regulatory change, "provided that our competitors operate under similar constraints". He said: "Our job is to respond in a positive way to a regulatory environment that has to be determined by government ... given the urgency, we have to start now." Unusually for an oil company the chairman of Shell is an eminent scientist and an expert on climate change. --- Shell Exec: We Need to Shift from Oil Jan 26, 2005 http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/01/shell_exec_we_n.html Reuters. Lord Oxburgh, the chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in Britain, said at a Greenpeace conference this week that governments should push society towards a world less dependent on fossil fuel given the potentially "disastrous" consequences of climate change. [He] added that governments needed to act to make renewable and less environmentally harmful energy sources more economical compared to hydrocarbons. "Shell is an energy company and I would be very surprised if Shell were doing business in the same way in 30 years time as it is today ... It's difficult to see why big business should be frightened," Oxburgh said. The burning of fossil fuels appeared to be causing global warming, Oxburgh added, and this posed a potentially disastrous risk to the world. He urged governments in developed countries to introduce taxes, regulations or plans such as the European Union trading scheme to increase the cost of emitting carbon dioxide, a gas many scientists tie to global warming. In doing so, he added, technologies such as biofuel, carbon sequestration, the use of hydrogen as a fuel and wave power would displace the use of oil, gas and coal. Lord Oxburgh (earlier post) has been outspoken about the need for carbon sequestration and the need to move off of a fossil fuel platform. His point about business is exactly to the point. (Oxburgh, as an interesting coincidence, was a graduate school classmate of Prof. Ken Deffeyes, author of Hubbert's Peak and an upcoming follow-on.) --- Shell oil chief defects to the green lobby Jan 30, 2005 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1462584,00.html THE outgoing chairman of Shell has announced he wants to take up a post with a climate-change charity when he quits the oil giant later this year, writes Jonathan Leake. Lord Oxburgh is so concerned at the potential destruction from global warming that he wants to devote more of his time to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels. The move is likely to cause some embarrassment at Shell, one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the world. Despite a history of environmental controversies, it is now seen as one of the greenest oil companies, but each year its worldwide activities and products still release about 700m tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. By contrast, emissions from the whole of Britain total around 560m tons out of a total world output of 25 billion tons. Oxburgh, who chairs Shell as a non-executive, said: ãWhen I leave I would like to go onto the board of a climate change charity. I would be campaigning for more responsible use of hydrocarbons.ä Oxburgh, who is also chairman of the House of Lords science and technology committee, emphasises that the target of such campaigns would not be so much the oil companies as government ministers and departments. He believes it is only through taxation, regulation and new technology that the world can have any hope of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, his belief that governments should impose higher taxes on aviation fuels, petrol, oil, gas and other hydrocarbons to discourage their use may alarm other oil company executives. Oxburgh, an academic geologist by training, became chairman unexpectedly last year after the forced departure of Sir Philip Watts, who was criticised in the controversy over the overstating of Shellâs oil reserves. The peer has now reached retirement age and is due to leave this summer. He has faced apparent contradictions in chairing Shell ÷ for example, by accepting long ago scientific arguments that the climate was being changed by greenhouse gas emissions. This has prompted him to abandon the executive transport and car park offered by Shell and adopt a folding bicycle, which he keeps in a cupboard in the lobby of the Shell building on the South Bank in London. At home, Oxburgh has persuaded his wife and son to use bicycles and abandon the car ãexcept for trips to the supermarketä. For those, he uses a diesel capable of 60 miles to the gallon. ãDomestically we all ride bicycles and use the car as little as we can,ä he said. The family has also abandoned air travel for holidays ÷ though Oxburgh still regularly has to fly on business matters. His Cambridge home, insulated and double-glazed, is now also fully equipped with energy-saving light bulbs. ãI have some struggles with my family; there is a little resistance because they take a little while to warm up,ä he said. Oxburgh has also helped Shell worldwide to adopt similar measures. The company now carries out carbon audits, employs consultants to seek new ways of cutting energy use and has drawn up long-term plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its internal activities. However, environmentalists say such measures are trivial when Shell is continually expanding its operations. Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said: ãBefore he leaves, Lord Oxburgh should be trying to change Shell. The company is pumping more oil and gas than ever before.ä Oxburghâs ambition was, however, welcomed by Greenpeace, which has a long history of clashes with Shell, most famously when it successfully campaigned against the companyâs attempts to dump the disused Brent Spar oil rig at sea in 1995. Blake Lee-Harwood, director of campaigns at Greenpeace UK, said: ãWe would still disagree on many issues but his expertise and experience would make him a welcome addition to the team.ä _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
