A warm welcome to the attitude change on global warming

by Eric Reguly

A couple of weeks ago, a speech on climate change was delivered at the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York think tank and publisher.
"It would be too great a risk to stand by [and] do nothing," the speaker said. Fighting climate change later, when it becomes a serious problem, instead of now, while there's still some chance it can be controlled, could be "so disruptive as to cause serious damage to the world's economy."

Another alarmist eco-fanatic on the pulpit?
The speaker in fact was John Browne, CEO of BP, the world's second-largest oil company. Global warming is happening, burning hydrocarbons is responsible for it and measures can be taken to slow the rate of increase, he said, such as converting coal-burning electricity plants to natural gas, improving the fuel economy of cars, building nuclear generating plants and developing wind and solar power.
Lord Browne is no energy industry pariah. Last month, Ronald Oxburgh, chairman of Shell Transport and Trading, the British arm of Shell of companies, said he sees "very little hope for the world" unless there is a reduction in the emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

About the same time, John Rowe, CEO of Chicago's Exelon, a $ 22 bn electricity and natural gas company, told a global warming conference it is time for the US government to limit carbon dioxide emissions. For some time, he has been saying "I think the climate change problem is real."
In Canada, Frank Dottori, CEO of Tembec, one of the largest forest product companies, argues that the Kyoto accord on climate change, of which Canada is, at best, a half-hearted supporter, should not be tossed onto the scrap heap (as the Americans have done, and the Conservative Party wants to do, but not the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois). Greenhouse gas emissions have to come down for the sake of the planet, he says.

What is happening here?
To read the mainstream press in recent years, you would think anyone who still believes global warming is man-made is crazy, misinformed, hopelessly biased or all three. Those who think global warming should not be ignored, a group that includes hundreds, perhaps thousands, of peer-reviewed scientists and climate change experts, get little attention. The smaller number of sceptics continues to get disproportionately large coverage.
Take BP's Lord Browne. When he outlined his plans for carbon dioxide reduction, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the US public policy group that thinks any form of environmental regulation is an attack on life, liberty and the pursuit of SUVs, called Lord Browne's agenda "misdirection and wasted effort." The institute's comments were widely reported.

When Exelon's Mr Rowe had the nerve to say industry is spewing out too much carbon dioxide, Republican Senator James Inhofe pumped out a press release that dismissed his speech as "hypocritical." Why? Because Exelon, an owner of nuclear generating plants, would benefit if carbon dioxide restrictions put a few coal burners out of business.
Mr Inhofe, chairman of the Senate environment committee, dismisses global warming as "a hoax" (he has also voted against protecting drinking water and improving auto fuel economy standards). It would be stretching it to say the executives who believe climate change is an environmental and economic disaster in the making are finally winning the publicity war. But more and more of them say something has to be done.

The European executives are at the forefront of effort. In Europe, saying global warming is a threat that has to be dealt with hardly makes you a freak. This is partly because the European Union has adopted Kyoto and will launch a mandatory greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme early next year.
So fighting Kyoto has become somewhat of an exercise in futility. The EU, though, has won support among many industries because the trading system is designed to take some of the pain out of reducing emissions. If your company brings its emissions in below the target level, it can make money by selling surplus emissions credits to companies above the target. Industries also find that using less energy has the twin benefit of reducing costs and the output of greenhouse gases.

In North America, fewer executives in fewer industries will say climate change is a danger that has to be controlled. Their belief, apparently, is that energy use will soar, taking greenhouse gas emissions up with it.
In other words, the emissions are a necessary and inevitable by-product of economic growth, so don't fight it unless you want to put a lot of people out of work. Nonetheless, a few executives, such as Exelon's Mr Rowe, think the fight is not futile.

This is what Lord Browne believes, and he says limiting greenhouse gas emissions can be done "without doing serious damage to the economy" through the use of market-based mechanisms such as an international emissions trading system. The Competitive Enterprise Institute and other sceptics will continue to argue the opposite, as if innovation has suddenly vanished from the American economy.
But at least some credible executives are starting to argue that the nay sayers may be wrong. If big oil companies say global warming can be controlled, why not urge them on?