PAPER B
Committee : ENVIRONMENT AND TRANSPORT SELECT COMMITTEE
Date : 27 MARCH 2002
Title : REQUEST TO THE COUNCIL TO BOYCOTT ESSO PRODUCTS
REPORT OF THE HEAD OF SELECT COMMITTEE SUPPORT
PURPOSE
At the Environment and Transport Select Committee meeting on 30 January 2002, a representative from Friends of the Earth, presented a petition calling upon the Council to purchase fuel from oil companies that acknowledged the link between climate change and fossil fuel burning and researching alternatives, and further called upon the Council to boycott the products of Esso (Exxon – Mobil) until the company recognised this connection and supported the Kyoto Protocol. It was resolved that a report on this matter be brought to the March meeting of the Select Committee.
BACKGROUND
1. Subsequent to the presentation of the petition a further submission has been made to the Council by Isle of Wight Friends of the Earth. A copy of that submission is attached as Appendix 1.
2. On 11 February 2002, the Council received a letter from the Executive Director of Greenpeace UK, Stephen Tindale. The letter asked whether or not the Council purchased Esso products. The letter argued that “Esso has spent millions of dollars over the last ten years running a campaign of dirty tricks to sabotage international climate negotiations.” The letter continued, “unless its (Esso’s) approach to global warming changes, the Kyoto Protocol will fail. It is self defeating for a Council to buy from Esso, if it supports real action to tackle global warming, because .... any action ... at local level is being undermined by Esso’s destructive tactics at international level”. Mr Tindale’s letter also stated that Oadby and Wigston Borough Council, Castle Point Borough Council and Uckfield Town Council have joined a boycott and refuse to buy Esso fuel.
3. The Council’s Purchasing Manager has been asked to indicate the approximate value of business the Council conducts with Esso each year, either directly or indirectly. He has answered that we make no direct purchases at present. The Council’s contract for gas, oil, petrol and derv is currently arranged through the Consortium for Purchasing and Distributions with an alternative oil company.
4. An approach has been made to the Esso public affairs office to provide the Company with an opportunity to comment on the issue of Council boycotts of its products. The Company has been invited to provide a position statement and send a representative to the meeting of the Select Committee.
OPTIONS
1. To take no action.
2. To recommend to the Executive that the Council instigates a formal boycott of Esso products (Exxon and Mobil) until such time as the company acknowledges the link between climate change and fossil fuel burning and research alternatives.
3 To agree some other course of action.
BACKGROUND PAPERS
1. Petition from Isle of Wight Friends of the Earth to Isle of Wight Council.
2. Letter from Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace dated 8 February 2002.
Contact Point : Rob Owen, ( 01983 823801
ROB OWEN
Select Committee Support
APPENDIX 1
Submission from Isle of Wight Friends of the Earth
Global Warming
"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, January 2001
The world is getting warmer due to the build up of gases generated by human activities. One of the main gases causing it is carbon dioxide, which comes from the burning of fossil fuels - particularly oil, coal and gas. As the Earth becomes warmer there will be an increase in the number of extreme weather events such as storms, and a rise in sea levels.
Extreme weather events have killed 100,000 people in the last three years. A series of reports from the world's top climate experts have now confirmed the urgency of the climate crisis.
The UN's 'Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change' (IPCC), a panel of 2,500 of the world's leading climate scientists, studied all the available evidence, and concluded that climate change is happening, that it is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and that the world is likely to get a lot hotter than previously thought.
The IPCC predicts that, unless action is taken to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-changing pollutants,
• we will experience more heat waves and floods.
• glaciers and polar ice are set to continue melting.
• sea levels could rise by up to six metres.
• weather patterns will change dramatically.
• many plant and animal species will become extinct.
• outbreaks of diseases will become more common.
• millions of people will be forced to move.
On the Island this could lead to:
• increased flooding and sea levels, leading to division of the island
• stormier, wetter winters
• drought in the summer
• more alien species from the south, such as mosquitos
All this will inevitably happen to some degree, but action taken now will determine how bad it will be.
The Kyoto Protocol
In December 1997 the rich industrialised countries agreed to reduce their emissions of gases that cause global warming as a first step towards stabilising the world's climate. They agreed the 'Kyoto Protocol', an international treaty which sets targets for cutting countries' climate-changing emissions to below 1990 levels. The EU accepted a target cut of 8%, the US 7% and Japan 6%. The Kyoto Protocol will not come into force until 55 countries, representing 55% of total 1990 emissions, ratify it, that is enact legally binding legislation to meet the terms of the protocol. Countries have set themselves a deadline of September 2002, when the World Summit on Sustainable Development [Rio + 10] meets in South Africa.
In March 2001, just weeks after his inauguration, President Bush announced that the US would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He declared it "dead".
In July 2001 in Bonn, the international community showed that the Protocol is still alive despite the absence of the US, by reaching a political agreement on the rules for its implementation. The US was not party to this agreement. The full details of the rules were finalised at the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Marrakech, Morocco at the end of October 2001, and the protocol is now ready for ratification. The UK Government is a keen supporter.
America is the largest polluter in the world - with 4% of the world's population, it discharges a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide. But President Bush did not hesitate to sabotage attempts to agree the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol is only a first step towards stabilising the world's climate. But it is a vital one. No country has the right to declare it dead and condemn us all to the nightmare of global warming.
Why Esso?
While the rest of the world is trying to stop global warming and protect the planet for future generations, Esso (Exxon/Mobil) is busy drilling for more oil. What is worse, Esso led the oil lobby against the Kyoto Protocol and fully supported and encouraged Bush's moves to sabotage it.
In particular:
1. Esso pretends that global warming isn't happening even though it's a major cause of it. Esso spends millions of dollars on misleading propaganda every year.*
2. Esso has played a leading role in sabotaging international attempts to stop global warming. It would rather sell more petrol than protect future generations.
3. Esso is the biggest oil company in the world, making £12 billion in profits in 2000. It spends huge sums on prospecting, but absolutely nothing on renewable, non-polluting energy sources. Even Shell and BP will invest $500 million each over the next three years in green energy projects.
4. Esso is among the most important groups that paid for George Bush's election campaign, contributing $1 million. As soon as George Bush became president, he said that the United States would pull out of international agreements to stop global warming - exactly the policy that Esso was promoting.
The purpose of the campaign to boycott Esso is to demonstrate to the company that their use of economic power to threaten our future is unacceptable, and to persuade them to take a more socially responsible attitude. The boycott would end once they complied.
*"Decade of Dirty Tricks" (Greenpeace report) available on www.stopesso.com