Corporate Responsibility & the Politics of Fossil Fuels Prof. M. K. Dorsey Dartmouth College Durban...

Corporate Responsibility & the Politics of Fossil Fuels

Prof. M. K. Dorsey

Dartmouth CollegeDurban Group for Climate Justice

International Cooperation for Development to

Address the Climate Change Challenge

19-20 November 2007

United Nations

degrees of ORGANIZATIONAL

(ir)RESPONSIBILITY & the politics of fossil fools/climate change

•

Reconsidering Headlines

Prof. M.K. DorseyDartmouth College

Durban Group for Climate Justice

7 ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS

• CLIMATE DENIERS

• OIL(Y) PROFITEERS

• TRADING TRICKSTERS

• Newly Gangsterized OrganizationS

• LEGAL TEAMS/TACTICS

• REGULATORY TEAMS/TACTICS

• MULTILATERAL TEAMS/TACTICS


• CLIMATE DENIERS• OIL(Y) PROFITEERS






3 April 1998…

3 April 1998…(p.3)

Denied Responsibility & Liability

• "Failing to recognize the urgency of this message [that “the effects of climate change are being felt already,”] and act on it would be nothing less that criminally irresponsible" and a direct attack on the world's poorest people, De Boer said.

(13 Nov 2007)

Exxon alone paid >$200 Million -$180 Million to US Congress reps. (since ‘89); $21 Million to “NGOs” (since’98)

• 2006: Exxon spent $2.1 million on 41 groups who are leading the climate skeptic industry.

– Moving Newtok, a Bering Sea coast town of 315 being squished and

swamped by two rivers, could cost as much as $130 million. Or $412,000 per person.

– Moving Shishmaref, a strip of sand in the Chukchi Sea that's home to

about 600 people, could cost as much as $200 million. Or $330,000 per person.

– Moving Kivalina, a shrinking barrier island in the Chukchi that last month saw most of its 380 residents run for safety from the season's first storm, could cost as much as $125 million. Or $330,000 per person.


• CLIMATE DENIERS

• OIL(y) PROFITEERS• TRADING TRICKSTERS





Calculating Windfalls

• In the quarter ended 31st Dec 2005 ExxonMobil announced it earned $10.7 billion dollars.

– ~$115 million a day for each of the 92 days of the quarter;

– ~$5 million each hour; – ~ $80,000 every minute– ~ $1350 per second

RECALLINGExxon profits $10.7 Billion

-$180 Million to US Congress reps. (since ‘89); $21 Million to “NGOs” (since’98)

2006: Exxon spent $2.1 million on 41 groups

– Moving Newtok, a Bering Sea coast town of 315 being squished and

swamped by two rivers, could cost as much as $130 million. Or $412,000 per person.

– Moving Shishmaref, a strip of sand in the Chukchi Sea that's home to

about 600 people, could cost as much as $200 million. Or $330,000 per person.

– Moving Kivalina, a shrinking barrier island in the Chukchi that last month saw most of its 380 residents run for safety from the season's first storm, could cost as much as $125 million. Or $330,000 per person.

Tax Time

• 1983 Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act (P.L. 96-223)

• Alaska Windfall Oil Profit Tax of 2006: "The [new] tax would replace Alaska's current production tax and would set a base tax rate of 22.5% of the profits of oil companies…” (http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill_text.asp? hsid=SB2001B&session=24)


• CLIMATE DENIERS


• TRADING TRICKSTERS• Newly Gangsterized OrganizationS




Industrial Sector

Annual gift of pollution rights (mtCO2)

+/- Average annual emissions

1998-2003

% of ‘available’ world above-ground carbon dump

Approx. value @ €26/tCO2

(pre-crash)

Power 145.3 -6% 1.5-3.0 €2.180b

Iron/steel 23.3 +16% 02.-.05 350m

Refineries 19.8 +11% 02.-.04 297m

Offshore 19.1 +14% 02.-.04 287m

Cement 10.7 +18% .01-.02 161m

Chemicals 10.1 +12% .01-.02 152m

Other 23.7 +17% .02-.05 357m

TOTAL 252.0 +2% 2.6-5.1 €3.780b

Quasi-Privatization of Existing Global Carbon Dump just in the UKProposed National Allocation under

the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, 2005

PRIVATIZATION OF WORLD CARBON DUMP BY THE EU

Phase 1 gift to big business

(MT CO2)

2005 emissions

Phase 2 approved gift to big business

Increase/ decrease in gift to big business

Gift = x% of “world carbon dump” (IPCC)

Yearly value of gift @ €30/t

Yearly value of gift @ €0.15/t

Czech R 97.6 82.5 86.8 +5% ~1-2% €2.6b €13m

France 156.5 131.3 132.8 +1% ~1-3% €4.0b €20m

Germany 499 474 453.1 -4% ~5-9% €13.6b €70m

Holland 95.3 80.4 85.8 +7% ~1-2% €2.6b €13m

Poland 239.1 203.1 208.5 +3% ~2-4% €6.3b €31m

Spain 174.4 182.9 152.3 -17% ~2-3% €4.6b €23m

Sweden 22.9 19.3 22.8 +18% <1% €0.7b €3m

UK 245.3 242.4 246.2 +2% ~3-5% €7.4b €37m

TOTAL EU

1815.7 1672.5 1650.7 -1% ~17-34%

€49.52b €248m

“ETS [the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme] has done nothing to curb emissions . . . is a highly regressive tax falling mostly on poor people . . . Enhances the market power of generators. Have policy goals been achieved? Prices up, emissions up, profits up . . . so, not really.”

Peter Atherton, Citigroup Global Markets, January 2007

“All generation-based utilities – winners. Coal and nuclear-based generators – biggest winners. Hedge funds and energy traders – even bigger winners. Losers . . . herm . . . Consumers!”

Ibid.

The EU ETS “has not encouraged meaningful investment in carbon-reducing technologies.”

Tony Ward, Ernst & Young, May 2006

Emissions trading “would make money for some very large corporations, but don’t believe for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming . . . old-fashioned rent-seeking . . . making money by gaming the regulatory process.”

Wall Street Journal, 3 March 2007

“European Commissioner for Energy gives damning verdict . . . ‘A failure’ . . .”

TV Channel 4 Evening News, London, lead story, 7 March 2007

How would you characterize emissions trading?

“Bullshit . . . stupid . . . a mockery . . . an outrageous waste of public money.”

UK Parliamentary Committee on the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, 2004


• CLIMATE DENIERS



• Newly Gangsterized OrganizationS - (The Wildcard)




Select NGO Offerings…

• John Bennett Executive Director, Climate Action Network: “Our acceptance of emission trading has secured us significant allies in the Canadian business community.”


• US based NRDC testifies that:

• ‘We have no objection to nuclear power being an active participant in the effort to reduce emissions.’

(13 Nov 2007)


• John Bennett Executive Director, Climate Action Network: “Our acceptance of emission trading has secured us significant allies in the Canadian business community.”

New Revolving DoorNGO Bird Flu -

I-4me-UR2

FOE, Greenpeace, WWF Trading Houses, etc.


• CLIMATE DENIERS• OIL(Y) PROFITEERS• TRADING TRICKSTERS• Newly Gangsterized OrganizationS

So then…

TEAMS & TACTICS• LEGAL• REGULATORY• MULTILATERAL


• CLIMATE DENIERS




• LEGAL TEAMS/TACTICS• REGULATORY TEAMS/TACTICS


LEGAL TACTICS & TEAMS

• Inuit Circumpolar Conference before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in March 2007

• CIEL’s work• New lawyering, investigations, data

collection


• CLIMATE DENIERS







REGULATORY LEVEL

Regulation as the mother of all innovation

• EU, NAPS suits… • Carbon Cowboy Control

– HMS Revenue investigation…

• Regulation Coordination on scale of market coordination


• CLIMATE DENIERS







MULTILATERAL LEVEL

• Continue shuttle diplomacy negotiations to END OIL exploration & exploitation (Ecuadorian /ITT proposals in the lead)

• Grow Green Development Bank (Bank props up fossil fuel projects with 15-25X MORE dollars)– Start petroleum subsidy shifting (~15-40B/yr w/o military)

– Build a CLIMATE RESCUE FUND, perhaps from windfall oil profits (not new, Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act ﾊ(P.L. 96-223), of 1983)

• AVOID ONE SIZE FITS ALL

IN CONCLUSION

TO POZNAN, COPENHAGEN & BEYOND

•

•

•

Dr. Michael Dorsey, Dartmouth College

Professor of Global Environmental Policy

[email protected]

• “Climate Knowledge and Power: Tales of Skeptic Tanks, Weather Gods and Sagas for Climate (in)Justice”, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism (CNS), Vol. 18, No. 2, June 2007

•Dorsey, M.K. 2007. “Green Market Hustlers,” Foreign Policy In Focus, June 19 (Washington, DC).

•Dorsey, M. K. 2007 Carbon Trading Won’t Work. LA Times.

• Erion, G. C. S. and M. K. Dorsey. 2005. Montreal 2005 Climate Change Conference: Neoliberal BirdFlu Infects Climate Talks. The Bullet.

•Dorsey, Michael K. 2005. Conservation, collusion and capital. Anthropology News Vol. 46, No. 7 (October), pp. 45-46.

• Dorsey, Michael K. 2005. The case for history: Flowers for kings, capitalists, and the world system". In Serie Amazonía Siglo XXI. Carlos Soria (ed.). Lima, Peru: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos Press.

• Lohmann, Larry, Jutta Kill, Graham Erion and Michael K. Dorsey. 2005. “Is following the American pollution trading model a recipe for injustice in global carbon markets?” in P. Bond and R. Dada (eds.) Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere (Durban, South Africa and Amsterdam, The Netherlands: University of KwaZulu Natal Press and Transnational Institute Press), pp. 149-86.

THANKS!

PLEASE BE IN TOUCH…

Dr. Michael Dorsey, Dartmouth College

Professor of Global Environmental Policy

[email protected]

“If you are the big tree,We are the small axe --Sharpened to cut you

down, (well sharp)”

--Bob Marley

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Corporate Responsibility & the Politics of Fossil Fuels Prof. M. K. Dorsey Dartmouth College Durban...

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