Oil firms urge voluntary action on global warming
Copyright 1999, Reuters
December 5, 1999
The U.S. oil industry, firmly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol's mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, is promoting voluntary initiatives as an alternative way of countering global warming.
A wide range of technologies were showcased last week at an industry conference in Houston on limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe are contributing to a gradual warming of the earth's atmosphere.
These included oil companies' efforts to reduce energy consumption and emissions at petroleum refineries and to cut back on the wastage of natural gas that is often released or burnt off in remote locations rather than used as fuel.
Development of cleaner, more fuel-efficient car engines was also discussed as was research into capturing carbon dioxide released from power generation plants and pumping it into depleted oil fields or saline aquifers deep underground.
Global warming is a touchy issue for the oil industry because fossil fuels -- coal, oil and natural gas -- account for about 80 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
Scientists predict that greenhouse gases will cause the earth's atmosphere to rise by 1.6 to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 with potentially serious environmental consequences.
Red Cavaney, President of the American Petroleum Institute which hosted the Houston conference, reiterated U.S. oil firms' opposition to the mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases set out in the Kyoto Protocol adopted by over 160 countries in 1997.
"We want to encourage the use of voluntary approaches while we urge more work on the science (of climate change) so that we can resolve some of the tremendous uncertainties that exist," Cavaney told reporters attending the conference.
Cavaney said Kyoto could damage the U.S. economy and might fail to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions because it did not place any curbs on emissions by developing countries, many of whom were experiencing rapid economic growth.
The Clinton administration supports the protocol but is seeking the right to trade emission permits freely with other countries and wants to secure the "meaningful participation" of key developing countries in tackling global warming.
Iain McGill, a policy analyst with the Greenpeace environmental group who attended the API conference, said mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions were a vital first step to reducing mankind's reliance on fossil fuels.
"We have technologies that allow us to reduce emissions...but we've also got a very large fossil fuel industry that would much rather keep things going the way that it is used to," he said.
Environmentalists are calling for a big push to promote the use of renewable sources of energy such as solar power, wind turbines and hydroelectricity which currently make up about 10 percent of U.S. energy production.
Stan Bull of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory told the conference that the costs of solar and wind energy had fallen rapidly since 1980 while their use had risen steadily, though they still met only a small amount of world energy needs.
Bull said a 100-mile circle of Nevada desert could generate enough solar power to meet total U.S. electricity demand while five northern U.S. states could achieve the same goal with power generated by wind turbines.
Tom Vonderhaar from oil giant BP Amoco Plc's Solarex subsidiary said the solar energy market was growing at 15 to 20 percent a year and that improving economics were rapidly making it a viable alternative to conventional sources of power.
Solarex was currently installing solar power panels at some 200 BP Amoco gasoline stations around the world as a statement of the oil giant's confidence in the technology, he said.