Oil Not To Blame For Climate Change: OPEC
Date: 03-Apr-09
Country: FRANCE
Author: Tom Bergin
Oil Not To Blame For Climate Change: OPEC Photo: Mike Cassese
A model walks the runway in front of a Hummer vehicle during the GM Style
event at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, January
12, 2008.
Photo: Mike Cassese
PARIS - OPEC said oil was not to blame for climate change and consuming
countries should pay to fight the threat, while the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell
said drivers could help by not buying Hummer sports utility vehicles.
"Oil is not responsible," the producer group's Secretary General, Abdullah
al-Badri, told reporters on Thursday on the sidelines of the International
Oil Summit in Paris.
"It is the industrialized countries which are making all this pollution in
the world."
Scientists say the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, is a key factor in
climate change.
Badri said the revenues from high taxes that some industrialized countries,
including most western European nations, place on oil products should be
diverted to environmental projects.
OPEC, whose member countries pump more than a third of the world's oil, has
supported the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto
Protocol, which encourage reductions in emissions of greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide (CO2).
However, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has also
opposed plans to reduce oil consumption and advocated adaptation to climate
change.
Badri criticized the subsidies developed countries offer to promote
renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Most of the larger international oil companies accept the role of oil and
gas in man-made climate change.
Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, the world's second-largest
oil company by market value, told the same conference that drivers should
help fight climate change by using more fuel efficient vehicles.
Recalling his happy student days driving a 2CV, a famously basic, and fuel
efficient, Citroen, van der Veer said: "You don't need a Hummer to be
happy."
Consumers and General Motors, which owns the Hummer brand, have come to the
same conclusion. Falling sales of the military-derived vehicle, which has
become synonymous with gas-guzzling excess, have prompted GM to put the
Hummer brand up for sale.
(Editing by Anthony Barker)
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