DINOSAUR DIPLOMACY 1: CLIMATE 0

8th December 1997

With only a few days left to reach agreements to protect the climate, the sense of urgency and pressure within the Kyoto conference centre is intense. There are literally thousands of lobbyists and negotiators and journalists milling around. TV screens monitoring the actual talks, exhibition stalls, huddled lobbying in the coffee stands, tonnes of information leaflets, and side seminars are part of creating the pressure cooker.

At the end of the first week of the talks we brought our 5 metre high `carbonosaurus' dinosaur to the Kyoto conference centre to display our progress report: "Dinosaur Diplomacy 1: Climate 0". There's been a lot of detailed debate in the first five days but little progress towards protecting the climate.

U.S. Big Oil and Big car interests are here in force. Household names like Exxon, Mobil, Ford, General Motors, Texaco hide behind lobby groups with names like the Global Climate Coalition and the American Petroleum Institute. Their single objective is to stop governments reaching concrete agreements to cut greenhouse gas emissions. These are some of the wealthiest companies in the world - it's staggering to realise that Exxon and Shell are wealthier than 134 of the 165 nations signed on to the climate treaty. The revenues of the `dirty dozen' top American oil and car companies add up to a sum greater than the wealth of China, with a fifth of world's population, and behind six other countries.

But the point is not so much their wealth but what they do with it. In the US these companies are sponsoring an aggressive $13 million advertising campaign on climate change, designed to influence the US government and protect their fossil fuel interests. The fact the US government has come here in order to delay making any cuts in greenhouse emissions by a further 13 years demonstrates the fossil fuel industry influence.

The nuclear industry is here too. In a last gasp for survival it is latching on to an environmental issue to justify its existence. We've been running around to all their seminars and talking to journalists to ensure folks understand that opting for nuclear power as a `solution' to climate change is like making a choice between cancer or malaria. There was a colourful and noisy protest against nuclear power on Friday by Japanese environmental groups - in Japan, there have been at least two major nuclear leaks this year alone.

There is a growing split within the industry community. A major UK investment firm, NPI Global Care Investments, made a call for public health warnings on petrol and oil adverts on Friday while attending the conference here in Kyoto.

NPI was here in Kyoto along with representatives from the insurance industry, itself a major international industry - they want government action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They are facing rising costs from climate disasters and are worried about a world where there are more floods, droughts, storms and hurricanes. In 1995 alone these costs were $12.4 billion. Those firms managing people's money are increasingly looking for `green' companies to put that money into - clean climate friendly energy like solar is a good bet.

Businesses that supply climate-friendly solutions to our energy needs - solar, wind and other renewable energies, energy efficiency products, public transport are also here as a positive counter to the fossil band. They held a Clean Energy Summit so that governments can clearly see there are feasible solutions already being used.

Greenpeace's solar-powered kitchen, which is serving hot coffee to arriving delegates, and our carbonosaurus dinosaur sum up the choices facing the final days of the meeting - oil and fossil fuel interests or climate protection and clean energy. Senior government Ministers will be arriving on Monday, including Vice President of the United States Al Gore. We are looking to them to act on the growing public call for action on this issue. They have three days left.