Ten years ago, on this day, August 9, 2013, BP explains to the EU Commission how it is going to be…
The EU abandoned or weakened key proposals for new environmental protections after receiving a letter from a top BP executive which warned of an exodus of the oil industry from Europe if the proposals went ahead.
“The missive to the EU’s energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, was dated 9 August 2013, partly hand-written, and signed by a senior BP representative whose name has been redacted.” http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/20/eu-dropped-climate-policies-after-bp-threat-oil-industry-exodus
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was
BP executives were literally writing EU energy policy. The context was that by this time the EU’s CCS ambitions were in tatters but it still needed to talk a good game. The oil companies were not interested in anything ambitious, why would they be? And so you see this kind of naked power play.
What I think we can learn from this sometimes the mask slips/is wrenched off – it’s on occasions like this.
What happened next
Oh, you know, the 2015 Paris COP – everyone held hands, sang Kumbaya, announced Net Zero, 1.5 degrees all the rest of it.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.