An interesting bit of research from Lawrence Solomon at the Financial Times:
Lawrence Solomon: Enron's other secretLawrence prefaces this by saying it is: First in a series. More. Faster. Please. I especially love the line: An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried. Can't go around telling the truth now, can we...
We all know that the financial stakes are enormous in the global warming debate � many oil, coal and power companies are at risk should carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases get regulated in a manner that harms their bottom line. The potential losses of an Exxon or a Shell are chump change, however, compared to the fortunes to be made from those very same regulations.
The climate-change industry � the scientists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and, most importantly, the multinationals that work behind the scenes to cash in on the riches at stake � has emerged as the world�s largest industry. Virtually every resident in the developed world feels the bite of this industry, often unknowingly, through the hidden surcharges on their food bills, their gas and electricity rates, their gasoline purchases, their automobiles, their garbage collection, their insurance, their computers purchases, their hotels, their purchases of just about every good and service, in fact, and finally, their taxes to governments at all levels.
These extractions do not happen by accident. Every penny that leaves the hands of consumers does so by design, the final step in elaborate and often brilliant orchestrations of public policy, all the more brilliant because the public, for the most part, does not know who is profiteering on climate change, or who is aiding and abetting the profiteers.
Some of the climate-change profiteers are relatively unknown corporations; others are household names with only their behind-the-scenes role in the climate-change industry unknown. Over the next few weeks, in an extended newspaper series, you will become familiar with some of the profiteers, and with their machinations. This series begins with Enron, a pioneer in the climate-change industry.
Almost two decades before President Barack Obama made �cap-and-trade� for carbon dioxide emissions a household term, an obscure company called Enron � a natural-gas pipeline company that had become a big-time trader in energy commodities � had figured out how to make millions in a cap-and-trade program for sulphur dioxide emissions, thanks to changes in the U.S. government�s Clean Air Act. To the delight of shareholders, Enron�s stock price rose rapidly as it became the major trader in the U.S. government�s $20-billion a year emissions commodity market.
Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, keen to engineer an encore, saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore�s interest in global warming, Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren�t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried.
To magnify the leverage of their political lobbying, Enron also worked the environmental groups. Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide.
The intense lobbying paid off. Lay became a member of president Clinton�s Council on Sustainable Development, as well as his friend and advisor. In the summer of 1997, prior to global warming meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Clinton sought Lay�s advice in White House discussions. The fruits of Enron�s efforts came soon after, with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.
An internal Enron memo, sent from Kyoto by John Palmisano, a former Environmental Protection Agency regulator who had become Enron�s lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance, describes the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.
�If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron�s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,� Polisano began. �The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.�
