A few days from now, on 16th of July, the Guardian is set to host a variety of high-profile guests for “The Guardian Climate Change Summit 2008”. With the lowest entry prices for this event around the £350 mark, it is likely to attract a rather exclusive clientelle. But for most of those in attendance, such costs are hardly likely to be a big deal. The event’s lead sponsor is E.ON, better known as the company behind the proposed Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent (the target of this year’s Climate Camp), whose successful lobbying ensured that the plant would be given the go-ahead without even the formal requirement that it captured and stored its carbon emissions. To put this in perspective, NASA’s James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, has recently pointed out that, if the current headlong rush into the arms of the most polluting fossil fuel is not stopped, “there is little hope of avoiding the climate tipping points, with all that implies for life on this planet” – a position also backed by the Royal Society, perhaps Britain’s most prestigious scientific institution.

Also sponsoring the event is BMW (yes, that BMW – condemned in scathing terms by Friends of the Earth last year for a “joint lobbying offensive designed to water-down and delay the mandatory CO2 emission reduction targets proposed by the [European] Commission after voluntary targets were not met”); and among its “Marketing partners” is a body called the Energy Institute – a pretty innocuous-sounding name, perhaps, though it includes among its corporate membership “all the major oil companies”.

So what does the summit hope to achieve? According to the Guardian’s site, attendees are granted the opportunity to “[u]nderstand how leading organisations are working with individuals for business and environmental benefits”. “Leading businesses realise that now is the time for collaboration” on the issue of climate change, we are assured – “with each other, with government, with NGO’s and individuals.” The summit will be a “must-attend event” for, among others, senior executives from “corporate social responsibility” and “communications” departments.

The summit, in other words, looks set to be a festival of greenwash, allowing a number of companies to spruce up their reputations while swapping a few tricks of the P.R. trade. Self-regulation is the order of the day: with talk of the wise nodding heads from enlightened companies “realising” the need for action, of fulfilling their “corporate social responsibility”, it’s easy to forget just how little the corporate world actually cares about the issue – the world’s biggest companies, in fact, ranking it “far down” their priority list, and Britain’s biggest companies in particular, according to a survey taken last year, placing it “bottom of the priority list”.

Nor is this the first time that the Guardian have collaborated with the fossil fuel industry in this way. According to its own website, for instance, the paper has “worked closely with Shell to push the debate on how business needs to react to climate change”:

“Shell was the lead sponsor of the Guardian’s Climate Change Summit in June [2007] which was attended by business leaders, NGOs and senior civil servants. An eight-page supplement [in the Guardian itself] and microsite on guardian.co.uk followed, which covered business issues around climate change and highlights of the summit.”

Shell, we are also informed,

“has been very keen to show how it is engaging with business and government to cut CO2 emissions and use new technologies to combat climate change.”

Not, you might think, the most remarkable phenomenon: a company whose whole business model is a fundamental driver of climate change, which has itself estimated, according to New Scientist, that functional carbon capture and storage technology is at least 42 years away, is quite keen on publically announcing just how green it is. Jaws must indeed be hitting the floor at that revelation. But the good old Guardian was there to provide them with publicity for their efforts, “[t]he whole programme”, the paper reports, having “stirred up a lot of interest”. In fact, as it states elsewhere, “[t]his is a growing sector for Guardian Professional and the Guardian as a whole, and we are planning new publications online and in print. We welcome proposals from interested partners” – suggesting that its latest venture, in the form of the “Climate Change Summit”, is building on the success of its previous partnership with Shell.

So far be it from me to condone anything outwith the bounds of British law, if you happen to be in and around the area of the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 0QH next Wednesday, carrying a mop and bucket of green paint (or what you will), it probably doesn’t matter too much if you happen to be a little bit clumsy with it. The corporations’ “greenwash” is flowing thick and fast in the direction of the general public; it’s high time we started returning the favour.

UPDATE: The Greenwash Guerrillas, bless ’em, are already on the case. Here’s wishing their action every success!

FURTHER UPDATE: And here they are, in all their glory (courtesy of The Coal Hole):