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War in the Caucasus and The Battle for Oil

tim — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:41:25 +0000

Part 1, August 2008

War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?

During the night of August 7, coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgia's president Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.

The aerial bombardments and ground attacks were largely directed against civilian targets including residential areas, hospitals and the university. The provincial capital Tskhinvali was destroyed. The attacks resulted in some 1500 civilian deaths, according to both Russian and Western sources. "The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies." (AP, August 9, 2008). According to reports, some 34,000 people from South Ossetia have fled to Russia. (Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake City, August 10, 2008)

The importance and timing of this military operation must be carefully analyzed. It has far-reaching implications.

Georgia is an outpost of US and NATO forces, on the immediate border of the Russian Federation and within proximity of the Middle East Central Asian war theater. South Ossetia is also at the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipeline routes.

Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate.

Who is behind this military agenda? What interests are being served? What is the purpose of the military operation.

There is evidence that the attacks were carefully coordinated by the US military and NATO.

Moscow has accused NATO of "encouraging Georgia". Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underscored the destabilizing impacts of "foreign" military aid to Georgia: .

“It all confirms our numerous warnings addressed to the international community that it is necessary to pay attention to massive arms purchasing by Georgia during several years. Now we see how these arms and Georgian special troops who had been trained by foreign specialists are used,” he said.(Moscow accuses NATO of having "encouraged Georgia" to attack South Ossetia, Russia Today, August 9, 2008)

Moscow's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, sent an official note to the representatives of all NATO member countries:

“Russia has already begun consultations with the ambassadors of the NATO countries and consultations with NATO military representatives will be held tomorrow," Rogozin said. "We will caution them against continuing to further support of Saakashvili."

“It is an undisguised aggression accompanied by a mass propaganda war,” he said.

(See Moscow accuses NATO of having "encouraged Georgia" to attack South Ossetia, Russia Today, August 9, 2008)

According to Rogozin, Georgia had initially planned to:

"start military action against Abkhazia, however, 'the Abkhaz fortified region turned out to be unassailable for Georgian armed formations, therefore a different tactic was chosen aimed against South Ossetia', which is more accessible territorially. The envoy has no doubts that Mikheil Saakashvili had agreed his actions with "sponsors", "those with whom he is negotiating Georgia's accession to NATO ". (RIA Novosti, August 8, 2008)

Contrary to what was conveyed by Western media reports, the attacks were anticipated by Moscow. The attacks were timed to coincide with the opening of the Olympics, largely with a view to avoiding frontpage media coverage of the Georgian military operation.

On August 7, Russian forces were in an advanced state readiness. The counterattack was swiftly carried out.

Russian paratroopers were sent in from Russia's Ivanovo, Moscow and Pskov airborne divisions. Tanks, armored vehicles and several thousand ground troops have been deployed. Russian air strikes have largely targeted military facilities inside Georgia including the Gori military base.

The Georgian military attack was repelled with a massive show of strength on the part of the Russian military.

Act of Provocation?

US-NATO military and intelligence planners invariably examine various "scenarios" of a proposed military operation-- i.e. in this case, a limited Georgian attack largely directed against civilian targets, with a view to inflicting civilian casualties.

The examination of scenarios is a routine practice. With limited military capabilities, a Georgian victory and occupation of Tskhinvali, was an impossibility from the outset. And this was known and understood to US-NATO military planners.

A humanitarian disaster rather than a military victory was an integral part of the scenario. The objective was to destroy the provincial capital, while also inflicting a significant loss of human life.

If the objective were to restore Georgian political control over the provincial government, the operation would have been undertaken in a very different fashion, with Special Forces occupying key public buildings, communications networks and provincial institutions, rather than waging an all out bombing raid on residential areas, hospitals, not to mention Tskhinvali's University.

The Russian response was entirely predictable.

Georgia was "encouraged" by NATO and the US. Both Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels were acutely aware of what would happen in the case of a Russian counterattack.

The question is: was this a deliberate provocation intended to trigger a Russian military response and suck the Russians into a broader military confrontation with Georgia (and allied forces) which could potentially escalate into an all out war?

Georgia has the third largest contingent of coalition forces in Iraq after the US and the UK, with some 2000 troops. According to reports, Georgian troops in Iraq are now being repatriated in US military planes, to fight Russian forces. (See Debka.com, August 10, 2008)

This US decision to repatriate Georgian servicemen suggests that Washington is intent upon an escalation of the conflict, where Georgian troops are to be used as cannon fodder against a massive deployment of Russian forces.

US-NATO and Israel Involved in the Planning of the Attacks

In mid-July, Georgian and U.S. troops held a joint military exercise entitled "Immediate Response" involving respectively 1,200 US and 800 Georgian troops.

The announcement by the Georgian Ministry of Defense on July 12 stated that they US and Georgian troops were to "train for three weeks at the Vaziani military base" near the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. (AP, July 15, 2008). These exercises, which were completed barely a week before the August 7 attacks, were an obvious dress rehearsal of a military operation, which, in all likelihood, had been planned in close cooperation with the Pentagon.

The war on Southern Ossetia was not meant to be won, leading to the restoration of Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia. It was intended to destabilize the region while also triggering a US-NATO confrontation with Russia.

On July 12, coinciding with the outset of the Georgia-US war games, the Russian Defense Ministry started its own military maneuvers in the North Caucasus region. The usual disclaimer by both Tblisi and Moscow: the military exercises have “nothing to do” with the situation in South Ossetia. (Ibid)

Let us be under no illusions. This is not a civil war. The attacks are an integral part of the broader Middle East Central Asian war, including US-NATO-Israeli war preparations in relation to Iran.

The Role of Israeli Military Advisers

While NATO and US military advisers did not partake in the military operation per se, they were actively involved in the planning and logistics of the attacks. According to Israeli sources (Debka.com, August 8, 2008), the ground assault on August 7-8, using tanks and artillery was "aided by Israeli military advisers". Israel also supplied Georgia with Hermes-450 and Skylark unmanned aerial vehicles, which were used in the weeks leading up to the August 7 attacks.

Georgia has also acquired, according to a report in Rezonansi (August 6, in Georgian, BBC translation) "some powerful weapons through the upgrade of Su-25 planes and artillery systems in Israel". According to Haaretz (August 10, 2008), Israelis are active in military manufacturing and security consulting in Georgia.

Russian forces are now directly fighting a NATO-US trained Georgian army integrated by US and Israeli advisers. And Russian warplanes have attacked the military jet factory on the outskirts of Tbilisi, which produces the upgraded Su-25 fighter jet, with technical support from Israel. (CTV.ca, August 10, 2008)

When viewed in the broader context of the Middle East war, the crisis in Southern Ossetia could lead to escalation, including a direct confrontation between Russian and NATO forces. If this were to occur, we would be facing the most serious crisis in US-Russian relations since the Cuban Missile crisis in October 1962.

Georgia: NATO-US Outpost

Georgia is part of a NATO military alliance (GUAM) signed in April 1999 at the very outset of the war on Yugoslavia. It also has a bilateral military cooperation agreement with the US. These underlying military agreements have served to protect Anglo-American oil interests in the Caspian sea basin as well as pipeline routes.

Both the US and NATO have a military presence in Georgia and are working closely with the Georgian Armed Forces. Since the signing of the 1999 GUAM agreement, Georgia has been the recipient of extensive US military aid.

Barely a few months ago, in early May, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused Washington, "claiming that [US as well as NATO and Israeli] military assistance to Georgia is destabilizing the region." (Russia Claims Georgia in Arms Buildup, Wired News, May 19, 2008). According to the Russian Defense Ministry

"Georgia has received 206 tanks, of which 175 units were supplied by NATO states, 186 armored vehicles (126 - from NATO) , 79 guns (67 - from NATO) , 25 helicopters (12 - from NATO) , 70 mortars, ten surface-to-air missile systems, eight Israeli-made unmanned aircraft, and other weapons. In addition, NATO countries have supplied four combat aircraft to Georgia. The Russian Defense Ministry said there were plans to deliver to Georgia 145 armored vehicles, 262 guns and mortars, 14 combat aircraft including four Mirazh-2000 destroyers, 25 combat helicopters, 15 American Black Hawk aircraft, six surface-to-air missile systems and other arms." (Interfax News Agency, Moscow, in Russian, Aug 7, 2008)

NATO-US-Israeli assistance under formal military cooperation agreements involves a steady flow of advanced military equipment as well as training and consulting services.

According to US military sources (spokesman for US European Command), the US has more than 100 "military trainers" in Georgia. A Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman "said there were no plans to redeploy the estimated 130 US troops and civilian contractors, who he said were stationed in the area around Tblisi" (AFP, 9 August 2008). In fact, US-NATO military presence in Georgia is on a larger scale to that acknowledged in official statements. The number of NATO personnel in Georgia acting as trainers and military advisers has not been confirmed.

Although not officially a member of NATO, Georgia's military is full integrated into NATO procedures. In 2005, Georgian president proudly announced the inauguration of the first military base, which "fully meets NATO standards". Immediately following the inauguration of the Senakskaya base in west Georgia, Tblisi announced the opening of a second military base at Gori which would also "comply with NATO regulations in terms of military requirements as well as social conditions." (Ria Novosti, 26 May 2006).

The Gori base has been used to train Georgian troops dispatched to fight under US command in the Iraq war theater.

It is worth noting that under a March 31, 2006, agreement between Tblisi and Moscow, Russia's two Soviet-era military bases in Georgia - Akhalkalaki and Batumi have been closed down. (Ibid) The pullout at Batumi commenced in May of last year, 2007. The last remaining Russian troops left the Batumi military facility in early July 2008, barely a week before the commencement of the US-Georgia war games and barely a month prior to the attacks on South Ossetia.

The Israel Connection

Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Israel is a partner in the Baku-Tblisi- Ceyhan pipeline which brings oil and gas to the Eastern Mediterranean. More than 20 percent of Israeli oil is imported from Azerbaijan, of which a large share transits through the BTC pipeline. Controlled by British Petroleum, the BTC pipeline has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucusus:

"[The BTC pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region's countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel, " (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006)

While the official reports state that the BTC pipeline will "channel oil to Western markets", what is rarely acknowledged is that part of the oil from the Caspian sea would be directly channeled towards Israel, via Georgia. In this regard, a Israeli-Turkish pipeline project has also been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon and from there through Israel's main pipeline system, to the Red Sea.

The objective of Israel is not only to acquire Caspian sea oil for its own consumption needs but also to play a key role in re-exporting Caspian sea oil back to the Asian markets through the Red Sea port of Eilat. The strategic implications of this re-routing of Caspian sea oil are far-reaching. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 2006)

What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel's Tipline, from Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon.

"Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East,

The new Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to Israel via four underwater pipelines.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961328841&pagename=JPost%...

“Baku oil can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]"

"Ceyhan and the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon are situated only 400 km apart. Oil can be transported to the city in tankers or via specially constructed under-water pipeline. From Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea; and from there it can be transported to India and other Asian countries in tankers. (REGNUM)

In this regard, Israel is slated to play a major strategic role in "protecting" the Eastern Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridors out of Ceyhan. Concurrently, it also involved in channeling military aid and training to both Georgia and Azerbaijan.

A far-reaching 1999 bilateral military cooperation agreement between Tblisi and Tel Aviv was reached barely a month before the NATO sponsored GUUAM agreement. It was signed in Tbilisi by President Shevardnadze and Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyu. These various military cooperation arrangements are ultimately intended to undermine Russia's presence and influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In a pro forma declaration, Tel Aviv committed itself, following bilateral discussions with Moscow, on August 5, 2008, to cut back military assistance to Georgia.

Russia's Response

In response to the attacks, Russian forces intervened with conventional ground troops. Tanks and armored vehicles were sent in. The Russian air force was also involved in aerial counter-attacks on Georgian military positions including the military base of Gori.

The Western media has portrayed the Russian as solely responsible for the deaths of civilians, yet at the same time the Western media has acknowledged (confirmed by the BBC) that most of the civilian casualties at the outset were the result of the Georgian ground and air attacks.

Based on Russian and Western sources, the initial death toll in South Ossetia was at least 1,400 (BBC) mostly civilians. "Georgian casualty figures ranged from 82 dead, including 37 civilians, to a figure of around 130 dead.... A Russian air strike on Gori, a Georgian town near South Ossetia, left 60 people dead, many of them civilians, Georgia says." (BBC, August 9, 2008). Russian sources place the number of civilian deaths on South Ossetia at 2000.

A process of escalation and confrontation between Russia and America is unfolding, reminiscent of the Cold War era.

Are we dealing with an act of provocation, with a view to triggering a broader conflict? Supported by media propaganda, the Western military alliance is intent on using this incident to confront Russia, as evidenced by recent NATO statements.

Part 2, July 2006

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil

Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon.

One day before the Israeli air strikes, the main partners and shareholders of the BTC pipeline project, including several heads of State and oil company executives were in attendance at the port of Ceyhan. They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the plush surroundings of the Çýraðan Palace.

Also in attendance was British Petroleum's (BP) CEO, Lord Browne together with senior government officials from Britain, the US and Israel. BP leads the BTC pipeline consortium. Other major Western shareholders include Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, France's Total and Italy's ENI. (see Annex)

Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was present at the venue together with a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The BTC pipeline totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, both of which have become US "protectorates", firmly integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO. Moreover, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military cooperation agreements with Israel.

srael has a stake in the Azeri oil fields, from which it imports some twenty percent of its oil. The opening of the pipeline will substantially enhance Israeli oil imports from the Caspian sea basin.

But there is another dimension which directly relates to the war on Lebanon. Whereas Russia has been weakened, Israel is slated to play a major strategic role in "protecting" the Eastern Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridors out of Ceyhan.

Militarization of the Eastern Mediterranean

The bombing of Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

In this context, the BTC pipeline dominated by British Petroleum, has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean, which is now linked, through an energy corridor, to the Caspian sea basin:

Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia.

While the official reports state that the BTC pipeline will "channel oil to Western markets", what is rarely acknowledged is that part of the oil from the Caspian sea would be directly channeled towards Israel. In this regard, an underwater Israeli-Turkish pipeline project has been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon and from there through Israel's main pipeline system, to the Red Sea.

What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel's Tipline, from Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon. In April 2006, Israel and Turkey announced plans for four underwater pipelines, which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory.

The new Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to Israel via four underwater pipelines.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961328841&pagename=JPost%...

“Baku oil can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]"

Water for Israel

Also involved in this project is a pipeline to bring water to Israel, pumping water from upstream resources of the Tigris and Euphrates river system in Anatolia. This has been a long-run strategic objective of Israel to the detriment of Syria and Iraq. Israel's agenda with regard to water is supported by the military cooperation agreement between Tel Aviv and Ankara.

The Strategic Re-routing of Central Asian Oil

Diverting Central Asian oil and gas to the Eastern Mediterranean (under Israeli military protection), for re-export back to Asia, serves to undermine the inter-Asian energy market, which is based on the development of direct pipeline corridors linking Central Asia and Russia to South Asia, China and the Far East.

Ultimately, this design is intended to weaken Russia's role in Central Asia and cut off China from Central Asian oil resources. It is also intended to isolate Iran.

Meanwhile, Israel has emerged as a new powerful player in the global energy market.

Russia's Military Presence in the Middle East

Meanwhile, Moscow has responded to the US-Israeli-Turkish design to militarize the East Mediterranean coastline with plans to establish a Russian naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus:

"Defense Ministry sources point out that a naval base in Tartus will enable Russia to solidify its positions in the Middle East and ensure security of Syria. Moscow intends to deploy an air defense system around the base - to provide air cover for the base itself and a substantial part of Syrian territory. (S-300PMU-2 Favorit systems will not be turned over to the Syrians. They will be manned and serviced by Russian personnel.)

(Kommerzant, 2 June 2006, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=IVA20060...

Tartus is strategically located within 30 km. of the Lebanese border.

Moreover, Moscow and Damascus have reached an agreement on the modernization of Syria's air defenses as well as a program in support to its ground forces, the modernization of its MIG-29 fighters as well as its submarines. (Kommerzant, 2 June 2006). In the context of an escalating conflict, these developments have farreaching implications.

War and Oil Pipelines

Prior to the bombing of Lebanon, Israel and Turkey had announced the underwater pipeline routes, which bypassed Syria and Lebanon. These underwater pipeline routes do not overtly encroach on the territorial sovereignty of Lebanon and Syria.

On the other hand, the development of alternative land based corridors (for oil and water) through Lebanon and Syria would require Israeli-Turkish territorial control over the Eastern Mediterranean coastline through Lebanon and Syria.

The implementation of a land-based corridor, as opposed to the underwater pipeline project, would require the militarisation of the East Mediterranean coastline, extending from the port of Ceyhan across Syria and Lebanon to the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.

It is worth noting that the US War Academy had already contemplated the formation of a "Greater Lebanon" which would extend along the coastline from Israel to Turkey. In this scenario, the entire Syrian coastline would be annexed to an Anglo-American Israeli protectorate.(See Map of The New Middle East below).

Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert has stated that the Israeli offensive against Lebanon would "last a very long time". Meanwhile, the US has speeded up weapons shipments to Israel.

There are strategic objectives underlying the "Long War" which are tied to oil and oil pipelines.

The air campaign against Lebanon is inextricably related to US-Israeli strategic objectives in the broader Middle East including Syria and Iran. In recent developments, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stated that the main purpose of her mission to the Middle East was not to push for a ceasefire in Lebanon, but rather to isolate Syria and Iran. (Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2006)

At this particular juncture, the replenishing of Israeli stockpiles of US produced WMDs points to an escalation of the war both within and beyond the borders of Lebanon.

Burning Capital - Exit Strategy II

eddie — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:49:10 +0000

*Back to Black*

John Browne is not the first head of BP to leave under a cloud. After Robert Horton, chairman & CEO from 1990-92, was ‘encouraged’ to leave his post, the corporate initiative with which he was identified - ‘Project 1990’ - was swiftly brought to a halt. David Simon, his successor, set about re-focusing BP on the core activity of extracting oil & gas. It is clear that a similar kind of shift has been taking place since the fall of Browne in May 2007.

In July 2005, timed to coincide with the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, BP relaunched its ‘Beyond Petroleum’ strapline and unveiled plans for the world’s first carbon capture and hydrogen power station at nearby Peterhead. It was a brilliantly executed PR campaign and arguably the high-water mark of Browne’s ‘green strategy’. But last May, 22 days after Browne’s resignation, BP announced that due to government subsidy not being forthcoming, the project was shelved. Whilst the effectiveness and safety of CCS are far from certain (see article on page 3), Hayward’s dropping of the project sent a clear message of where he wanted to position the company.

The same month, Hayward employed the consulting firms Baines and McKinsey to review the company’s structure. On 10th October he announced an outline of the resulting shake-up, including the break up of one of its three divisions: Gas, Power & Renewables. Most of its assets will be merged into the remaining divisions of Exploration & Production and Refining & Marketing. What is left will be downgraded from a division to a small business unit - BP Alternative Energy. This constitutes a significant shift of emphasis away from renewables.

Then in December BP announced that it was purchasing 50% of Canada’s Sunrise tar sands field from Husky Energy. In contrast, Browne had been sceptical about tar sands. In 1999 he oversaw the sale of BP interests in Alberta and in 2004 he publicly declared that there were ‘tons of opportunities’ beyond the sector. Now, simultaneous with the Climate Conference in Bali, BP press released its acquisition.

Such a contrast to the announcement of the Peterhead Carbon Capture project during the G8 two years previously. No clearer indication could be given of the change of direction under Tony Hayward.

*Accounting for Emissions*

The company assessed its “operational emissions” for 2006 to be 64.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, excluding TNK-BP (effectively BP’s Russian arm, responsible for 1/3 of BP’s production). Leaving aside this qualification, the company’s operational emissions have been falling over recent years. However these constitute only a fraction of the company's total emissions - a mere six percent.

In Spring 2005, Nick Robins, working at Henderson Global Investors in Broadgate, noticed that the total emissions reported in BP’s 2004 Sustainability Report made the company to be responsible for 5.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions: more than twice the 2.5% share of the UK, with 62 million citizens.

A year later, Nick noticed that BP had shifted the goalposts. By changing its methodology to count oil within one sector of the company (mostly refining), rather than counting the emissions from all products it sold (whether crude oil, aviation fuel, diesel etc), BP had cut its emissions to less than half.

BP no longer publishes its full emissions under the original methodology. Yet PLATFORM has calculated the company’s full annual emissions since 1997 by analyzing its production and refining & marketing data. These show that production has risen steadily over the past decade, with a slight decline since 2005 (mainly due to the high oil price) - and the company’s CO2 emissions have risen in parallel with this.

On the morning of May 19th 1997, in a lecture theatre at Stanford University, California, John Browne addressed an audience with his ‘Climate Change Speech’. In the hour that followed Browne broke ranks with his peers in the global oil industry, recognising that human activity was altering the global climate and accepting the need to take precautionary action.

Browne said “Nobody can do everything at once. Companies work by prioritising what they do. They take the easiest steps first, and then they move onto tackle the more difficult and complex problems[…]. Over time we can move towards the elimination of emissions from our own operations and a substantial reduction in the emissions which come from the use of our products”. With these words, a frisson ran through the oil industry. Browne, as BP’s bold new leader, was charting a distinctive course.

But, in Browne’s ten years at the helm after Stanford, he never moved beyond the ‘easiest step’. Instead, BP’s product emissions continued to rise. Meanwhile, renewable energy peaked at 3% of the company’s capital investment. Now, Hayward is seeking to reverse even the tiny steps Browne took.

*A Change in the Political Climate*

The political landscape of climate change shifted in 2007.

Between February and November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published four reports, declaring that if temperatures went two degrees above pre-industrial levels the effects would be “irreversible and catastrophic”. In March the EU agreed to a 20% cut in CO2 emissions by 2020. In June the G8 summit draft communiqué stated that ‘beyond a temperature increase of two degrees, risks from climate change will be largely unmanageable’. In June and September the White House indicated that it was engaging in the issue. In December at Bali it was agreed to achieve a new Kyoto by 2009.

There is a growing consensus that we have to avoid exceeding 2 degrees of warming. In order to do so we need to stabilise CO2 emissions by 2015 - in less than 100 months - and thereafter reduce them radically.

Gordon Brown has talked of setting a target of 80% CO2 cuts by 2050, the Tories and Liberal Democrats likewise. US Presidential favourites, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, have also called for an 80% target. These all require effectively the same thing - a fossil fuel phase out over the next generation.

In these demands for striking global CO2 cuts, the direction of travel is clear - the cuts should fall heaviest on the countries of the global Global North. At Bali, the EU, Japan, Canada and Russia talked of cuts of between 20 and 45% by 2020.

For BP this poses a particular challenge. For example, if there are moves to dramatically reduce fuel consumption in Europe and the USA it will hit the company hard. 84% of the refined products it sold in 2006 were in Europe and the USA. However, the company can adapt to such challenges. It is already directing capital to enable an expansion in the Indian and Chinese retail markets.

Similarly BP has been striving to apply technology to the challenges - by developing internal and external emissions trading systems, or carbon capture and storage projects. But the fate of Peterhead power station, illustrates that these are peripheral ventures at the mercy of financial and political pressures.

This challenge goes to the heart of BP’s core activity - the extraction of oil & gas. These are challenges to which it is far harder for the company to adapt.

2007 might be remembered as the year in which the company had to consider the threat of carbon pricing. The Stern Report concluded that the social cost of a tonne of carbon dioxide was $85. In December 07 the UK Climate Change Minister, Phil Woolas, made it clear that the government is to factor in the ‘shadow price of carbon’ for all infrastructure decisions.

If the logic of this is carried through, BP’s combined operational and product emissions in 2007 constitute a massive liability to the company. If this were set against the profit for 2007 then the company’s profitability would be severely hit, and with it the share price.

The question stands, how long is it before public pressure, driven by the rising impacts of climate change, shifts this theoretical carbon cost into an actual carbon cost? How long until the company is hit by the economic impact of climate change?

*A change in the weather and a change of direction*

Back in May 1997, John Browne recognised the relationship between BP’s oil & gas production and global CO2 emissions. In the intervening 10 years the company has produced 12.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Over the past decade BP’s oil & gas output has been rising most years and in the coming decade it is the company's intention that it should grow further over the coming decade… - causing its produce emissions to rise in parallel. CO2 emissions will also grow. Especially with the development of projects such as Sunrise.

But yet this growth runs in direct contradiction to the demands of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and rising public opinion. At the very least the contradiction between the company and public opinion threatens to erode BP’s ‘social license to operate’ in key countries such as the UK, Germany and the US. An erosion of acquiescence that may lead to the demand that BP carries the cost of the carbon it sells.

What is to be done? How can BP adapt to this coming climate impact?

In the past 12 months decisions were made in BP to finance new developments in Russia, Indonesia and Norway, and to purchase exploration licenses in Colombia and the USA. And with the opportunity afforded by the $100 barrel oil price, the decision was made to purchase tar sands in Canada. We do not know exactly how much carbon these actions will bring to the world’s atmosphere, but we do know that the decisions were made by approximately 20 people.

How would it have been if those who made the decisions in the past 12 months had had at the forefront of their minds the carbon limits recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? What if they had committed themselves to stabilising global CO2 emissions in less than 100 months and then to reducing emissions radically?

How might the company’s year 2007 have been different? What meetings might have taken place to plan the decarbonising of the company? What new investments in non-fossil fuel energy? Would Tony Hayward’s announcement of bringing onstream the Shah Deniz, Rosa, Dalia, Greater Plutonio, Mango and Atlantis fields in 2007 have come to be seen as marking a high-water point in BP’s oil and gas production history?

RBS - Financing Atrocity

eddie — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:25:10 +0000

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s uncritical support for oil is contributing to major human rights abuses, underwriting repressive regimes and fuelling conflict.

Following Steven Spielberg’s withdrawal from the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, pressure has increased on other celebrities (and athletes) to follow suit. But whilst China is the popular whipping boy for the human rights disaster in Darfur, behind the scenes Britain’s second largest bank is helping prop up the Sudanese regime.

Royal Bank of Scotland doesn't only sponsor rugby. PLATFORM research has uncovered a recent RBS loan to an oil corporation working with and supporting the Sudanese regime. This follows a trend of RBS funding fossil fuel extraction in some of the world's most repressive and war-torn countries, including Burma, the DRC and Equatorial Guinea. In October 2007, RBS underwrote loans of $1 billion for Lundin Petroleum, together with BNP Paribas and HBOS. The Sudan Divestment Task Force (SDTF) classifies Lundin in its Top 5 “Highest Offenders”, for its direct support for the Sudanese government during the continued ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

*Working with the military*

Lundin is exploring for oil in Block 5B in south Sudan, together with Sudapet, the Sudanese national oil company, which is part of the regime. This is one of Lundin's major strategic growth areas, and will probably be where much of RBS' financing goes: 4 out of the 13 exploration wells Lundin will drill in 2008 are in Sudan. Its Sudanese assets are estimated at a potential 500 million barrels - 42% of the 1200 million potential barrels to be targeted in 2008.

Due diligence by RBS should have thrown up concerns as to Lundin’s suitability, based on its past record. Southern Sudan has been one of Lundin’s core sites of operation since 1997 - including during the destructive civil war. Human Rights Watch and Christian Aid asserted that, if not complicit, the company enabled Sudanese military operations against local civilians, including the clearing of villages and widespread rape.

While exploring and extracting oil from Block 5A (neighbouring its current operations in Block 5B), Lundin cooperated and worked with the Sudanese government and military. Lundin's construction of a bridge and road allowed year-round access by Baggara militias to attack local villagers, apparently leading to enormous human rights abuses and significant depopulation around Lundin’s operations.

Currently the ceasefire in the south continues to hold shakily, yet Lundin’s clear support for the Sudanese government and lack of commitment to human rights gives little hope.

Beyond Sudan, AllAfrica.com reported on 14 February that Lundin approached the government in Somaliland, Somalia's northern breakaway region, seeking exploration rights. Lundin is currently also investing in what it terms “high risk, high reward frontier exploration” in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, a Somali-inhabited region suffering under the army’s current crackdown on separatist rebels.

Lundin Petroleum is not an exception; the self-styled “Oil and Gas Bank” has repeatedly underwritten the operations of oil and gas corporations working in conflict zones or highly repressive countries. The RBS oil & gas team cofinanced an $850 million financing facility for Tullow Oil, which is working with the state oil company of Equatorial Guinea to pump 44,000 barrels of oil per day from the offshore Ceiba field.

President Mbasogo maintains absolute control of Equatorial Guinea, claims to have received 97% in the most recent elections and has been criticised for extreme human rights abuses by Amnesty International.

Tullow Oil is also pursuing an “aggressive exploration programme” in the North Kivu region on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. 400,000 civilians fled their homes in North Kivu during 2007 to escape fighting between government soldiers, local militia and Tutsi insurgents. The conflict in the DRC is widely seen as fuelled by attempts to control natural resource extraction.

*Financing occupation*

RBS finances numerous oil corporations contributing to human rights abuses globally. However, in some situations, the bank finances the problem project directly. In late 2007, the RBS Oil & Gas Team participated in an $884 million project financing BP’s controversial Tangguh LNG (liquefied natural gas) project in West Papua, occupied by Indonesia since 1963. Amnesty International has estimated that 100,000 West Papuans - one sixth of the population - have been killed by the Indonesian military.

Despite BP’s human rights assessments, local residents have raised issues around disempowerment, environmental degradation, social degeneration and a failure to fully compensate. Local NGOs LP3BH and Perdu have warned of increased militarization in the region and a failure in recognition of customary rights.

More insidiously, the Tangguh LNG project plays a key role in asserting and institutionalising Indonesia's occupation of West Papua. Repression is still rife.

Peaceful protests involving the Papuan flag have led to 15 year prison sentences. In 2004, US Senators wrote that “a military campaign in the Central Highlands has led to an inestimable number of civilian deaths and significant population displacement” and “government security forces are operating with impunity”.

Papuan NGOs reported in autumn 2007 that military “sweep operations” in the highlands were causing displacement and starvation. The Indonesian government’s restrictions on international media and humanitarian organisations makes assessing the reality in West Papua very difficult.

RBS assets also appear to be supporting the Burmese junta. With control over 8.25% and a seat for its CEO Fred Goodwin on the board, RBS is the most significant private shareholder on Bank of China, key backer of Chinese oil companies propping up the military regime in Burma. Petrochina and Sinopec have been criticised heavily for co-operating closely with the Burmese military rulers. Both named Bank of China as their principal banker and continue to borrow and repay loans of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In September 2007, Sinopec began drilling an onshore well in a joint venture with the Burmese regime’s Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise. The launch ceremony on September 26 coincided with the first day of the dictatorship’s brutal crackdown on civilian dissent and was attended by military officials and Sinopec executives. Oil & gas ventures in Burma have been repeatedly condemned by human rights organisations as propping up the regime. Sales of natural gas, such as those to Petrochina, account for the single largest source of revenue to the military government.

Whether through its assets, by financing specific projects or through corporate loans to oil & gas corporations, RBS' lending is contributing to major human rights violations across the planet. Whether this is through a wilful refusal to recognise human rights as a relevant concern or merely repeated failures at due diligence remains unclear.

Cracking the Contracts

Ellie Keen — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:13:32 +0000

In January 2003 Middle Eastern Peace Envoy Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, was planning a war. The media meanwhile debated imaginary threats and UN Resolutions; for the most part respecting the taboo that the planned invasion might have something to do with oil. When, nevertheless, Blair was confronted with that suggestion at Prime Minister’s Question Time he decided to, as he put it, ‘deal with the conspiracy theory’. If oil were the motive he reasoned, it would be ‘infinitely simpler to cut a deal with Saddam’ who he said, ‘would be delighted to give us access’. And he was right. But the war was never about buying Iraq’s oil; it was about selling it.

Five years later the big oil corporations are still waiting for Iraq’s oil fields to open for business. Violence and instability have been one obstacle, but not the main one. After all, oil corporations often operate in hostile environments. As one British official recently put it, ‘if you can successfully operate in the Niger Delta, that is a very different benchmark from imagining that Basra needs to be like London or Paris.’ The real problem has been persuading Iraqi politicians to enact legislation which would guarantee corporate investments.

The Economist called post-invasion Iraq a ‘capitalist dream’, but although the occupation forcedly privatised pretty much everything, they were not foolish enough to attempt to privatise Iraq’s most precious resource. Instead, the oil companies and the occupational powers have pushed for Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs), in which the state and the oil corporations ‘share’ the risk, ownership and profits of Iraq’s oil wealth. But a groundswell of public opinion developed against the oil law, and against PSAs. In December 2006 Iraq’s trade unions released a joint statement opposing ‘the handing of authority and control over the oil to foreign companies that aim to make big profits at the expense of the people and to rob Iraq’s national wealth by virtue of unfair, long-term oil contracts’. A year later the head of the Directorate of Licensing and Contracts would lament that ‘the political and economic culture and atmosphere in Iraq is not conducive to this contract’ .

But as opposition grew, so did the pressure from oil corporations and the occupying powers. Only a month after the trade union statement, Washington announced a ‘surge’ in occupation troops, and a massive escalation in aerial bombardment. Slow movement towards a corporate-friendly oil law was a significant reason behind the new policy, and the passing of the oil law became one of the four ‘bench marks’ gauging the success of the ‘surge’ initiative.

That bench mark has so far not been met. In February 2007, as more foreign troops flooded into Iraq, the cabinet submitted a new oil law to parliament, but once again it came to nothing.

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), less hindered by public opposition, became as impatient as the occupying powers. In August 2007 it passed its own oil law and immediately began awarding contracts to foreign corporations. Before passing its oil law the KRG had already awarded concessions to several small companies including Turkey’s Petoil, a Turkish/Canadian joint venture of General Enerji and Addax Petroleum, and the Norwegian company DNO. Some of these were granted before the Iraqi Constitution itself was signed, let alone an oil law. With the new law in place the KRG has granted contracts to at least another 20 foreign companies, including Heritage Oil (Canada), Hunt Oil (USA), Sterling Energy (Britain) and Gulf Keystone (Britain), OMV (Austria), Reliance (India), and SK Energy (Korea).

Washington’s position on this is not clear. It is known to have opposed independent Kurdish moves in the past. In 2006 US officials met with oil companies to discourage them from dealing separately with the KRG, and Condoleezza Rice met the Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani, to encourage him to cooperate with Baghdad. Washington commented that the Kurdish contracts had ‘needlessly elevated tensions’, but according to the New York Times it ‘hasn’t leaned very hard on the one American oil company involved, Hunt Oil’.

If opposition from Washington was relatively mute, Baghdad was furious. The Natural Resources Minister Hussain al-Shahristani condemned the concessions as illegal and called the companies involved ‘opportunists who are seeking an opportunity where they think they can get a high profit’. In January the Iraq government halted its Basra oil exports to South Korea’s SK Energy in response to its newly acquired Kurdish contract and in February it halted its exports to Austria’s OMV.

Although not enough to discourage smaller companies who thrive in such niches, these threats are enough to discourage the big oil corporations. Iraq’s greatest reserves are in Basra, and that remains the ultimate prize. Royal Dutch Shell commissioned research into Iraqi Kurdistan’s fields but also has hopes for joint projects in the south in partnership with BHP Billiton. Total and Chevron have both teamed up on projects in the south, and BP has studied the southern Rumaila field which borders Kuwait. None of them want to risk alienating the Iraqi government; rather they have done their best to work on service contracts on existing fields, which although do not yield the enormous profits possible under PSAs, might bring them one step closer to searching for, owning and then selling Iraq’s untapped oil.

Today the coveted national oil law seems no closer, but the Kurdish initiative does seem to have forced the central government closer to the oil corporations. In January the Iraqi government invited them to submit documents for a prequalification process pending the eventual planned licensing allocations. Companies involved in the Kurdish contracts were excluded. In February it was announced that as many as 115 companies had registered. The government also announced that Iraq was concluding negotiations for technical support contracts with large oil corporations including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp, Total and Chevron.

Beyond Propaganda

Ellie Keen — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:02:57 +0000

Oil giant BP Greenwashes Alberta Tar Sands

In 1997, after British Petroleum publicly acknowledged the harmful effects of global warming, it quickly became known as the oil company with environmental virtue.

While other oil corporations argued that climate change didn’t exist—most notably Exxon Mobil, which funded around 40 public policy groups that disputed the scientific grounds for global warming—BP was investing in emission reductions, going so far as to support the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement established to curb greenhouse gases, which took effect in 2005.

In 2005, BP Alternative Energies announced it would manage an investment program in solar and wind technologies, one that could amount to $8 billion over seven years. The company also marketed itself as an environmentally friendly oil corporation dedicated to moving “beyond petroleum.”

But a recent change in corporate policy threatens that green-friendly image. It’s a policy that Greenpeace calls “the biggest environmental crime in history.”

The policy involves BP breaking its long-standing, self-imposed ban on the production of crude oil from tar sands—which are a combination of clay, sand, various minerals and bitumen—found in the Canadian wilderness.

The process of extracting and refining tar sands—also known as Canadian crude—involves strip-mining a 50,000-square-mile span of forest (approximately the size of Florida) located in the western Canadian province of Alberta. The region contains an estimated 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

BP’s decision to tap into the Canadian wilderness is “based on addiction, not reality,” says Ann Alexander, senior attorney at the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental group. “Tar sands crude oil is dirty from start to finish. It’s bad enough that [BP is] fouling our natural resources here in the Midwest, but it’s completely destroying them up in Canada. There are good sources of energy we can turn to that don’t involve turning entire forests into a moonscape.”

For oil corporations hoping to extract crude from the area, access is often a major hurdle. Bitumen is thick, which means tar sands can’t be pumped from the ground the same way traditional oil is. Tar sands need to be mined, and the deeper they are beneath the earth’s surface, the more difficult—and harmful—the extraction.

In Alberta’s case, nearly 80 percent of the oil lays so deep underground that it needs to be either injected with steam or put through a “fireflood” process, which introduces compressed air to the bitumen and burns the oil for better flow. To extract a single barrel of bitumen from tar sands requires an energy input of 250 cubic feet of natural gas.

The first step, then, involves razing vast amounts of wilderness for open-pit mining—meaning that small plants, trees and topsoil must be extracted by the ton. And because five barrels of water are typically needed to produce a single barrel of crude, surrounding rivers must be routed to the pits, then re-routed to man-made lakes of toxic sludge.

But the leveling of the Canadian wilderness is only the beginning. Once the forest and wildlife are out of the way and the pits have been dug, the raw process of extraction requires substantial manpower, heavy machinery (some of which can be up to three stories tall and weigh as much as a jetliner) and an incredible amount of energy. And that’s to produce only a single barrel of unrefined crude oil from two tons of tar sands.

Also, because of the machinery involved, tar sand extraction generates up to four times more carbon dioxide than conventional drilling. Over the next seven years, global warming pollutants released into the atmosphere from tar sands oil production are projected to quintuple to 126 megatons, up from 25 megatons in 2003, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit environmental group based in Canada.

What’s more, the tar sands industry consumes enough gas in a single day to heat approximately 4 million American homes, according to the NRDC.

Yet none of these estimates has deterred BP from going forward with a plan to produce 200,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day over the next 15 years.

Tar sand boom

One of the biggest hurdles in combating the Albertan tar sand boom is Canada’s lack of environmental standards and regulations. Canada doesn’t have a Clean Air Act like the United States does, only guidelines. And even the guidelines the national government has in place can be circumvented by powers granted to each province. The Albertan government, in fact, has openly stated that it is not in line with the Kyoto Protocol, a direct rebuff to Canada’s national pledge.

The question then raised, says Melanie Nakagawa, attorney for the NRDC’s International Program, is “should the provinces have authority over global warming emissions?”

Currently, 16 percent of American oil imports comes from Alberta. And with corporations such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon already committed to investing $125 billion in imports from Alberta over the next 20 years, that percentage will only increase. Of the 1.25 million barrels extracted daily from the sands, 1 million of it goes directly to the United States. By 2020, that number could be as high as 5 million, according to the NRDC.

“Canadian crude is simply the absolute wrong direction,” the NRDC’s Alexander says. “If you look at the new technology we have regarding much cleaner resources, we should decide what is best. That is not Canadian crude. It’s destructive on every level.”

Perched along Lake Michigan

Once crude is extracted from the tar sands, it still needs to be refined before it can be used. For the most part, that refinement takes place in the United States—and creates another set of environmental hazards in the process.

In Whiting, Ind., where one of BP’s refineries is perched along Lake Michigan’s shores, the company is undergoing a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow it to refine crude oil originating from Canadian tar sands. The expansion, which will be completed by 2011, will allow BP to refine 260,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day, triple its current capacity.

Canadian crude contains more sulfur and carbon than traditional oil. According to Simon Dyer, oil sands program director and policy director for the Pembina Institute, this means that the process of refining heavier oil has the potential to release up to four times more greenhouse gases.

In a Nov. 30 statement, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alleged that the BP refinery in Whiting made equipment modifications that resulted in a significant increase in sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and carbon monoxide emissions. All are ozone-depleting chemicals that BP, according to its website, is working to reduce “before it is required by international and national obligations.”

The EPA stated that in 2006, BP made modifications to the fluidized catalytic cracking unit at its Whiting plant. Developed in 1942 by Exxon, this unit converts heavier oil, such as crude, into lighter, more valuable products like gasoline and naphtha (a mixture used as feedstock for producing high octane gas).

These allegations come at a time when the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) is reviewing the company for an update to its air emissions permit. (BP has sought higher thresholds in the amount of pollutants it releases.)

The review has drawn comparisons to the controversial water permit that IDEM issued to BP in summer 2007. According to IDEM Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Air Quality Dan Murray, as was the case with the water permit, the air permit renewal is a reflection of the Whiting expansion.

BP has already withdrawn from IDEM’s proposed Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit, which would have forced BP to take expensive steps to reduce emissions. If BP had accepted the PSD permit, it would have been required to install the latest pollution control technology and prove that its upgrades would not harm the environment.

The NRDC’s Alexander has seen these methods before. The water permit that IDEM granted BP made Indiana’s anti-degradation laws almost meaningless, she says. And backing off the PSD permit could mean BP has some new tricks up its sleeves.

“It’s in BP’s interest to get around the need for a PSD permit,” Alexander says. “They can potentially accomplish that either with real emissions reductions or with funny math.”

Tar sands extraction isn’t just another hurdle for environmentalists to combat. It merely reveals a simple truth: when it comes to “being green,” even the most publicly boastful of the oil corporations—such as BP—will keep their promises only as far as their bottom line allows. Without action, it’s empty rhetoric.

As the world continues to crawl toward environmental sustainability, tar sands extraction, says Nakagawa, is “scraping the bottom of the barrel to get our energy needs.”

BP Bankrolls Biofuels Research

Tim Holmes — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:18:21 +0000

AMY GOODMAN: There is a controversy raging at the University of California, Berkeley, where British Petroleum, where BP -- they’ve called themselves now Beyond Petroleum -- has promised to give $500 million to the university over the next ten years. The deal would fund the development of "sustainable, commercially viable, and environmentally friendly” sources of energy. The newly created Energy Biosciences Institute, or EBI, claims to promote research into biofuels, as well as bacteria that would increase energy production from oil and coal.

Critics at UC Berkeley point to the corporatization of academic research, the ecological dangers of biofuels, and BP's long history of environmental irresponsibility, they say. They call this an act of greenwashing by BP and have been protesting the deal since it was announced in February of this year. But supporters claim that the corporate - academic partnership allows the university to realize its renewable energy research agenda and provides the most effective and economical means of addressing the looming environmental crisis.

To talk about this issue, we’re joined by two professors at UC Berkeley. Miguel Altieri is a professor of entomology. He is a renowned expert in agroecology, or sustainable agriculture. He is opposed to the deal between BP and UC Berkeley. He joins us here at Link TV’s studios in San Francisco. Daniel Kammen is a professor of Energy and Resources, a professor of public policy and nuclear engineering. He directs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory and is on the executive committee of the Energy Biosciences Institute, which will carry out much of the research under this deal. Kammen is generally supportive of the deal.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Professor Kammen. Why do you think this $500 million that BP has promised over the next ten years is good for the university?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, there’s a couple features. One is that we clearly need to learn more about biofuels, and we need to learn about them in a way that emphasizes the sustainability. The biofuel industry right now is taking off around the world, and it’s unfortunately being based largely on feed stocks that are bad on an energy balance and bad for many communities on a profit balance and bad for many communities in terms of trading off their food needs versus fuel needs. And so, the need to develop a serious research agenda to find out the better ways to do this or, in fact, whether we should do this at all, is in fact the reason why we need to begin these sorts of programs, not just at Berkeley, but hopefully around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, the issue of BP giving this enormous sum of money, $500 million over the next ten years, is this of concern to you, the issue of the privatization of a public institution?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, I think that the size of the grant can be a concern, but not for the reasons that you’re raising. I actually think that this amount of money is relatively small change, both for the oil industries around the world and, in fact, for the amount of money it takes to bring new products to market. New cars and new drugs frequently take that much money -- half a billion dollars -- to bring them to market. And as a research pot of money to start with, I actually don’t regard it as that much money.

The chance, though, that this amount of money would alter what a university does is a concern to me, and the degree to which a university might see grants like this as a reason or as an excuse or as a mechanism to alter what they would work on -- say, move away from some areas and move into others -- is a concern if it was being done in a way that I thought that the company had that driving force.

And so far in the process here, I’ve been quite pleased with the degree to which the intellectual terms of the discussion, in terms of what to study, not the broader politics of biofuels, has been well represented. Whether that continues or not is something that we’re hopefully going to be vigilant to and look at, but I don’t think it’s a guaranteed feature that you will necessarily be able to steer clear of that. It’s going to take a degree of oversight to make sure that we don’t have corporate interests running essentially what US or other universities would do.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri, your concerns?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Well, my concerns is that, first of all, Professor Kammen is saying, it’s very little money, and eventually it’s little money for BP, but a lot of money for UC Berkeley. And what they’re going to do with this money is basically skim off what 200 years of public investment has done. It would be very expensive for BP to build a university and a research facility. They will come with $500 million. They skim off what the public university has built over years, and then they bring fifty scientists from BP that are going to have access to students, and so therefore what they’re going to do is influence the research agenda of the public university. And it’s already happening.

AMY GOODMAN: How?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Well, a lot of fields that should be emphasized at Berkeley are dying off, like biological pest control, alternatives to pesticides, agroecologist sustainable agriculture. And they are emphasizing fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering and etc. And basically what the chancellor has done is basically has put in power, in a position of power, people that are chemists, engineers and chemists and genetic engineering, and so on, in charge of an agenda of complex ecological issues, rather than ecologists. Ecologists have been actually -- most of them that are critic -- have been actually taken out of any dealings with this, with this deal.

AMY GOODMAN: Has the deal been signed?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: No. As far as I know, not.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know, Professor Kammen? It sounds like there’s a lot of speculation, also a lot of concern, about the transparency of this. Have the heads of BP and the heads of the University of California signed on the dotted line?

DANIEL KAMMEN: No, they haven’t. There’s actually still quite a bit of debate still going as to how to structure it, largely around the reasons that Miguel mentioned, because the structure of the proposal that we wrote -- and I was one of the authors of the initial proposal, not of the final legal deal, which is being handled by the legal teams, but of the final -- but of the initial plan that we sent to BP -- was in fact one that I thought addressed many of these issues, and they’re still being debated today, and that was that research done on the University of California side and that of our partners -- and our partners in this deal include the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is a government lab run by the University of California -- and working out the arrangements so that work done on so-called “our side” of that equation is fully the intellectual property of our team members, not of BP, was a central point in the proposal that we wrote up. And those are the features that are now being discussed, and that’s why it has not been finalized yet, trying to work out that arrangement.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s talk about that, Professor Altieri. How does this work? Do employees of BP -- I said “Beyond Petroleum,” that’s what the commercials say; I don’t think that’s actually their name -- it’s just BP, is that right?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Yeah, BP.

AMY GOODMAN: The scientists at BP will work at UC Berkeley?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Yeah, they will be housed at UC Berkeley. Actually, I understand that the state is going to put four to seven million dollars to build a facility for them in the campus. They’re going to have a status of visiting scholars, and they’re going to participate in academic life. Supposedly, they need to be invited to do that, but obviously they’re going to be doing it, and they’re going to be having access to students, having access to research facilities that have been built, but with public money. And they’re going to influence the research agenda. There’s no doubt about that.

And anybody that has protested -- faculty -- have been basically dismissed and disregarded as a colorful -- as part of the colorful character of the campus. You know, we have to have these people that are always protesting.

And what worries me is that, on the one side, they’re promoting the wrong technology: biofuels is the wrong way to go. There’s no discussion, for example, in this proposal about alternative transportation systems, how to curb consumption patterns of petroleum and how to promote other alternatives that are much more viable. And biofuels are going to cause tremendous problems not only in the United States, but in third world countries especially, because if we devoted all the corn that is in this country, 125,000 square miles, we would only satisfy 12% of the gas needs. So obviously what’s going to happen is that it’s going to be grown in the third world, and basically the people in the third world are going to be paying the price for the over-consumption and the old-based style of living of Europe and the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Kammen, your response?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, I think there’s a couple really good points in what Miguel just said. The first one is I’m actually, as well, concerned, that I thought that the debate on campus is not one that has been as open as it could be. And you’re right, there has been sort of high-profile protests, but protests and actually having sit-downs between the sides has been somewhat lacking. And I actually really view that as a feature that the campus is responsible for the lack of that, not BP so far, and the campus needs to do a better job in that regard.

In terms of the fuel issues around the world, I actually take quite a different view than that by Miguel. It is true that if we devoted all of our corn to making ethanol in the US, we would only reach about 10% or 12%, so it wouldn’t be a significant effort, and you wouldn’t want to give up all that corn use for ethanol. But an interesting and, I think, a critical feature of the BP proposal is that, in fact, corn ethanol is excluded. Everyone who works on ethanol and biofuels worldwide recognizes that alternate fuels are available that are far better, the so-called cellulosic crops, that even include using garbage and using the waste carbon dioxide that comes out of power plants on just the land sitting next to those power plants. Those are areas for research in this proposal, not corn.

And so, if there was to be an approach that would look at alternatives that did not make the tension between food and fuel worse, it’s a project like this. In fact, in many parts of the developing world, the potential to grow crops that are useful for farmers locally at much higher efficiencies than they draw today -- for food stocks, again, not corn -- is an option that this proposal should be looking at. And the degree to which we do a good job there, I think, is very much due to the sort of things that Miguel said, and that is having this broader discussion and analysis not only of what we should be doing, but also how it goes on.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: I think it’s going to come too late, because right now what’s happening is that corn and soybean and sugar cane are the crops that the corporations -- I mean, the University of California-BP deal is nothing compared to the tremendous alliance between corporations like ADM, the grain merchants -- ADM, Bunge, Cargill -- the corporations of petroleum, the corporations of biotechnology, the car corporations and some environmental groups. And actually, they are promoting already these types of feed stocks that are going to do a huge destruction, deforestation, more gas emissions, because of the industrial nature of the agriculture they’re going to practice, and so on. So the BP-UC deal is going to come too late with the cellulosic alternatives that Professor Kammen is talking about.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, [inaudible] jump in there, because, on one hand, you're saying that, well, this is a bad thing, but on the other hand you're saying that, well, this is just an approach that could do it if we did it right. And I actually think that while it’s true that we have come relatively recently to cellulosic fuels in the last few years, to then say we shouldn’t work on them or that we have no chance to make them a big part of the equation is, I think, too early. That might be the case, but it’s not yet. And we do need to explore them.

And, in fact, one of the reasons that California and UC Berkeley was sited for this institute is that the State of California, in work that our lab and others at UC Davis have worked on in detail, is setting standards for our fuels for the future that would in fact be cleaner. And the way that we’re doing this is around something called the low-carbon fuel standard, which effectively means that if we want to use biofuels, corn is not going to be a feedstock. And the reason for that is that we’re rating fuels based on how much greenhouse gases come out.

Now, greenhouse gas is not the only environmental concern I have -- there's also water and erosion and local land use -- but it’s the one that is a direct and a first step to allow us to say a fuel that’s worse than gasoline, in terms of its greenhouse impacts, is going to be disallowed in the state, and we’re going to push toward the cleaner ones. And BP, as well as campus researchers setting up this project, cited that effort and parallel efforts going on in Germany and in UK and in EU system-wide right now as part of that new framework. So you're right, we might not make it. But I do believe we need to do the research to find out if it’s possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri, last words. What are you calling for now? What are the organizations on campus and outside -- because groups like Greenpeace, Essential Action, have also weighed in here, concerned about the corporatization of public institutions.

MIGUEL ALTIERI: I think what we need is, first of all, is to call again for an open debate, which has been suppressed, because basically the people that were questioning this have been accused of attempting against academic freedom. And basically what academic freedom now means in Berkeley is just that you cannot question the financial associations of faculty.

I mean, we need to look at the record of BP. We cannot associate with BP. It has a horrible record in terms of environment, in terms of human rights, and so on. And they have been, you know, destroying the environment for many years, and now they come as the doves of ecology.

We need to also put in place people that are going to be looking critically at the social, ecological impacts. We cannot leave in charge climate change and ecological questions to a bunch of engineers and chemists and genetic engineering people. We need to bring ecologists, social scientists, but also that are critical and are independent, that are not associated with this proposal and therefore open to debate, and also bring the public of California to question their public university that is being funded by them. They need to reclaim their university, their public university.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you see any of this happening in the discussion?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: No, I don’t see that. Everything is secret. I don’t know anything. None of the faculty that are not associated with this know anything about the negotiation. Professor Kammen seems to be updated, but, you know, the rest of the faculty are not aware of what’s going on.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will leave it there, but follow the discussion further. I want to thank Professors Altieri and Kammen for joining us from the University of California, Berkeley.

Exit Strategy - BP and the Refuelling of Heathrow

Tim Holmes — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:32:14 +0000

A climate change delivery system

Imagine a 747 departing from Heathrow. Don’t look at the body of the plane, but at the fuel tanks. In the first 600 seconds after take-off the engines consume 200 gallons of Jet A high-octane fuel. The Jet A began as rocks from deep beneath the earth; in the engines of the 747 it is burned, producing carbon dioxide gas and other waste products.

Now see the line between those rocks and that gas. There are many routes from oil field to jet engine. Often oil passes between many companies on its way, but let’s imagine it stays mostly within one, BP.

1) BP’s oil platforms off Baku extract crude oil from 3 km beneath the Caspian seabed.

2) The crude passes along BP’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean coast.

3) Tankers, operated or contracted by BP Shipping, carry the crude to Britain.

4) The refinery at Coryton in Essex (owned by BP until 2006) receives the crude and refines it into petrol, bitumen, jet fuel and other products.

5) Jet A fuel leaves Coryton via the Thameside Pipeline which runs to Buncefield near Hemel Hempstead (a depot jointly run BP, ChevronTexaco & Total), then via the West London Pipeline (30% owned by BP) to Heathrow.

6) At Heathrow, the fuel is loaded onto waiting 747s on the runways, via fuel hydrants and fuel trucks (a supply system of which Air BP is one of the main operators).

As you read this, approximately twenty 747s are being filled with 1500 gallons of fuel every minute. The fuel is constantly travelling from rocks beneath the Caspian, across the mountains, deserts and fields of Georgia and Azerbaijan, on tankers from the south of Turkey, through Coryton and Buncefield, to Heathrow. Transferring carbon, from deep geology to the sky over our heads, a giant climate change delivery system.

Power and change

There is now a growing scientific consensus that if global temperatures are pushed to more than 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, we will tip into run-away climate change, with disastrous impacts on human society and other species.

In early 2007 the International Panel on Climate Change advised that to prevent going above 2 degrees, we need to stabilise the rate at which CO2 is being emitted into the atmosphere by 2015, in 8 years time, and from then on progressively reduce global emissions.

Faced with the problem of over-fishing in the North Sea, the European Commission doesn’t ban or constrain the eating of cod by households, rather it limits the numbers of fishing boats working in the harbours. It regulates the handful of producers rather than millions of consumers. That is simply the most practical way of tackling the challenge.

Take a contrasting example. By the end of the Twentieth Century it was widely accepted that smoking caused horrendous health problems, and this was placing a huge strain on the health systems of the state. In this case, the UK government now uses the law, advertising and health information programmes to constrain UK citizens from smoking. But it does little to regulate tobacco companies.

What the smoking example shows is the significance of power. Whereas the politically weak fishing industry carries all the burden of change, with smoking it is the individual consumers, for the tobacco industry is politically too powerful for the government to force it to carry the majority of the burden.

In tackling the need to reduce CO2 emissions, the Kyoto Protocol places the emphasis on the energy consumer. It does not try to tackle the fossil fuel industry - and nor does the British government.

Shortly before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown was asked who in Britain was more powerful than him. He gave the names of four men, all businessmen, and top of the list was Lord Browne, CEO of BP. By the time Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, John Browne had fallen from office, but one of the new Prime Minister’s first acts was to establish a new ‘Business Council’, among whom was Tony Hayward, the new CEO of BP. BP’s CO2 emissions, from both its processes (direct emissions from drilling rigs and refineries etc) and its products (emissions from what it sells: petrol, jet fuel, etc) are equivalent to 5% of global CO2 emissions - twice that of all 62 million UK citizens.

BP frequently highlights the fact that it is trying to reduce the emissions of its processes. But that’s like British American Tobacco saying: ‘There are health issues around smoking and we’re tackling them...we’ve instituted a no smoking policy in our factories and offices’. This would be laughable because it is widely understood that the tobacco industry is responsible for the impacts of its products on consumers - lawsuits in the US have been unfolding in an attempt to try to enforce this understanding, to show the culpability of producers.

Who fuels whom?

BP directly supplies about 30% of all fuel consumed at Heathrow. But does Heathrow also fuel BP?

Andy Chubb is head of Air BP for the UK & Ireland. His job is to sell as much aviation fuel as he can. Receiving a promotion, a pay rise or a bonus, and ultimately retaining his job, depends on his making more money from selling aviation fuel this year than he did last year - if income from sales remains steady or declines, his position will come under scrutiny.

Andy Chubb is under pressure. Under pressure to perform from his immediate superiors, such as Peter Mather, BP UK head-of-country. Mather can assist Chubb in the process of fuel sales, for example by lobbying the UK Treasury not to levy tax on aviation fuel. Mather is also under pressure.

Pressure to perform from his superiors, one of whom is Iain Conn, head of BP Refining & Marketing globally. Conn is responsible for four of the six stages of the shifting fuel from oil rigs to Heathrow, from BP Shipping to Air BP. Conn answers to the BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward, and the Board of BP, chaired by Peter Sutherland.

66 million passengers passed through Heathrow last year, and are nominally held responsible for their CO2 emissions. But these five men - Sutherland, Hayward, Conn, Mather, and Chubb - and a few more, are responsible for supplying about 30% of the fuel consumed at Heathrow. The fuel consumed by perhaps 20 million people. Surely it would be easier to regulate these five?

The trouble is that these men, three of them millionaires, are far more powerful than the fishermen of Peterhead. And they use their power to ensure that they don’t have to carry the burden of change.

The challenge

We need to stabilise global emissions in the next 8 years, if we are to avoid going beyond 2 degrees of global warming. These ideas and principles when discussed are generally applied to nation states. But what happens if we apply them to companies? BP is a multinational, operating in over 100 countries in the world, and is responsible for twice the emissions of the UK. How does that fit within the frame of national reduction targets?

Let’s go back to Andy Chubb - within the next 8 years, he (or is successor) needs to be proudly showing at the end of each year that he has actually reduced the amount of oil that he’s sold in comparison to the previous year. And this needs to go on happening until the amount of jet fuel he is selling is a mere fraction of what he’s currently selling. And he needs to stay in his job - so he needs the support of Mather, Conn, Hayward and Sutherland.

The UK government has been proud of the fact that in the late 1990s it led the industrial world in the level at which it cut its CO2 emissions, largely due the switch of power stations from coal to gas. A change in our CO2 emissions came about, and the communities in the coalfields in Wales, the Midlands, Kent, Yorkshire and Scotland bore the burden of that change. Now we need to reduce our CO2 emissions radically further, and a key part of this will again be changing the structures of production and supply, not just the structures of consumption.

How do we pressurise a company such as BP to undergo that radical shift, to accept more of the burden of change?

This article is adapted from a presentation given by James Marriott of PLATFORM at the Camp for Climate Action, Heathrow, August.

"Indonesia's territorial integrity"...it's just a bloody map

JamieSW — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:22:41 +0000

“The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”

- Nazi Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels, 1941

For nearly 40 years, a succession of Generals in Jakarta, from Suharto to Yudhoyono, together with their fellow conspirators in London, Washington, Canberra and the Hague, have told a very big lie; that the people of West Papua chose feely to join Indonesia in the 1969 “Act of Free Choice”. And by repeating the lie over and over again they’ve hoped that people would eventually come to believe it.

The truth is Indonesia’s greatest enemy. The Indonesian, British, American, Australian and Dutch governments all know the truth; In 1969 Suharto’s henchmen put their rifles to the heads of 1,026 West Papuan elders and threatened to blow their brains out if they voted for independence. They all know the truth that if the West Papuan people had been given a genuine one person – one vote referendum they would have voted overwhelmingly for independence. And they also all know the truth that the only way Indonesia can hold on to West Papua now is by repressing peaceful Papuan dissenters like Filep Karma & Yusak Pakage, jailed for 15 & 10 years for peacefully raising the West Papuan flag.

Indonesian embassies all over the world are spending millions of rupiahs in a desperate attempt to prevent the truth from coming out. But it’s money down the drain. Indonesia is loosing the battle. However many independence campaigners Indonesia imprisons, tortures, intimidates or kills inside West Papua, all the money in the world can’t stop West Papuans in Britain, the USA, Australia or the Netherlands from simply telling the truth.

Indonesia’s big West Papua lie is now so obviously a lie that it has become too embarrassing for Indonesia’s Western allies to repeat the lie itself. You won’t now hear a British government Minister trying to defend the “Act of Free Choice”. In fact the UK government now calls it “extremely flawed” [1] and has even officially admitted that in 1969 “a thousand hand-picked Papuans were largely coerced into declaring for Indonesia”.[2]

But while the UK and Indonesia’s other Western co-conspirators don’t now tell the big lie themselves, they are nevertheless still trying to protect the lie from the truth’s corrosive power. Now, when anyone (whether an ordinary citizen, Member of Parliament or even David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition in the UK Parliament [3]) asks the British Foreign Secretary any question about West Papua’s right to self-determination, the Foreign Office sends up a smoke screen to try to protect Indonesia’s big lie. They say the UK “respects Indonesia’s territorial integrity”.

Question: In the 1969 “Act of Free Choice”, were the West Papuan people allowed to exercise their internationally-recognised right to self-determination in accordance with international law?

Answer: The United Kingdom government respects the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia.

Question: The UK has already admitted that the West Papuan people were “coerced” into joining Indonesia in 1969, so isn’t it the logical conclusion that the West Papuans should now be given the chance to vote in a free and fair self-determination referendum?

Answer: The United Kingdom government respects the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia.

Question: Now that Indonesia has signed up to the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights, should the West Papuan people be allowed to campaign peacefully for independence, or is it still OK for Indonesia to jail them for 15 years for peacefully raising the West Papuan “Morning Star” flag?

Answer: The United Kingdom government respects the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia.

“Respecting Indonesia’s territorial integrity” is blatantly not an answer to these questions which would stand up in any court of law. The Foreign Office’s answers would be laughable if their consequence wasn’t so serious for the West Papuan people suffering under Indonesian oppression. Very sadly, it’s all too clear that by repeating the “territorial integrity” mantra over and over again the UK and Indonesia’s other Western friends are simply avoiding giving answers in order to protect Indonesia’s big lie … and at the same time, of course, protect British economic interests (BP is collaborating with the Indonesian government on a huge natural gas project in West Papua. Rio Tinto has a share in one of the world’s biggest gold & copper mines in the West Papuan highlands.)

So it’s high time to prick the “territorial integrity” bubble once and for all by exposing what “Indonesia’s territorial integrity” actually means. It’s just a bloody map.

Indonesia claims West Papua because it says that every square mile of the Far East which the Dutch grabbed, Indonesia should now be allowed to grab too. From Sumatra to New Guinea, every island or part of an island which used to be coloured Dutch orange on the old maps, should now, they claim, be coloured Indonesian red. Indonesia’s argument means that one old Dutch Empire should simply be replaced by a new Javanese Empire.

“Indonesia‘s territorial integrity” is just a bloody map. How can a bloody map justify the oppression of a million and a half Melanesians? How can a bloody map justify the Indonesian military imprisoning, torturing, raping, terrorising and murdering West Papuan men, women and children? How can a bloody map justify the use of State violence and terror to keep a people inside a country they simply don’t want to be part of?

A generation ago, the British in India, the French in Algeria and the Dutch in Java were prepared to shed innocent Indian, African and Indonesian blood in a vain attempt to keep the map of the world coloured as they wanted. Just like Indonesia is now doing in West Papua, the British, French and Dutch Empires
were prepared to use violence to keep people within their imperial territory against their will … to “protect their territorial integrity”.

“Indonesia‘s territorial integrity” is just a bloody map … and it’s a map drenched in the blood of at least 100,000 innocent West Papuans, murdered during 5 years of brutal Indonesian occupation.

The big lie that the West Papuans chose freely to join Indonesia in 1969 has now been exposed. It’s so obviously a lie that democracies like the UK are
now too ashamed to repeat it. And “Indonesia‘s territorial integrity” is just a bloody map. It’s now time for the Western democracies to admit that people are more important than maps; that the era of using violence to keep people inside an Empire against their will is over.

It’s time to put the people of West Papua first. At long last, it’s time to allow the West Papuans the chance to determine their own future.

—————————————————————————————————————

[1] Baroness Royall (UK government spokesperson), House of Lords debate on West Papua, 8th January 2007.

[2] Baroness Symons (UK Foreign Office Minister) House of Lords, 13th December 2004. Confirmed in a letter from Jack Straw, UK Foreign Secretary, 4th February 2005.

[3] On 24th August 2007, David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition in the UK Parliament & Leader of the Conservative Party, met Benny Wenda, Leader of the West Papuan independence movement in the UK. Mr Cameron promised that he would “probe the [UK] government on West Papua’s right to self-determination”.

In reply to his “probing” so far, the UK Foreign Office has simply repeated to Mr Cameron that “the UK government respects Indonesia’s territorial integrity”.