Both
the Independent and
the Guardian have stories this morning about recent efforts by ExxonMobil-funded and Bush-friendly lobbyists to try to influence European companies abnd EU regulators about the future shape of the Kyoto treaty after it expires in 2012.
If it all sounds eerily familiar, that's because it is - it's a replica of their successful efforts in the 1990s in the US to kill US participation to the treaty.
But the netroots can fight back.
from the Independent
Put together by a lobbyist who is a senior official at a group partly funded by ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company and a fierce opponent of anti-global warming measures, the plan seeks to draw together major international companies, academics, think-tanks, commentators, journalists and lobbyists from across Europe into a powerful grouping to destroy further EU support for the treaty.
It details just how the so-called "European Sound Climate Policy Coalition" would work. Based in Brussels, the plan would have anti-Kyoto position papers, expert spokesmen, detailed advice and networking instantly available to any politician or company who wanted to question the wisdom of proceeding with Kyoto and its demanding cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.
It has been drawn up by Chris Horner, a senior official with the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute and a veteran campaigner against Kyoto and against the evidence of climate change. One of his colleagues who describes himself as an adviser to President George Bush was the subject of a censure motion by the Commons last year after he attacked the Government's chief scientist.
Mr Horner, whose CEI group has received almost $1.5m (£865,000) from ExxonMobil, is convinced that Europe could be successfully influenced by such a policy coalition just as the US government has been.
You get all the usual ingredients:
- a newspeak name hiding its intentions;
- comfortable funding from ExxonMobil and/or other polluting industries;
- intimate links with the Bush administration;
- the ability to drown the airwaves with talking points, via networks of "experts", lobbyists and consultants
- buying off scientists and attempting to muddle issues by bringing a "he said, she said" aspect to the debate.
They are not even hiding themselves:
When contacted by The Independent, Mr Horner confirmed the strategy document was the draft of a presentation he sent to RWE. He defended his lobbying effort saying "that is what I do". He said he simply promoted a point of view, as did Greenpeace. "I don't begrudge them what they do [but] they begrudge me what I do," he said.
Asked if he thought it was appropriate for a major American oil company to be funding a lobbyist targeting European companies, he replied: " Everybody else does."
Again, that "there is no truth" mantra, only two sides fighting it off in a zero-sum game, "me against you - there is no such thing as society" logic.
And that "everybody does it" argument, espeically despicable at times like today on the debate on torture, but symptomatic of our times: they have no moral standards of their own, they are just trying to be no worse than others (and only as a fig leaf to deflect the argument that they are acting "bad"), and they see everything as a fight with everybody else for short term gain.
The Republican/big business way in a nutshell: trench warfare.
- it is a fight to death;
- anything goes;
- the stakes are "the next hill" - the next quarterly numbers, the next election
- The high ground is hit by the artillery fire of the values mantra. This ensures that the adversary is dragged in the mud alongside themselves, thus making all claims of moral superiority relative and meaningless. They make the claims not because they believe them, but to deny that ground to others.
So what will be our blitzkrieg strategy to get out of the mud? Can the manifold pinpricks and the widespread reach of the netroots be effective against the big corporate machines?
Here's a sign of hope: maybe.
Mr Horner, who is also a senior figure within the Cool Heads Coalition, a group that questions the evidence of global warming and opposes any policies to "ration" energy, claimed his efforts to influence opinion in Europe had been unsuccessful. He said RWE had not taken up the suggestions contained within his presentation, and that other companies had also rejected his ideas.
"I don't know why it's surprising [I have lobbied European companies]," he said. "What is surprising to me is why it's not working."
What's needed is for companies to start caring about the future - their own - and not just about the very short term. Get companies to worry about the long term costs of policies beneficial in the short term. Get them to see that they can actually make money in the new environment, or lose some from supporting the old models.
A notable thing is that one thing that is actually encouraging big companies to start asking for strong federal regulations (at the US or EU or, even better, worldwide level) is that they suffer form the hodgepodge of local initiatives that put wildly varying constraints on them in many different places.
So local regulation can have an effect, by (i) making it clear that there is popular support for regulation and (ii) making global regulation appear cheaper than the alternative. Thus, netroots, go for it, and don't worry if what you're doing is coherent with what's done elsewhere - it's precisely the diversity that will pay off!