Blog: Climate

Publication date: April 2002

Summary
Our weather is careering out of control. Global warming will bring more floods and chaos to Britain and increasingly extreme storms, drought and disease worldwide. The culprit is pollution from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. It is time to break our dependency on oil - if we don't we will wreck the planet for ourselves and future generations.

Publication date: April 2002

Summary
A leaked memo - from Esso (ExxonMobil) to the White House - has exposed attempts by the world's biggest oil company to oust a top UN scientist.

The latest of Exxon's dirty tricks, this memo to the Bush administration criticises Dr Robert Watson, Head of the UN International Panel on Climate Change. The scientist has spoken out in the past about the need to tackle global warming, and has criticised the US for failing to meet environmental targets.

"This Review had three tasks: to consider the implications for energy policy of the RCEP's view that the UK would have to make a substantial cuts in CO2 emissions by the middle of the century if it were to join a world-wide coalition to stabilise CO2 concentration in the atmosphere; to review energy security; and to consider whether the different objectives which energy systems meet can be better integrated, given that the recent past has seen some conflicts, for instance between environmental and social objectives."