Monday, March 19, 2007
BP chairman warns EU on emissions fight
By Andrew Bounds in Brussels
Sunday Mar 18 2007
Europe's low-carbon revolution to fight global warming was in danger of being no more than hot air, the European Commission's top energy adviser warned.
Peter Sutherland, who is chairman of a group of wise men formed by José Manuel Barroso, Commission president and also chairman of BP, said nuclear power was not “an overnight panacea” and fossil fuel would continue to be the staple of energy policy.
BP was investing heavily in solar, wind and other forms of sustainable energy but would not go nuclear. “We are going to have to find a way of using fossil fuels causing the least possible damage to the environment,” he said.
European Union leaders set a target of cutting carbon emissions by 20 per cent between 1990 and 2020 at a summit this month.
The plans for efficiency savings, and tripling the share of renewable energy generation, are the most ambitious environmental targets set anywhere in the world.
Mr Sutherland said the next few years would show whether EU leaders could match their rhetoric with action.
“What we don't want to see is the agreement at the council turning into Lisbon agenda mark two in terms of massive aspiration and failed delivery,” he told the Financial Times in an interview, referring to a 2000 summit that resolved to make the EU the world's most dynamic economy by 2010. The ambitious economic goals of the 2000 Lisbon agenda have since been significantly scaled back as reforms needed to meet them stalled.
“Politicians are always quite happy to give promises that affect successors.” Britain's Tony Blair and France's Jacques Chirac were crucial to getting a climate change deal but both would be leaving office in months.
The former commissioner, who also chairs Goldman Sachs, said going green need not affect Europe's competitiveness. “In BP we have lower emissions today than in 1990 even though we are a massively larger company and we have saved money rather than lost it. I don't think that the obligation to deal responsibly with the issue of climate change necessarily carries a cost. We believe we can do both.”
Mr Sutherland was speaking in Brussels during the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission, a group of power brokers from Europe, the US and Asia.
The private session debated a report on the future of energy policy. Co-written by Anne Lauvergeon, chief of executive of Areva, the French nuclear group, it backed a big increase in atomic energy.
There are worries that the detail the summit left out, individual targets for each country, could start a round of infighting. A senior Commission official has admitted that “we don't know how to get from A to Z” to hit the renewables target. However, countries' use of nuclear energy and so-called clean coal, which involves capturing some of the carbon burnt, would be taken into account. That suggests France, which relies on nuclear for most electricity generation, will have a lower than average 20 per cent share.
Mr Sutherland said fears that Russia had a stranglehold over Europe's energy supplies were misplaced.
© Copyright The Financial Times ¶ 4:20 PM
Sunday Mar 18 2007
Europe's low-carbon revolution to fight global warming was in danger of being no more than hot air, the European Commission's top energy adviser warned.
Peter Sutherland, who is chairman of a group of wise men formed by José Manuel Barroso, Commission president and also chairman of BP, said nuclear power was not “an overnight panacea” and fossil fuel would continue to be the staple of energy policy.
BP was investing heavily in solar, wind and other forms of sustainable energy but would not go nuclear. “We are going to have to find a way of using fossil fuels causing the least possible damage to the environment,” he said.
European Union leaders set a target of cutting carbon emissions by 20 per cent between 1990 and 2020 at a summit this month.
The plans for efficiency savings, and tripling the share of renewable energy generation, are the most ambitious environmental targets set anywhere in the world.
Mr Sutherland said the next few years would show whether EU leaders could match their rhetoric with action.
“What we don't want to see is the agreement at the council turning into Lisbon agenda mark two in terms of massive aspiration and failed delivery,” he told the Financial Times in an interview, referring to a 2000 summit that resolved to make the EU the world's most dynamic economy by 2010. The ambitious economic goals of the 2000 Lisbon agenda have since been significantly scaled back as reforms needed to meet them stalled.
“Politicians are always quite happy to give promises that affect successors.” Britain's Tony Blair and France's Jacques Chirac were crucial to getting a climate change deal but both would be leaving office in months.
The former commissioner, who also chairs Goldman Sachs, said going green need not affect Europe's competitiveness. “In BP we have lower emissions today than in 1990 even though we are a massively larger company and we have saved money rather than lost it. I don't think that the obligation to deal responsibly with the issue of climate change necessarily carries a cost. We believe we can do both.”
Mr Sutherland was speaking in Brussels during the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission, a group of power brokers from Europe, the US and Asia.
The private session debated a report on the future of energy policy. Co-written by Anne Lauvergeon, chief of executive of Areva, the French nuclear group, it backed a big increase in atomic energy.
There are worries that the detail the summit left out, individual targets for each country, could start a round of infighting. A senior Commission official has admitted that “we don't know how to get from A to Z” to hit the renewables target. However, countries' use of nuclear energy and so-called clean coal, which involves capturing some of the carbon burnt, would be taken into account. That suggests France, which relies on nuclear for most electricity generation, will have a lower than average 20 per cent share.
Mr Sutherland said fears that Russia had a stranglehold over Europe's energy supplies were misplaced.
© Copyright The Financial Times ¶ 4:20 PM
