By Tom Bergin
PARIS (Reuters) – OPEC said oil was not to blame for climate change and consuming countries should pay to fight the threat, while the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell said drivers could help by not buying Hummer sports utility vehicles.
“Oil is not responsible,” the producer group’s Secretary General, Abdullah al-Badri, told reporters on Thursday on the sidelines of the International Oil Summit in Paris.
“It is the industrialized countries which are making all this pollution in the world.”
Scientists say the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, is a key factor in climate change.
Badri said the revenues from high taxes that some industrialized countries, including most western European nations, place on oil products should be diverted to environmental projects.
OPEC, whose member countries pump more than a third of the world’s oil, has supported the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, which encourage reductions in emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).
However, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has also opposed plans to reduce oil consumption and advocated adaptation to climate change.
Badri criticized the subsidies developed countries offer to promote renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Most of the larger international oil companies accept the role of oil and gas in man-made climate change.
Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s second-largest oil company by market value, told the same conference that drivers should help fight climate change by using more fuel efficient vehicles.
Recalling his happy student days driving a 2CV, a famously basic, and fuel efficient, Citroen, van der Veer said: “You don’t need a Hummer to be happy.”
Consumers and General Motors, which owns the Hummer brand, have come to the same conclusion. Falling sales of the military-derived vehicle, which has become synonymous with gas-guzzling excess, have prompted GM to put the Hummer brand up for sale.
(Editing by Anthony Barker)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
