ENVIRONMENT: Oil Industry Faces Dark Future, Or Shades of Grey

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava and Claudine Festa Gaillard

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 6 2002 (IPS) - The dominance of petroleum in the energy sector will soon come to an end, or, it will continue, but will cause less environmental damage as a result of the oil companies’ socially responsible efforts, say the contradictory forecasts emerging from an international congress held here this week.

“The air in European cities has not been this clean since the beginning of the industrial era” in the 19th century, commented Jean-Paul Vitter, president of the France-based oil giant TotalFinaElf, at the 17th World Petroleum Congress, in Rio de Janeiro.

The greater consumption of petroleum products does not necessarily produce more pollution, because technological advances have ensured that these fuels contaminate less, according to Vitter.

The big challenge for the petroleum industry in the next two decades will be to continue reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that the scientific community says causes global warming, he said.

In Vitter’s opinion, petroleum — of which there are global reserves enough for 120 years — will continue to dominate as an energy source for a long time, and it is thus necessary to make sure it contaminates less and less.

Even with the expansion of alternative energy sources during the next 20 years, the utilisation of fossil fuels in transportation will only see an eight-point decline from its current 98-percent level, said the oil executive.

But environmentalists do not agree with such a future, and called for the urgent substitution of fossil fuels during the Social Responsibility seminar, held in parallel to the World Petroleum Congress, which took place here this week with the participation of 3,461 delegates from 78 countries.

The solution to the world’s serious environment problems, and climate change in particular, is not to make fossil fuels “less polluting” but rather to reduce consumption and encourage the use of “clean” renewable energy sources — like wind, solar, or wave power –, said the representatives of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) gathered for the seminar.

The next World Petroleum Congress, to take place in 2005, must focus its debate on the transition to a renewable energy panorama, stated Benedict Southworth, coordinator of the climate campaign for Greenpeace International

Petroleum is a “cancer” that is the main cause of the greenhouse effect and of the urban air pollution that harms the health of children, added Southworth.

The big oil companies will have to convert to and concentrate their efforts on alternative energy sources if they want to prevent their own demise and irreversible damage to the planet, says famed Brazilian singer-songwriter, Gilberto Gil, who is also known for his environmental activism.

The petroleum industry was responsible for the failure of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which ended Wednesday in the South African city of Johannesburg without concrete targets for renewable energy sources, charged Mario Mantovani, head of the Brazilian environmental group SOS Mata Atlántica.

The influence of these “powerful and arrogant” companies led the United States and oil exporting countries to block approval of Brazil’s proposal to set a target of 10 percent renewable sources for all energy consumed worldwide by 2010, said Mantovani.

But the differences of opinion at the Social Responsibility seminar gave way to a certain amount of realism and the possibility of cooperation among the oil corporations, government experts and NGOs.

The negative impacts of the combustion of petroleum can be reduced through “better management, better corporate practices and new technologies” in both production and consumption, said Eduardo Martins, former director of the Brazilian office of the World Wildlife Fund and of the governmental Brazilian Environmental Institute.

It is necessary to work together because “the transition will take a long time, given that world energy demands are expected to rise approximately 60 percent in the next 20 years,” noted Martins, currently president of E.labore consulting firm, specialising in environmental strategies.

The oil industry was one of the first to promote initiatives related to social responsibility, noted Waldemar de Oliveira Neto, director of the Ethos Institute, a local NGO promoting business ethics.

A rapidly increasing number of business leaders recognise that “economic success alone” does not ensure a company’s competitive edge, but that they must also pay attention to the population’s quality of life and to environmental protection, said Oliveira Neto.

According to the chairman of the Brazilian organising committee of the World Petroleum Congress, Joao Carlos de Luca , the Social Responsibility seminar met its objective of promoting “dialogue between NGOs and the petroleum industry,” contributing towards changing the attitudes of the business executives.

Approximately 1,000 people attended the panel discussions and debates among 41 presenters during the four-day event.

In addition to the seminar, the Congress for the first time included an exhibition of social initiatives, in which 35 NGOs, institutions or municipal projects were represented.

But few from the oil companies showed any interest in the initiatives, complained several of the employees and volunteers entrusted with explaining the projects.