How Green Is Big Oil? Oil Giants Are Suddenly Eager to Flaunt Their Alternative Energy Credentials. But Is This a Genuine Commitment to Renewables or Just a Cynical Exercise in Public Relations? Julia Fields Investigates

Sunday Herald › February 20, 2006

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Summary

FOR an industry that has been celebrating multibillion pound profits on the back of sustained high oil prices, the mood was surprisingly sober. As senior figures in the oil industry gathered in London last week, they knew that the champagne bubbles could vanish pretty quickly as they turn their attentions to the future.

"We have a serious problem, " Lord Browne, group chief executive of BP, told an audience during International Petroleum Week.

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Extract

How Green Is Big Oil? Oil Giants Are Suddenly Eager to Flaunt Their Alternative Energy Credentials. But Is This a Genuine Commitment to Renewables or Just a Cynical Exercise in Public Relations? Julia Fields Investigates

"There are plenty of resources but they are concentrated in a very limited number of areas. Many of those areas are closed to investment by anyone other than state-controlled oil and gas companies."

To restore real energy security, he said, "we have to confront the twin challenges of dependence, and of the environmental consequences of carbon emissions".

His comments echo an increasingly common refrain ringing out across the globe. Energy security is now at the top of everyone's agenda, and it is increasingly being used as a political argument to move away from fossil fuels and towards alternative energy.

The International Energy Agency last week urged governments to step up their investment in harv...

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