A few days after touting its signature of the Bali Communiqué—a document calling for a legally binding and comprehensive international agreement on climate change and for a 50% reduction in emmissions by 2050 based on science rather than economic considerations—Shell Oil has sold off part of its solar power business to Environ Global, a Signapore-based company that purchased Shells photovoltaic operations in India and Sri Lanka for an undisclosed sum. This sale comes following the low-key sale of the energy giant's solar module in Canada and Germany, and will be followed by additional divestments in the Philipines and Indonesia
The petroleum giant has gone to great lengths to paint itself green,
including a series of television ads portraying its scientists and
engineers as local heroes and environmental pioneers, and culminating
with the bizarre "Eureka." This slick 90-second spot (which is also
available in an extended 9 minute version on the company's website)
features a Jurassic Park-meets-Degrassi storyline about Shell's chief
engineer in Brunei, who is inspired to create a new
"environmentally-friendly" drilling technology after watching his
slacker son suck down a milkshake while being lectured about the joys
of benchwarming for the school soccer team. Heartwarming stuff indeed.
Shell's announcement is yet another blow to the environment courtesy of
big oil companies reneging on environmentally sound policies and
initiatives. Last week, BP announced that, contrary to an announcement
by former CEO John Browne, it had traded assets with Husky Oil and
was going to drill in the Alberta Tar Sands. Petroleum extraction from
the tar sands requires five times more energy than traditional
drilling, produces up to four times more greenhouse gases and results
in a form of synthetic petroleum than generates twice the emissions of
current crude.
Greenpeace Canada calls the the Oil Sands Project the biggest environmental crime in history.
Posted by Christos Tsirbas
Links:
You can learn more about the Shell and BP announcements here
For more about the Bali Communiqué
Greenpeace plans to fight BP
Extended Shell Commercial on YouTube