Two of the world’s leading oil producers have almost overnight joined some of the biggest players in wind power in the United States, accelerating a trend of large corporations investing in the rapidly growing alternative-energy field. Shell is one of the nation’s top five generators of wind power, while BP‘s Alternative Energy group – launched 16 months ago – aims to develop projects that produce 550 megawatts of electricity this year, one-sixth of the projected US wind energy output in 2007.
Critics say new LNG ventures in British Columbia saddle Indigenous communities with debt, opaque ownership structures, and financial risk that could leave them owing billions.
Campaigners have highlighted the irony of the Tory peer warning about threats to free speech at a think tank bankrolled by a repressive regime.
Corporate pledges to fight deforestation by turning degraded pasture into cropland seen boosting demand for harmful chemical inputs.
As the New York-based firm was preparing to work on the climate summit, it was also pushing for Brazilian oil and gas distributor Vibra Energia to help power it.
