BP Amoco’s climate change website makes pro-Kyoto stance clear

“Everything we do reflects Kyoto,” a BP Amoco spokesperson told edie. “But when it gets down to details like when Kyoto will be ratified, that’s when we step back – we believe that’s a political decision.”

Despite its reluctance to support early ratification of Kyoto – something the EU is pushing for (see related story) – BP Amoco is moving ahead with its climate change policies on the assumption that the treaty will come into force eventually. “We fully expect it to be ratified sooner or later, so we’ve decided to go ahead and get on with it.”

The multinational expanded its internal emissions trading system to all its businesses last year, and meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets are part of the performance requirements of all sections of BP Amoco. The company expects it will participate in international emissions trading once the ground rules are agreed (see related story), and supports the use of caps on emissions trading in order to ensure that member countries undertake some domestic reductions instead of simply buying their entire share of reductions in the form of credits.

BP Amoco’s new climate change web pages offer information on its internal emissions trading system as well as relevant speeches and position papers.

In related news, BP Amoco has announced that it will buy 20% of the shares PetroChina recently put up for sale. With China moving away from coal to cleaner fuels (see related story), BP Amoco hopes it will benefit as the country’s gas market grows. PetroChina is part of China National Petroleum Corporation.