BP Quietly Cuts CO2 Release Estimate In Half - Guardian

[hatrack]

BP drew fire yesterday from environmentalists for quietly halving its estimate of the carbon emissions that result from all the oil and gas it produces.

The company's annual Sustainability Report, released last week, says that as a result of using a new methodology, its estimate of the carbon dioxide produced by its products was 606m tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2004.

But, as Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation pointed out, last year's sustainability report had a figure of 1,376m tonnes of CO2 equivalent for 2004, double the new figure. A BP spokeswoman said this was because BP was now counting only the CO2 produced from the oil, oil products, chemicals and gas it produces itself, rather than all the oil and gas some of its operations buy in and sell on.

Mr Simms said he was amazed that BP could make such a big change without telling anyone. "It lacks credibility that with the wave of a methodological wand BP can make 770m tonnes of greenhouse gases disappear." Friends of the Earth spokesman Mike Childs said BP was being disingenuous. "They are full of green spin but are really just pulling the wool over the public's eyes."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1758169,00.html

[phantom power]

1. They're adopting the Bush Principle?

If we stop reporting bad things, they aren't really happening.