Summary
Killing Kyoto
ABARE
Lavoisier Group
Other fora for WMC's climate scepticism
Nuclear hypocrisy
Creative accounting
Corporate welfare meets greenwashing: the Greenhouse Challenge Program
WMC/government collusion
Co-option

Acronyms

AAC - Australian Aluminium Council
ABARE - Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics
AGO - Australian Greenhouse Office
AIGN - Australian Industry Greenhouse Network
AMEEF - Australian Minerals & Energy Environment Foundation
BCA - Business Council of Australia
CEI - Competitive Enterprise Institute (US free-market think-tank)
FoF - Frontiers of Freedom (US free-market think-tank)
GCP - Greenhouse Challenge Program
GST - Goods and Services Tax
MCA - Minerals Council of Australia
UIC - Uranium Information Centre
WBCSD - World Business Council for Sustainable Development
WWF - World Wide Fund for Nature Australia

Summary

On June 10, Mr Hugh Matheson Morgan AO, chief executive of WMC Limited (formerly Western Mining Corporation), was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia for services to business. The citation stressed his "leadership in the formation and evolution of sustainable development policy". (<www.itsanhonour.gov.au>)

What a joke. Morgan and WMC have been tireless in their efforts to rail against the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence on anthropogenic climate change and to fight national and international initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Even though WMC rejects the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion on climate change, the company claims to be taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - but its emissions almost doubled between 1994-95 and 2001.

When marketing its uranium from Roxby Downs in South Australia, WMC adopts a more rational stance on climate change science - but leaps from that premise to the dubious conclusion that only nuclear power (and WMC's uranium) can save the day.

WMC employees have argued for the abolition of the Australian Greenhouse Office - but WMC itself is involved in, and benefits from, an AGO-run greenwashing scam called the Greenhouse Challenge Program.

WMC rails against politicians and bureaucrats and portrays them as captives of environmentalists, but for years the company has been working hand-in-glove with conservative politicians and bureaucrats to fend off domestic and international pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

WMC rails against environmentalists, but the company has also had some success co-opting conservative environmentalists.

In short, WMC's approach to the climate change debate has been hypocrisy writ large - all the more so because of the company's insistence that it has adopted a consistent, science-driven approach to the debate.

Killing Kyoto

WMC's activities span uranium, nickel, copper and gold mining, and the production of phosphate fertiliser. WMC is also a 39.25% part-owner of Alcoa World Alumina Australia, which operates two smelters in Victoria and three refineries in Western Australia. WMC says its most significant emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides originate from electricity usage, fuel-burning equipment, refineries, smelters, chemical processes, and the use of explosives.

As a large emitter of greenhouse gases, WMC takes the climate change debate seriously - it has a Greenhouse Program Committee comprised of senior executives and chaired by an executive general manager.

WMC was heavily involved in trying to undermine the Kyoto Protocol in the lead-up to the December 1997 conference at which the Protocol was established and opened for signature and ratification.

The company worked with free-market think-tanks and corporate front groups in both Australia and the United States. WMC collaborated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a US free-market think-tank, in the organisation of a climate sceptics conference held in Washington DC on July 15, 1997.

R.J. Smith, 'Senior Environmental Scholar' with the CEI, outlined the game plan to Mining Monitor in 1997: "Early last winter, right after Tim Wirth of the US State Department announced they were going to call for mandatory controls in Kyoto, we said what do we do? How do we stop this? Ray Evans [from WMC] was coming into town and so in November of last year we met at CEI headquarters, with Ray, Fred Smith our President, I think Dick Lawson the Executive Director of the National Mining Association, Bill O'Keefe, the Executive Director of the American Petroleum Institute and the senior world Vice-President for Ford Motor to sort of start plotting some strategy." (Bob Burton, "WMC's Campaign to Scuttle Binding Targets", Mining Monitor, Vol.2(4), December 1997, p.1.)

The July 15 conference, titled 'The Costs of Kyoto', included, among others, Paul O'Sullivan, a senior diplomat from the Australian Embassy in Washington, and Brian Fisher from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). According to the CEI, the "highlights" of the conference included O'Sullivan explaining why "Australia is fighting against a treaty that imposes an undue burden with minimal return". A transcript of O'Sullivan's speech was circulated to the media by the CEI. (CEI Staff, 15/7/97, "Global Warming Conference A Smashing Success", <www.cei.org/gencon/003,02757.cfm>.)

On October 22, 1997, the CEI hosted ABARE's Brian Fisher at a luncheon with the aim of winning over "economic attaches to embassies of developing countries which might prefer differentiation to uniform reduction targets". The CEI had "recognized the strategic importance of Australia in the climate change gambit" according to CEI research fellow (and Australian national) Hugh Morley. "If Australia sticks to its guns", Morley said, "there might not be a Kyoto treaty after all." (Hugh Morley, 1/11/97, "Australia Cool To Warming", <www.cei.org/gencon/005,01305.cfm>.)

WMC was one of the sponsors of the August 1997 'Countdown to Kyoto' conference held in Canberra. The conference was organised in conjunction with Frontiers of Freedom (FoF), a US free-market think-tank, the CEI and various other climate sceptics. FoF said: "Members of Australia's government called the conference "absolutely critical" in solidifying the government's opposition to a Kyoto treaty even if it means defying Clinton Administration policy. At the same time, Australia's opposition to a climate treaty means that opponents in the U.S. Congress will not be facing unanimous world opinion in favor of such a treaty." (FoF, The Freedom Report, Volume 1(4), December 1997, <www.ff.org>).

Despite the boastings of the FoF, the Australian government didn't need much convincing - it was already colluding with corporate climate sceptics. O'Sullivan and Fisher spoke at the Washington conference, and speakers at the Canberra conference included Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, environment minister Robert Hill, shadow environment minister Duncan Kerr, as well as some US politicians.

FoF is, to be fair, consistent and even-handed: it opposes both mandatory and voluntary reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Responding to the US government's 'plan' for voluntary reductions in February 2002, FoF president George Landrith said: "This smells like the first step in a mandatory program requiring emission reductions. Have we given in to extremists who favor energy suppression across the board? Give an inch to those who think energy is inherently evil and they will take 100 miles." ("Frontiers Questions Wisdom in Bush Administration Global Warming Plan", <www.ff.org/press/021402-bushenviroplan.html>.)

That's just the sort of hyperbole that WMC contributes to the climate change debate in Australia.

ABARE

WMC is a member of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), which was one of the members of a Steering Committee which directed ABARE's work on the economic impacts of the Kyoto Protocol. Alcoa Australia is a member of the Australian Aluminium Council, which was also on the ABARE Steering Committee.

Fisher presented the discredited MEGABARE model to the Washington conference in July 1997. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said there "has been no financial contributions made to the work apart from those by DFAT and ABARE" - but failed to mention corporate financial contributions to, and direct involvement in, ABARE's modelling. (Bob Burton, "WMC's Campaign to Scuttle Binding Targets", Mining Monitor, Vol.2(4), December 1997, p.1.)

US Under-Secretary for Global Affairs Timothy Wirth said in relation to ABARE's grossly inflated estimates of the economic impacts of the Kyoto Protocol that someone should "look at what those people are smoking". In February 1998, the Commonwealth Ombudsman issued a report which concluded that by limiting membership of the Steering Committee to organisations willing and able to pay $50,000, ABARE had failed to protect itself adequately from "allegations of undue influence by vested interests". In the same month, ABARE received a a special public service prize for its MEGABARE work from Prime Minister John Howard. (Clive Hamilton, 2001, Running from the Storm, p.54-63.)

Lavoisier Group

WMC helped establish the Lavoisier Group in 2000 - an organisation which, according to Professor John Quiggin, "is devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics ... cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry." ("Wishful thinking of Walsh's true believers", Australian Financial Review, 11/4/01, <ecocomm.anu.edu.au/quiggin>)

To give a taste for the Lavoisier Group's greenhouse conspiracy theories, it argued in a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties that the Kyoto Protocol poses "the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese Fleet entered the Coral Sea on 3 May, 1942 " and that Kyoto proponents are scheming to impose "a new imperial order". (<www.lavoisier.com.au>)

WMC is one of the corporate supporters of the Lavoisier Group. Ray Evans and Ian Webber from WMC are on the board of the Lavoisier Group and, as WMC notes on its website, Hugh Morgan has addressed a number of Lavoisier Group functions. The Lavoisier Group shares the postal address of the H.R. Nicholls Society. WMC's Ray Evans is secretary of the Lavoisier Group (as at 2002) and president of the H.R. Nicholls Society (as at 2002).

For all of WMC's bluster about 'command and control' regulation and green-eyed politicians and bureaucrats, corporate polluters and conservative governments had been working hand-in-glove for some years. So it was no surprise that leaping to the defence of the Lavoisier Group after an attack from John Quiggin was Liberal MP Andrew Thomson, chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. Thomson said it was "disappointing to see the pernicious techniques of political correctness being used in an important debate such as this" and that "at least Walsh [head of the Lavoisier Group, and former Labor finance minister] had the guts to seek election to parliament" ... whatever that means. (Andrew Thomson, letter, Australian Financial Review, 17/4/01.)

Some of the Lavoisier Group's conspiracy theories have been adopted as government policy (Jim Green, "Greenhouse sceptics lose the plot", Green Left Weekly, 11/10/00, <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/lavoisier.html>.)
* the Lavoisier Group talks openly about military invasion while Andrew Thomson evokes frightening images of Richard Butler clones and people from “hostile” developing countries carrying out inspections in Australia.
* Andrew Thomson’s concern about bureaucrats “eager to secure budget funding and authority and policy importance” has an echo in the Lavoisier Group’s assertion that bureacrats have been “extremely reluctant” to let ministers know that Australia can withdraw from the treaties to which it has subscribed. And another echo in this spray from Evans: "... the Howard Government supports, with $240 million of hapless taxpayers' money each year, the Australian Greenhouse Office, the energetic officials of which are, through a self-selection recruitment process, committed to bringing Australia into the Kyoto tent, regardless of our national interest." (Ray Evans, "The Greenhouse-warming Debate is Hotting Up", The Canberra Times, 24/1/02, <www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/EvansCTimes.html>.)
* at a United Nations climate change conference in France in September 2000, an Australian delegate argued that countries should monitor their own progress on greenhouse gas emissions rather than establishing an international monitoring body. An Australian delegate objected to a proposal to establish a consultative process to ensure continuity of information exchange, to facilitate international cooperation, and to contribute to the assessment of demonstrable progress. If such a body was established, an Australian delegate argued, it should be prohibited from responding to questions about a country’s performance except for questions posed by the country in question. An Australian delegate also opposed proposals for financial penalties, or any binding consequences whatsoever, for countries failing to meet their self-imposed targets.

For more on the Lavoisier Group, see:
- Professor John Quiggin's website <ecocomm.anu.edu.au/quiggin>
- John Quiggin, "Right-wing sceptics on call", Australian Financial Review, 19/7/01.
- John Quiggin, "Wishful thinking of Walsh's true believers", Australian Financial Review, 11/4/01.
- Clive Hamilton, "Green conspiracy theory", Canberra Times, 10/01/02, <canberra.yourguide.com.au>
- Clive Hamilton, 2001, Running from the Storm, pp.137-139.

Other fora for WMC's climate scepticism

WMC is a member of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) and has used the MCA as another forum to peddle greenhouse scepticism. Among other activities, WMC, the MCA and other mining councils funded an econometric modelling study on the regional impacts of an international emissions trading scheme. The MCA also funded research by the Allen Consulting Group which, according to Clive Hamilton, overestimates marginal greenhouse gas abatement costs by an order of magnitude (Running from the Storm, 2001, p.136.)

WMC is also a member of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which has worked tirelessly to undermine the Kyoto Protocol and climate change abatement initiatives more generally (<www.aign.net>; AIGN submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties: <www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/kyoto/sub98.pdf>). The AIGN has provided industry advisers to Australian delegations to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings (<www.aussiebiz.com/aign/members.htm>).

Another forum for WMC's climate scepticism has been the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian free-market think-tank. WMC has been represented on the IPA's board (e.g. WMC's Gregory Travers was on the IPA board as at May 2000).

Alcoa Australia is a member of the Australian Aluminium Council (<www.aluminium.org.au/Members.html>). The AAC has worked to undermine the Kyoto Protocol. It has also been active on other greenhouse-related issues, such as successfully lobbying the federal govt to defer legislation mandating a 2% increase in the proportion of electricity produced from renewable sources by 2010, and then lobbying to have the legislation watered down such that the increase will be closer to 1% (Clive Hamilton, 2001, Running from the Storm, p.64). Some AIGN members had threatened to boycott the renewable energy scheme. David Coutts from the AAC said: "We certainly won't be co-operating with it. The Government promised not to do anything that would hurt Australian business. We think they should do nothing before the [Kyoto] treaty is ratified." (Lenore Taylor, Australian Financial Review, 2-3/10/99.) Dick Wells from the MCA was also opposed: "Increasing electricity prices will mean some new investments will be no longer competitive. We are getting a far better understanding of the fact that the Kyoto commitments are incompatible with the Government's aim of high economic growth." (ibid.)

WMC has also been active in the Business Council of Australia, urging the BCA to take the same sceptical position on climate change as WMC itself. WMC has had some success in those efforts, particularly in the mid to late 1990s. The BCA was on ABARE's Steering Committee. However, the BCA now takes a more moderate position, still questioning the science but also alert to commercial opportunities from climate change abatement, and insisting that if measures to reduce greenhouse emissions are to be introduced, they should be pursued in the least costly manner possible. The BCA's 'Statement of Climate Change Policy Principles' begins: "Although there are uncertainties in the science of climate change there is sufficient reason to be concerned that increasing levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases lead to interference with the world's climate system." (<www.bca.com.au/default.asp?pnewsid=1073&psiteid=BCA&menu=true>)

The moderation of the BCA's position caused some division - or perhaps just confusion - within WMC. WMC's group manager for environmental affairs, Gordon Drake, said WMC had "signed on to those [BCA] principles" in May 2000 (Bob Burton, "WMC Backs New Climate Sceptics Group", Mining Monitor, Volume 5(2), July 2000, p.4). If so, no-one told Morgan and Evans, who have never strayed from their hard-line hyperbole, scare-mongering and conspiracy theories. (A collection of their articles and speeches is at <www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/lav-papers.html>.)

WMC is also a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), with Morgan serving on the Council's executive committee. (WMC Limited, "Sustainability Report 2001", <www.wmc.com.au>; <www.wbcsd.org/aboutus/exco.htm>.) Like the BCA, the WBCSD largely accepts the weight of scientific opinion on climate change, and the inevitability of international initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and it focuses its efforts on minimising the costs to industry and profiting from whatever commercial opportunities arise. The WBCSD says: "Business has a crucial role to play in developing solutions to climate change and deploying them globally. Realizing this potential will require an effective long-term framework in which to operate. The Kyoto Protocol contains the seeds of such a framework that can, and should, be built upon." (<www.wbcsd.org/projects/climate/cop7-wbcsd-position.pdf>; see also <www.wbcsd.org/projects/pr_climenergy.htm>.)

The main role of the WBCSD is to "reframe discussions" (WBCSD, "Energy and Climate Why are we involved?", <www.wbcsd.org/projects/pr_climenergy.htm>). In other words, the WBCSD prefers greenwashing and co-option to WMC's brand of climate scepticism and denial. The WBCSD aims to co-opt environmental debate and constrain it within the parameters of free-market environmentalism: "The WBCSD's business case emphasizes the role of markets because sustainable development is best achieved through markets that are fair, competitive, open, and global. Such markets encourage innovation and eco-efficiency, both of which are essential for sustainable human progress." (<www.wbcsd.org/projects/climate/cop7-wbcsd-position.pdf>; for a critique, see for example Corporate Europe Observer, October 1997, "World Business Council for Sustainable Development", <www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer0/wbcsd.html>.)

Alcoa (majority owner of Alcoa Australia) is a member of the Business Environmental Leadership Council of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. A premise for inclusion on the Council is that members "accept the views of most scientists that enough is known about the science and environmental impacts of climate change for us to take actions to address its consequences" (<www.pewclimate.org/belc/index.cfm>). On the Pew website, Alcoa chief executive Alain Belda states: "Aluminum, because of its superior strength to weight ratio, durability, and recyclability will play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the full life cycle of products." (<www.pewclimate.org/belc/alcoa_quote.cfm>; for a critique, see Thea Picton, "Aluminium: "Green" Metal?", Mining Monitor, Vol.3(3), October 1998, pp.5-6.)

So WMC rejects the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion on anthropogenic climate change, but WMC/Alcoa belong to organisations which accept the majority scientific view. WMC's endorsement of contradictory positions sits uneasily with Morgan's holier-than-thou comments at the May 2000  Lavoisier Group conference: "Our democracy, our political institutions, rely upon truth, and a concern for the truth, which parallels that of a church and its reliance on doctrine. Once the institutions which underpin our national life become indifferent to truth, then I do not believe that in the long term, they can survive." (<www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/may2000/Morgan.html>)

Simultaneous endorsement of contradictory positions is one of the contradictions discussed by US public relations spin-doctor Peter Sandman (who has worked for WMC): "I do think there is a problem if the company actively and enthusiastically pursues one policy position individually and a different one within the trade association. If such a company were my client, I would urge it to point out the inconsistency each time it advocates its position: 'We think X, but our trade association continues to urge Y; we're trying to change that but we haven't succeeded yet.'" (Bob Burton, "Engage Critics, PR Man Advises Miners", Mining Monitor, Vol. 3(3), October 1998, pp.7-9.)

Nuclear hypocrisy

WMC says on its website, "We have been consistent in our approach to greenhouse issues" (<www.wmc.com.au/sustain/cer00/page27.htm> and <.../page28.htm>). Consistently hypocritical. One of WMC's ventures is the uranium mine at Roxby Downs in South Australia, and the company also owns the Yeelirrie uranium deposit in Western Australia. WMC was the third largest uranium producing company in 2000 (<www.world-nuclear.org>).

The South Australian Nuclear Information Centre noted in its August 1999 newsletter that senior employees from WMC profess deep concern about climate change and insist that only the expansion of nuclear power can save the day.

WMC is one of the corporate sponsors of the Uranium Information Centre, which is endlessly talking up nuclear power as a greenhouse-friendly energy source. One of the directors of the UIC - and its chairperson from June 26, 2001 - is James Eric Eggins, the WMC representative (<www.wmc.com.au/pubpres/pdfpres/coppuran010701.pdf>, <www.uic.com.au/about.htm>).

WMC is an institutional member of (and most likely a financial contributor to) the World Nuclear Association, which also runs the argument that nuclear power is the solution to climate change. (<www.world-nuclear.org>)

WMC is also one of the corporate sponsors of a school 'education' program, run by the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy, which runs the same argument - though not as shamelessly as the UIC. (<www.uraniumsa.org>)

Uranium accounts for only a small percentage of the WMC's revenue - less than 2%. (Paddy Manning, 6/5/01, "IOOF launches SRI fund", Ethical Investor, <www.ethicalinvestor.com.au/news/story.asp?Story_ID=164>.) Consequently, WMC's concern about climate change extends no further than its uranium marketing. By far the company's major concern is avoiding any constraints on its operations or any cost increases as a result of rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and global warming.

(On the argument that nuclear power is the solution to climate change, see <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/nuclearclimate.html>.)

Creative accounting

WMC says "We acknowledge that our public position on greenhouse is controversial. ... Some critics have questioned if our stance on greenhouse is consistent with our pursuit of good environmental performance and leadership in environmental reporting. However, our call for greater community debate on greenhouse policy implications has not stopped us from seeking to reduce our energy consumption and our emissions of carbon dioxide per tonne of ore treated." (WMC, "Towards Sustainable Development" (Community Environment Report 2000), <www.wmc.com.au/sustain/cer00/page07.htm)

But WMC's greenhouse emissions almost doubled between 1994-95 and 2001:

WMC's Australian operations:
Year ending / Greenhouse gas emissions
June 95: 1.62 million tonnes carbon dioxide
June 96: 1.92
June 97: 1.90
June 98: 1.76
Dec 98: 1.89
Dec 99: 2.08
Dec 00: 2.79
Dec 01: 2.99
(Main source: WMC "Annual Progress Report 3", <www.wmc.com.au/acrobat/greenhouse/greenhouseaug2001.pdf>. Dec 01 figure from WMC website <www.wmc.com.au>.)

The sharp increase in 2000 is attributed to "planned increases in production at WMC's Queensland Fertilizer Operations and record production levels at the company's copper uranium and nickel operations". (<www.wmc.com.au/acrobat/greenhouse/greenhouseaug2001.pdf>)

According to WMC: "Total greenhouse gas emissions during the calendar year ending December 2000 has been estimated to be 2,785,300 tonnes of CO2 representing a 25% reduction (or 917,100 tonnes of CO2) compared to the 2000 no action case projection. Against a Business as Usual or no action case, WMC's emissions could have been 3,702,400 tonnes of CO2 in 2000." <www.wmc.com.au/acrobat/greenhouse/greenhouseaug2001.pdf>

Morgan said in his opening address to the May 2000 Lavoisier Group conference that, five years earlier, WMC set targets in its first 'Environment Progress Report' including a target of a 15% reduction in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of ore milled. Morgan claimed that WMC reduced emissions of carbon dioxide by 499,000 tonnes compared to a business-as-usual or no-action basis - that between 1994/95 and 1998, WMC's carbon dioxide emissions were reduced from 96 to 82 kg of carbon dioxide for tonne of ore milled, compared to a no-action projection of 103 kg. Emissions reductions were achieved through actions such as switching to gas fired power generation, other fuel substitution activities and energy efficiency measures. (<www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/may2000/Morgan.html>)

In 1998, WMC said that it had achieved its target for reduced carbon dioxide emissions, and published a new target to be achieved by 2001. However, in that period, carbon dioxide emissions increased from 80 kgs per tonne of ore treated to 87 kgs during 2001 - an 8.8% increase compared to the target of a 2.5% reduction. WMC said that 5.0% of the 8.8% increase was attributable to a change in the way the government required WMC to calculate emissions. The other reason given for the increase was "changes in mining practice". (WMC, "Sustainability Report 2001", <www.wmc.com.au/acrobat/sr2001/sustain2001fullt.pdf>.)

It's impossible to evaluate WMC's claims in the absence of detailed data. If the claims are accurate there has been a modest reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of ore milled and treated. The reduction is even more modest (perhaps negated altogether) given that economy-wide models typically assume energy efficiency gains of 1-1.5% annually (Hamilton, 2001, Running from the Storm, p.45).

It's also worth noting that much of WMC's activity is of dubious value, such as gold mining (a large percentage of which ends up in jewellery or bank vaults) and uranium mining (which can only end up as high-level radioactive waste or, worse still, nuclear weapons).

Corporate welfare meets greenwashing: the Greenhouse Challenge Program

WMC evidently wants the Australian Greenhouse Office to be shut down. Ray Evans described the AGO as a "threat to Australia's future as a sovereign nation" in a typically hyperbolic and meaningless spray at a September 2001 Lavoisier Group conference. (<www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/lav-papers.html>; see also Ray Evans, "The Greenhouse-warming Debate is Hotting Up", The Canberra Times, 24/1/02, <www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/EvansCTimes.html>.)

Yet WMC benefits from an AGO-run greenwashing scam. The Greenhouse Challenge Program was developed by the Keating Labor government in 1995, and to some extent accepted by big business, as a means of heading off a carbon tax. Ostensibly the program involves voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In reality, participants receive generous government-funded publicity for doing little if anything to reduce greenhouse emissions. For corporate greenhouse polluters, the GCP has the additional advantage that it is posited as a preferable alternative to 'command-and-control' reductions mandated by law.

The GCP was proving so successful - as a public relations, greenwashing swindle - that the Coalition government allocated an extra $27 million to the program in 1997 and aimed for a ten-fold increase in the number of participating companies.

Agreements between corporations and the government are based on 'no regrets' measures which have benefits other than greenhouse gas reductions (usually increasing profits) and would in many cases have proceeded regardless of the GCP. A July 1996 assessment of the program by George Wilkenfeld and Associates and Economic and Energy Analysis was critical of the 'frozen efficiency' assumption (ignoring the likelihood of efficiencies being adopted under a business-as-usual scenario), stating that it "is an entirely artificial concept and does not reflect what would have been likely to occur even in the absence of the GCP". GWA/EEA calculated that 83% of emissions reductions would most likely be realised in a business-as-usual scenario - so the benefits of the GCP had been overstated by a factor of about six. The GWA/EEA report concluded that "Australia can meet its commitment under the Kyoto Protocol, but only if far more vigorous and effective action is taken than currently envisaged."

A later evaluation of the GCP - carried out by a panel stacked with government bureaucrats and industry representatives (including a representative from the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which counts WMC among its members) - found that almost half the participating companies acknowledged that the GCP did not stimulate any greenhouse gas abatement actions whatsoever. The evaluation also acknowledged that "some of the actions reported under the Greenhouse Challenge Program would have occurred in any event" and that "precise quantification of abatement against business as usual is problematic due to data and methodological difficulties". (1999 Harris Report.)

The executive director of the GCP said in a Senate estimates hearing on May 3, 2001 that only one in 10 companies had met their emission reduction targets. (See also Report of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, "The Heat Is On: Australia's Greenhouse Future", chapter 8.)

An OECD report argued that the GCP is costly to administer, difficult to verify and unlikely to encourage companies to reduce emissions other than on a no-regrets basis. (Lenore Taylor, "Report attacks local greenhouse schemes", Australian Financial Review, 9/8/01.)

Since 1997, WMC has participated in the GCP. Details of the agreements between companies participating in the GCP and the government remain secret, so there's no way of testing WMC's "estimate" that it had achieved a 25% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions against business-as-usual projections between 1994-95 and 2000. (WMC, November 2001, Annual Progress Report 3, <www.wmc.com.au/acrobat/greenhouse/greenhouseaug2001.pdf>.)

Following a review in 2000, the AGO's assertion in 2001 that "examination of WMC Resources Ltd's Cooperative Agreement and 1998 Progress Report did not identify any material discrepancies" is small comfort given the in-built biased assumptions (such as frozen efficiency), the secrecy surrounding the program, and the fact that only a sample of sites, emissions and abatement projects was tested. (<www.greenhouse.gov.au/challenge/html/about/iv/code/appendx.htm>, <www.greenhouse.gov.au/challenge/html/about/iv/wmc_resources.html>)

WMC is one of the corporations the AGO uses to promote the GCP. The AGO website quotes Hugh Morgan: "The Greenhouse Challenge is a significant joint Government and industry program contributing to the management of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. We are very pleased to be part of this program ... Our involvement in the Challenge builds on and extends our initiatives in environmental management." (<www.greenhouse.gov.au/challenge/html/member-tools/company-tools/board_members.html>)

The AAC - which includes Alcoa Australia, part-owned by WMC - is identified as a GCP "success story" on the AGO website for its perfluorocarbon reductions (<www.greenhouse.gov.au/challenge/html/achievements/success_stories/aac.html>). Compare with Hamilton's assessment that the aluminium industry "... has repeatedly managed to bully and bluff governments into giving it special concessions and has consistently retarded progress towards resolving the greenhouse issue. It has without question been the most self-serving and uncompromising lobby group in the climate change debate in Australia." (Running from the Storm, 2001, p.67.)

Pick and stick

WMC has been the recipient of any number of free-kicks from successive governments, a number of which have significant greenhouse implications.

Organisations to which WMC or Alcoa belong - such as the BCA, the MCA and the AAC - lobbied for weaker federal environment laws in the late 1990s. The MCA led the charge - its environmental policy overseen by an 'Environment Committee' including Gordon Drake from WMC. (Bob Burton, MCA Push to Weaken Environmental Laws, Mining Monitor, Vol.3(3), October 1998, pp.1-4; see also Brendan Pearson, "Canberra reassures business on environment legislation", Australian Financial Review, 2/7/99, pp.20-21.)

The absence of a greenhouse trigger in the resulting Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 was widely seen as one of its greatest flaws. The government committed only to consultations on the issue of a greenhouse trigger for environmental assessments and approval under the EPBC Act. Even that vague commitment was too much for Morgan, who said it "moved the Government in the direction of unilateral commitment to the Kyoto targets." (Elisabeth Sexton, "Money to burn", Sydney Morning Herald, 14/8/99, p.61, 65.)

In the three years from 1992-93 to 1995-96, WMC benefited by about $140 million under the Diesel Fuel Rebate Scheme. In a review of the scheme in May 1996, the Australian National Audit Office said "the policy objectives it serves have never been clearly stated" and that "the objective of the scheme remains unclear ... this impedes any assessment of how effective the annual expenditure of $1.25 billion is in achieving the Government's policy aims". (Performance Audit: Diesel fuel rebate scheme: Australian Customs Office, Audit Report No 20 1995-96, The Auditor-General, AGPS, 1996; Anon., "Diesel Dollars", Mining Monitor 2(2), June 1997, p.12.)

The MCA succeeded in persuading the federal government to adopt many of its proposals for tax reform in the late 1990s, including even greater subsidies for diesel fuel. (Anon., "Minerals Council leads GST push", Mining Monitor, October 1998, p.14; on the environmental implications of the tax package, see also Clive Hamilton, 2001, Running from the Storm, pp.112-117; Murray Hogarth, "Gasbagging", Sydney Morning Herald, 29/5/99.)

Hamilton said the diesel rebates included in the GST tax package constituted a banned tax exemption under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. (Running from the Storm, 2001, p.113.)

An Australian Financial Review article noted that "The biggest corporate winners from a GST and the associated reduction in diesel fuel fuel excise will be diversified resource companies such as BHP, Rio Tinto, North and Western Mining." (Ian Porter and Damon Kitney, "A boost for mining and manufacturing sectors", Australian Financial Review, 31/5/99.)

Hamilton argued in June 2002 that: "In the last budget, the government sharply cut back on the greenhouse programs promised to the Democrats to offset the stimulus to emissions caused by the diesel price cuts. It has also reneged on important promises covering the energy credits scheme ..." (Clive Hamilton, "Will Meg Lees become the new Mal Colston?", Sydney Morning Herald, 27/6/02.)

No doubt WMC enjoys other hefty subsidies with adverse implications for climate change, such as subsidised electricity to Alcoa.

The benevolence between the government and WMC isn't all one way. WMC has been a generous donor to conservative political parties. It was one of the largest donors according to electoral commission returns for 1995-96 (Anon., "Miners Donations", Mining Monitor 2(2), June 1997, p.12). In addition to direct donations, Morgan was a director of the the Cormack Foundation, which donated $1.5 million in 1995-96 (ibid.)

In 1999-2000, the Cormack Foundation was the largest donor to the Liberal Party, donating $800,000. (Laura Tingle, Labor's election nest egg turns to gold, Sydney Morning Herald 2/2/01.)

Kate Askew wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald: "All shareholders are told in the WMC report is that the company "donates to political parties having regard to policies that impact our company and shareholders". ... But what the annual report doesn't tell shareholders is that Morgan has had a long-time involvement in the Liberal Party and has done a fair bit for the Cormack Foundation, a Libs fundraising vehicle. We expect that Morgan would therefore be very adept at filling in the board on why it should be donating to his chosen party." (Kate Askew, 4/2/02, "WMC backs Libs - and why not?", Sydney Morning Herald, <www.smh.com.au/news/0202/04/biztech/comment1.html>.)

WMC says in its Annual Report 2001 that its 2001 donations were: $150,000 to the federal Liberal Party, $10,000 each to WA and SA Liberals, and $10,000 to independent MP Mark Neville. (<www.wmc.com.au>)

Co-option

Even while railing against environmentalists, WMC has also been a market leader in terms of co-opting environmentalists for public relations purposes. For example, two members of WMC's 'External Advisory Group' are well-known environmental author and lobbyist Professor Ian Lowe, and Tricia Caswell, former director of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

On WMC's role in the climate change debate, the advisory group said in WMC's Sustainability Report 2001: "We would like to see WMC assuring the community that it ... is working hard to alleviate its contribution to such environmental problems as global climate change. ... Finally, we respect WMC's interest in stating its position on matters of public policy ... in regard to greenhouse gas abatement. This does not mean that members of the External Advisory Group agree with these opinions or with each other on these issues, but we acknowledge WMC's right to its opinions and to be part of the debate." (<www.wmc.com.au/acrobat/sr2001/sustain2001fullt.pdf>)

Timid stuff given WMC's appalling record on climate change. Perhaps Lowe, Caswell and other members of the advisory group have been more forthright in their reports or comments to WMC, but all that is posted on the WMC website are snippets such as the one above.

Lowe has certainly been a vocal public critic of the Coalition government's handling of the climate change debate (see for example his submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties: <www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/kyoto/sub137.pdf>).

As for Caswell, she thinks WMC, BHP Billiton and other corporate polluters are "serious and brave" about sustainable development and that: "Most of us are not so brave. Mining is leading the contemporary search for sustainability in Australia and globally. No other industry has collaborated globally around its contribution to sustainability. The chemical industry had a go a decade plus ago but they now have to catch up. No other industry has put its money where its mouth is, millions of dollars, the 30 largest companies, an independent project team, with the right to publish arms length research and recommendations pulling no punches." ("Mining Industry Leads in Sustainable Development", speech to Mining Minerals and Sustainable Development conference, 7/5/02, <www.ameef.com.au/mmsd/pdfs/mmsdrep/caswell.pdf>)

Punchy reports on WMC are few and far between, and they don't come from company representatives or from co-opted, conservative environmentalists. They come from such places as the Mineral Policy Institute and Minewatch:
* Mineral Policy Institute, 1998, "Glossy reports, Grim reality", <www.mpi.org.au/reports/wmc_report.html>. See also Mining Monitor articles at the Mineral Policy Institute website <www.mpi.org.au>
* "The Gulliver File - Mines, people and land: a global battleground" by Roger Moody, Minewatch, 1992, <www.sea-us.org.au/roxby/wmc-gulliver.html>

Caswell also sat on an Australian Minerals & Energy Environment Foundation (AMEEF) panel which nominated corporate polluters for 'environment excellence' awards, including Pasminco, Placer Dome, and Normandy Mining. (Ethical Investor, 15/10/2000, "Mining environment awards cause stir", <www.ethicalinvestor.com.au/news/story.asp?Story_ID=29>.) WMC is a contributor/sponsor to AMEEF (<www.ameef.com.au/about/cont.html>).

Caswell is also on the MCA's External Advisory Group. (Bob Burton, "Miners Unveil 'Independent' Audit Committee, Mining Monitor, March 2001, p.5.) As is the World Wide Fund for Nature's Michael Rae (<www.ameef.com.au/about/board/mr.html>).

The notorious ex-Greenpeace ex-environmentalist Paul Gilding was employed by WMC as a consultant in the mid- to late-1990s.

The World Wide Fund for Nature Australia (WWF) has been co-opted by Alcoa Australia. Alcoa has been a "major corporate sponsor" of WWF since 1992. Alcoa operates an extensive landcare program, it funded a project to protect the Chudditch (western quoll), it "played a significant role in providing seed funding and impetus for the establishment of the WWF WA office", and it has made a "major financial contribution" to WWF's Woodland Watch project. (<www.wwf.org.au>). No mention on the WWF website of WMC/Alcoa's contribution to global warming or their contribution to greenhouse disinformation campaigns.

Academic Tim Doyle discussed WWF and WMC in his 2000 book Green Power. In 1998, WWF provided a glowing endorsement of WMC's 'Environmental Monitoring Report'. Partly on the strength of the WWF endorsement, WMC later received an industry award for environmental protection. Doyle wrote to the WWF asking how its endorsement could be reconciled with the enormous environmental impact of WMC's copper and uranium mine at Olympic Dam (a.k.a. Roxby Downs) in South Australia. WWF's response was that it was only assessing the quality of corporate reporting, not corporate practices!

"This is is simply greenwashing", Doyle writes. "WWF representatives, and several other key environmentalists, who trade on the integrity of their name for money and power, continue to be impressed with Western Mining's efforts to look after the 'stick-nest rat' that is found in the vicinity of Olympic Dam, while the largest expansion of the uranium industry in this country's history continues unabated at Roxby Downs." (On the protection of rats etc. - the so-called "Arid rECOvery Project" - see "Current Project: On the Comeback Trail", Groundwork (magazine of the Australian Minerals & Energy Environment Foundation), <www.ameef.com.au/publicat/gw/grnd698/gcurproj.htm>.)