Are we going to see Exxon lining up with BP, Duke and the rest of the US Climate Action Partnership? Probably not. Will Exxon be a valuable ally in pushing for climate change legislation? No. But the simple fact that not only are they now no longer actively funding and supporting an effort to confuse and delay action on climate change, they are also openly stating that they think something should be done about climate change and that policy solutions are both necessary and inevitable.

Even if Exxon isn’t going to help us pass climate change legislation, at least it doesn’t look like they are going to be a major roadblock anymore, and that is not an insignificant change in the political landscape. We are, after all, talking about the largest publicly-traded energy company in the world (actually the largest publicly traded company in the world).

(The fact that the VP for Public Affairs of said largest company in the world would take an hour and fifteen minutes out of his schedule to talk with several bloggers is also a telling indication of the growing influence of blogging and the strange age we now live in. Perhaps Time was right when the selected ‘You’ as the 2006 Person of the Year!)

Thanks again for your questions and analysis. Cheers,

Jesse Jenkins
http://watthead.blogspot.com

Also, $5,685,000 donated over several years to “climate skeptics” is pocket change too. Not just to Exxon Mobil, but when compared the sums currently spent on climate change research. That looks to me like a token effort rather than some grand obstructionist conspiracy. It’s barely enough to fund the cafeteria at NREL.

Your blog post illustrates what some of us who know zip about climate change science have been pointing out about climate change policy: It is insufficient to use the existence of a problem as the basis for leaping to a solution. Very little research has been conducted on policy alternatives that would be effective (actually achieve promised global GHG reductions), efficient (achieve these reductions at minimum cost in transactions costs, rentseeking, and wealth transfers), and politically acceptable (votes in favor today won’t result in loss of re-election tomorrow). California’s recent action is emblematic: it is meets the test of political acceptability but not the tests of effectiveness or efficiency. The UN program discussed recently in the NYT and here meets none of these criteria.

Finally, opinion polls are useless as scientific instruments for measuring sustainable public support, much less the public’s willingness to pay. For proof, you only have to compare polls on Iraq performed three years ago versus today.

Which of the advocates of aggressive and immediate action on climate change think a similar decline in public support over just three years would not destroy the program?

That should be “cut ***to*** 70 to 90 percent of today’s production in 15 years”.

Not “by” 70 to 90 percent…that would mean emissions of 0.3 to 0.1 of current emissions.