BP and Eden Project climb into eachother's arms

The Eden Project has teamed up with BP on a project called 'Carbon Credits': www.edenproject.com/6086.htm

Apart from anything else, the whole idea that planting trees can offset your emissions is very dodgy: www.sinkswatch.org

If you would like to let them know how you feel about this situation, here are 3 addresses of people who are involved. (I'd suggest keeping it polite.)
TKendle@EdenProject.com, GGrand@EdenProject.com, BFoster@EdenProject.com

Here's a letter I wrote during August:

'Dear Mr. Kendle and associates,

I believe that your association with BP is highly gullible, at best, and at worst an insult to the countless people and movements around the world (though particularly in the global south) who are suffering and resisting the impacts of the oil industry every day of their lives.

There may be individuals within BP who have a strong desire to see the company move more committedly into the renewables sector, (though I imagine they are also passionate about BP maintaining a stranglehold in this emerging sector.) But they are in a minority, as the fact remains that the logo on your website represents a company committed above all
else to pulling 3.5% or more oil and gas out of the ground, year on year. For example, the Baku Ceyhan pipeline will transport 1 million barrels of oil, every day for 40 years or more. That's a whole load of carbon dioxide heading for our upper atmosphere.

The Eden Project's tacit approval of BP as a company allows the public gaze to be diverted from these facts, not to mention a worse-than-shoddy human rights and safety record. And if you are committed to a move away from fossil fuels, why is there a link to BP Ultimate, which is, unless I'm very much mistaken, 100% fossil fuel?

I am part of 'Art Not Oil', a project which attempts to wrench public attention back to a truer portrait of an oil company. I've added some information about it below. We'd love a link on your website!

I've also attached a copy of the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, formulated by mostly southern-based grassroots groups, which I hope is of interest.

It would be great to hear your thoughts on the issues I've raised here. In the meantime, thanks for reading and take care,'
e-mail: info@artnotoilorg.uk
Homepage: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk

And here is a reply:

'We fully recognise the importance of work such as yours, driving companies
to better practice. But we can't see any possibility of tackling the
major problems of energy and climate without some engagement with
corporations. This was also one of the main conclusions reached by the
Earth Summit. However it seems that you cannot recognise value in this as
a complementary approach.

The Durban Declaration is as much as anything a denial of pressures for
economic and industrial growth from within developing countries themselves
- it externalises responsibility for energy use rather than recognising
that corporates are only part of a chain that leads ultimately to
individuals. You only have to look at how things a turning out in China,
India, Brazil etc. to realise that the people and governments of
developing countries have no intention of remaining low energy users.

It really is also worth looking into the success of sulphur trading, which
effectively solved a problem that no amount of regulatory approaches and
confrontational politics were able to solve.

We believe contraction and convergence is the best way forward because it
recognises that growth in energy use in developing countries will happen.
Even if we could achieve a reverse in trends of energy use in developed
countries, there is not yet anywhere enough alternative and renewable
energy available to get us off of fossil fuels fast enough. For the
developing world the situation is even more urgent because that is where
most energy intensive industrial and manufacting activity is heading.

Huge investments are needed and it is going to need capacity as well
researchers, engineers, etc. The UN assessment is clear that there is no
way that governments or NGOs will be able to do this work without help
they do not have the funds, people or equipment. It seems essential that
energy companies are somehow engaged with the need find alternatives.'