Lord Browne & The "Green" BP - What Really Happened (Fascinating From DesmogBlog)

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Sir Peter Walters was Browne's successor at BP. As boss of the company, he signed off annual donations of £10,000 for his friend Sir Ralph Harris at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and, on retirement, joined the free market think tank as a trustee. At the time of Brown's Stanford Speech, Walters was working with Julian Morris and Roger Bate, overseeing climate sceptic publications and conferences. Walters also remains convinced that the sun is the driving force behind climate change.

His scepticism of the science reflects his scepticism of Browne's true motive in coming out in support of climate action, pointing to his very close relationship with Blair. Some of his colleagues at the IEA were incandescent with rage at Browne for breaking ranks and fraternising with their ideological foes. Sir Peter told me during an interview at the BP headquarters in St James's Street: “If you're chief executive of a major company, you've got to work with the grain of the government. I'm not going to stand up and criticise them because I want something else. I don't have to bend my conscience too far to say what they'll be glad to hear.”

When asked if Browne was using rhetoric to 'greenwash' BP during the Stanford speech, Sir Peter replied: “When I was a soldier we had an expression in the army which was, ‘bullshit baffles brains’. “Before the commanding general came to inspect, everything would be whitewashed and cleaned. I don't think the general ever knew about the standard of training or the combat readiness of the troops and all the rest,” he recalled, mimicking a British general: “What! What! What!”

Richard Ritche, also a lifelong supporter of the IEA, was a political advisor to Browne at BP at the time of the speech. He agrees that the chief executive's conversion to environmentalism was about expediency and public relations, rather than a genuine turn onto the road to Damascus. Ritchie told me: “I have absolutely no doubt that John Browne wanted to be perceived as the greenest oil company. But when you look at his decisions, he did not allocate all the resources away from oil and gas – we would never in a million years.”

EDIT

http://desmog.uk/2015/03/21/what-happened-when-former-bp-boss-lord-browne-called-action-climate-change