The Global Climate Coalition was formed in 1989 by 50 oil, gas, coal, auto and chemical corporations. It's stated purpose was to 'cast doubt on the theory of global warming.' It gave out $60 million (AUD?) in bribes to politicians and more on propaganda. One of it's most effective scare campaigns was a claim that addressing climate change could add 50c per gallon to the price of gas in the US. It prevented the 1992 Rio Earth summit from from adopting strong measures to combat global warming.

DuPont left the group in 1992 - perhaps because it had found in dealing with CFC's that it could actually profit by leading the way in environmentally friendly policies and technologies. BP left soon after, but the CEO said there was still a lot of support within the company for the position they had taken.

Texaco left in 2000, making the coalition no longer effective. Exxon Mobil, Chevron and General Motors stuck it out and the coalition's website is still active and full of misleading material on climate change.

In early 2000, world business leaders declared that global climate change is the greatest threat facing the world. Later that year a poll of fortune 500 executives showed that 34 per cent supported the ratification of kyoto and only 26 per cent opposed.

The Partnership for Climate Action is a group of seven large American energy and Manufacturing corporations committed to reducing emissions below kyoto targets.

This info is from 'The Weather Makers' by Tim Flannery, p 243. It suggests that a cut of 70% of 1990 level emissions by 2050 would reduce the number of species expected to go extinct as a result of global warming from 60% to 20%. Most households could achieve such a reduction fairly easily.

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More info relevant to Australia:

http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=1141&pst=360118

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