Exxon Mobil, Esso's parent company, is the largest oil company in the world. At the end of last month it reported the record breaking profit of 18 billion made in the past year. Here's another fact- the burning of oil as a fuel accounts for 23 % of all global greenhouse gas emissions. In the light of these facts, why has Esso run advertising campaigns in the US which are highly critical of the Kyoto agreement? Why also have they funded think-tanks with around $12 million who have questioned the authenticity of climate change?

The answers soon begin to emerge when Esso's political affiliations are exposed. Esso gave $1.3 million to the Republican Party's election campaign in 2000. Subsequently when George W. Bush became president he unsurprisingly pulled the US out of the Kyoto Agreement which is adhered to by 157 other countries. The Kyoto Protocol is aimed at countries reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases. With the United states pulling out of this agreement, environmental activists have called this a catastrophic event as The US is responsible for 25% of all the worlds carbon dioxide, yet their citizens only make up 4% of the worlds population.

Esso vehemently denies any link between climate change and differences in weather patterns. Lee Raymond, the chief executive of the company claims, "Some reports in the media link climate change to extreme weather and harm to human health. Yet experts see no such pattern." However, the World Health Organisation claims that climate change is already responsible for the deaths of 150, 000 people per year.

According to Greenpeace, the executives of Esso have tried to argue their case by talking of a petition signed by 17,000 scientists which dismisses climate change. At first this petition was thought to have come from the America's prestigious National Academy of Sciences. The petition was openly discredited after it emerged that it actually came from scientists that weren't even experts in climate change. Esso's name was further tainted when observers of the petition noticed that the list of names included fictional television characters.

Campaigns against Esso are no new thing. NGO's such as Greenpeace and Friends of The Earth have run large scale protests online and on the streets. Celebrities such as Bianca Jagger and Rory Bremner have shown their opposition to Esso in the public eye. Bremner, a well known political comedian, said something which sums up the campaigns against Esso: "Your choice is their income. Use your choice, make a change"