Enron massively lobbied for CO2 trading in the 1990's, Ken Lay named to Clinton Sustainable Council, Enron gave $1 million to Nature Conservancy Climate Change Project, Kyoto meant windfall for Enron

May 30, 2009, "Lawrence Solomon: Enron's other secret," Financial Post, Lawrence Solomon

"To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global
warming, Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried.
 
To magnify the leverage of their political lobbying, Enron also worked the environmental groups. Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide.

The intense lobbying paid off. Lay became a member of president Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, as well as his friend and advisor. In the summer of 1997, prior to global warming meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Clinton sought Lay’s advice in White House discussions. The fruits of Enron’s efforts came soon after, with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.
 
An internal Enron memo, sent from Kyoto by John Palmisano, a former Environmental Protection Agency regulator who had become Enron’s lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance, describes the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.
 
“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business
than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,”
 
Palmisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”"...





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