'Angry Mermaid' award aims wrath at corporate climate delayers

With hope dwindling for a meaningful agreement when international climate negotiators meet in Copenhagen next month, a certain iconic statue in the city’s harbour is steamed.

Meet “The Angry Mermaid.”

A group of five organisations created The Angry Mermaid Award — named for the famed Little Mermaid statue that graces Copenhagen’s shoreline — to single out the big businesses that are doing the most to derail serious action on climate change. The group unveiled its shortlist of nominees today and is asking the public to vote online to choose the worst offender.

And the nominees are:

• American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity: For “being embroiled in a fake lobbying scandal against the US Climate Bill and for trying to hide the extent of its lobbying activities.”
• American Petroleum Institute (API): For “organising an ‘astroturf’ campaign against the US Climate Bills. In August 2009, a leaked memo from the API revealed it had invited its membership to attend a series of rallies in 20 key states, in order to give the impression of a groundswell of grassroots opposition to the climate legislation.”
• European Chemical Industry Council: For “successfully lobbying for free allowances under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and for pushing to weaken EU and international climate policies.”
• International Air Transport Association: For “leading lobbying efforts by the major airlines against climate legislation and for issuing misleading and ‘meaningless’ pledges on reducing emissions.”
• International Emissions Trading Association: For “promoting a global market for greenhouse gas emissions, including the use of offsetting through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), even though this currently cannot guarantee emission reductions.”
• Monsanto and the Round Table on Responsible Soy: For “lobbying for RoundupReady (RR) soy to be considered a ‘climate-friendly’ crop that is eligible for carbon credits and subsidies under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); and for pushing for meaningless ‘responsible’ label for RoundupReady soy, which could be used to certify ‘sustainable’ agrofuels.”
• Royal Dutch Shell: For “actively investing in the energy-intensive tar sands, at the same time as pushing unproven carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology as a solution to climate change, whilst undermining initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions.”
• Sasol: For its “national and international lobbying campaign to promote carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a clean solution to the dirty business of producing liquid fuels from coal and gas.”

Online voting will continue through 13 December, with the “winningest” target of the Mermaid’s wrath to be announced in Copenhagen on 15 December.

The Angry Mermaid Award is being spearheaded by Attac Denmark, Corporate Europe Observatory, Focus on the Global South, Friends of the Earth International and Spinwatch.