Oil Companies Dispute Climate Change Claims

New Zealand-based oil companies deny they are trying to undermine the science of climate change by investing in groups that are climate change deniers.The Green Party is urging the government to stop investing its Super Fund in companies such as Mobil, which it claims are funding dozens of these groups.Mobil's parent company, ExxonMobil, is one of 39 groups singled out by Britain's Royal Society for donating millions of dollars to such groups.A spokesperson for Mobil New Zealand, Peter Thornbury, says the company accepts the truth of climate change.However, he says it does donate to groups that carry out research on numerous policy issues, which may or may not include climate change. He says Mobil has no control over what research the groups do.A spokesperson for BP, Diane Stretch, says the company has long accepted the need to cut fossil fuel emissions and is spending billions of dollars to cut emissions within the company. She says BP was one of the first oil companies to accept climate change was happening.Shell says it expects to reduce its emissions by at least 5 percent by 2010.