OPEC says oil not to blame for climate change

PARIS (Reuters) – OPEC said oil was not to blame for climate change and consuming countries should pay to fight the threat, while the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said drivers could help by not buying Hummer sports utility vehicles.

“Oil is not responsible,” the producer group’s Secretary General, Abdullah al-Badri, told reporters on Thursday on the sidelines of the International Oil Summit in Paris.

“It is the industrialised countries which are making all this pollution in the world”.

Scientists say the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, is a key factor in climate change.

Badri said the revenues from high taxes that some industrialised countries, including most western European nations, place on oil products should be diverted to environmental projects.

Reuters