Head of Rio Tinto's Global Energy Business Here For PR Damage Control. (September 8, 2004)

    Preston Chiaro, the London-based chief executive of Rio Tinto's energy group has arrived in Australia to get the point across to the company down under that climate change is a deadly threat to humans and "the most serious environmental issue facing the world" as well as making it known to Australians that that's the way the company sees things.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald today, Mr Chairo believed "the company had a reputation issue in Australia about its approach to climate change. 'That's one of the reasons why I am here,' he said after a media conference at the World Energy Congress in Sydney yesterday."

If Mr Chiaro will discuss at a company administrative level the criticism that has been levelled in an ongoing conflict-of-interest debate around its chief technologist, Robin Batterham, who is also the Howard Government's chief scientist is not known, but it would hardly be surprising. The negative publicity that Dr Batterham has generated not only through his dual role but also because of his less than skilful handling of the media with regard to his juggling of those responsibilities is not the sort of publicity Rio Tinto is seeking just now.

Dr Batterham's championing of geosequestration to the virtual exclusion of methods to actually reduce green house gas production has undermined his credibility in the renewable energy community as an individual proffering considered objective assessments to the government, though it seems probable that he is offering the government the advice it is seeking.

According to the SMH "Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton said yesterday they broadly supported the concept of an emissions market for carbon. Under such a measure, pollution is capped and then traded by companies so that the cost of carbon dioxide to the environment is included in business decisions. " This despite the fact that Coalition Government this year abandoned the idea.