Mark Grundy, who works for the PR firm Edelman, sees business opportunities in climate change. He writes about the December 2009 COP15 meeting in Denmark, where world governments will try to negotiate a binding new agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012. Grundy describes the COP15 meeting as "the biggest global opportunity for carbon messaging of the next four years... COP15 is a major opportunity for all my U.S. clients to go well beyond their European counterparts in the 'green image wars.'" After waxing lyrical about the "$100 billion commodity carbon market," Grundy concludes that if corporate executives still aren't persuaded that they should attend, they should ponder one point: "Where do you think every respected, environmental reporter on the planet will be between 30 November and 11 December next year?" As CMD previously reported, Edelman's London office is assisting E.ON UK in its efforts to persuade the UK government to approve the coal-fired Kingsnorth Power Station. The power station would emit several hundred million tonnes of carbon dioxide in its working life.

Like many others, New York Times journalist Larry Rohter describes former Greenpeace activist-turned-industry consultant Patrick Moore as "the co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a pro-nuclear group." (Two weeks earlier, Rohter co-authored a blog post that used an identical description of Moore.) What Rohter doesn't mention is that the coalition is a front group funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). After referring to Moore, Rohter notes that NEI is broadly supportive of plans such as Republican Presidential candidate John McCain's commitment to build 45 new nuclear power stations. An announcement for an upcoming CNBC special on nuclear power makes a similar mistake. The announcement describes Moore as an "environmentalist" who "supports America's nuclear revival and tells CNBC why he's made this stunning about face." Maybe because that's what he's paid to do?