U.S. business carbon slash hoax fools some media

NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - A political action group that bombarded media around the world with false reports of U.S. businesses pledging a major cut in greenhouse gas emissions said its motivation was to get big companies to take greater action on climate issues.

Greenwash Guerrillas, a loose-knit group of students and workers for nonprofit organizations, posed as phony public relations officials and targeted energy reporters around the world on Monday with e-mails and telephone calls.

They claimed that a legitimate group of 33 businesses and environmental groups, the United States Climate Action Partnership, had agreed to slash emissions, blamed for warming the earth, by 90 percent by 2050 and had called for a moratorium on new coal plants.

U.S. CAP includes oil majors ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Shell Oil (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and automaker General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The release said that U.S. CAP was hoping to encourage decisive action in Bali, Indonesia, where delegates from about 190 countries are meeting to try to work out a broad long-term pact to fight climate change.

"We wanted to draw attention to U.S. CAP's influence and hold them to taking real action on climate," Brian Jones, a spokesman for the tricksters who operated from Britain, Canada, Australia and the United States, said in an interview.

The group backed up their press releases by setting up Web sites for a phony public relations company and another claiming to be the new U.S. CAP site, using its official logo.

U.S. CAP businesses and environmental groups said the press release and pledge were "fraudulent."

In fact, at least one U.S. CAP member, Duke Energy Corp (DUK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), is hoping to build coal plants in the United States, and the group has pressured the U.S. government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by only 60 to 80 percent by 2050.