Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish Government, has been announced as the winner in the Climate Greenwash Award 2009 at a ceremony in Copenhagen.

“Vattenfall, which won with 39% of the vote (about 2000 votes cast), was nominated for “its mastery of spin on climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS).”

The energy company also played a key role in setting up the World Business Summit on Climate Change through the Combat Climate Change – a lobby group established by Vattenfall to promote the “climate-friendly technologies” such as carbon capture and storage and nuclear power, which are the company’s preferred options for tackling climate change.”

Climate Greenwash Awards Coordinator Kenneth Haar congratulated Vattenfall for their hard (read: dirty) work which resulted in their first place. Haar also gave a special mention the Danish Government for giving these dirty corporations easy access to the climate talks:

“We would like to congratulate Vattenfall for their outrageous use of green spin to support their dirty business model. Vattenfall wants to build more coal plants in Europe, even though coal is the dirtiest source of energy – and it has successfully lobbied the EU for funds to develop carbon capture and storage technology. But even if this unproven technology works, it will not help reduce emissions quickly enough to help prevent the threat of climate change.

“I would also like to give a special mention to the Danish Government which has provided these polluting industries which such easy access to the climate talks. Denmark says it wants companies to back a deal on climate change, but the reality is that they are giving big business the opportunity to completely undermine the effectiveness of any deal that is done.”

Shell, Dong, ArcelorMittal, Repsol and BP was among the other energy companies nominated for the award. The Climate Greenwash Awards were organised by Corporate Europe Observatory, Attac Denmark, The Climate Movement, ClimaX and Friends of the Earth Denmark.