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* CEOs of eight top oil companies to make joint call onclimate
* To call for carbon pricing and more gas use
* "The bad guys are part of the solution" - Total CEO
By Ron Bousso, Susanna Twidale and Bate Felix
LONDON/PARIS, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Oil and gas industryleaders will launch a final charm offensive on Friday tohighlight the sector's relevance in the global fight againstclimate change before a key summit in Paris later this year.
In an unprecedented public appearance, the bosses ofEurope's top oil companies, who earlier this year jointly calledon governments to introduce a global carbon pricing system, willbe joined by the heads of the national oil companies of SaudiArabia and Mexico who will lend their support to the initiative.
The rare show of unity at a time when companies are allstruggling with a sharp drop in oil prices also highlights adeep rift with American oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron who stayed away from the initiative.
The chief executives of Total, Britain's BP and BG Group, Italy's Eni, Norway's Statoil, Spain's Repsol, Saudi Aramco and Pemex willagain call for a global pricing system on carbon, which they saywill give an economic incentive for the private sector to usecleaner sources of energy and to develop new technologies suchas carbon capture and storage (CCS).
They will also again urge governments to dump coal in favourof cleaner natural gas in power plants and heavy industry.
For many of the companies, this is a fight for the future ofthe oil and gas sector in the public debate as a rising numberof organisations and politicians call to minimise the use offossil fuels in favour of renewable energy such as wind andsolar power while seeking to ostracise oil companies amonginvestors.
"Sometimes in all these discussions you have the impressionthat all fossil fuels are the bad guys. But the bad guys arepart of the solution," Total's CEO Patrick Pouyanne told a gasand electricity summit in Paris on Thursday.
"Whatever people think, we still need fossil fuels. We needto make advocacy for gas. We need to explain to our policymakers that gas has to be encouraged," Pouyanne said.
"Policy makers are not convinced in many countries that gasis part of the solution for climate change, we in the industryneed to speak up."
The meeting, which will be followed by a press conference,comes shortly before diplomats gather in Bonn from Monday forthe last formal session ahead of the Paris climate talksstarting in November where negotiators from almost 200 nationswill meet to try to forge a global climate change agreement,designed to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.
"The big challenge for them is what is their next businessmodel for the years to come, which I think is a legitimatequestion to ask of them," Laurence Tubiana, French ambassadorfor the international climate negotiations, said at an eventheld by accountancy firm PwC on Thursday.
The International Energy Agency forecasts oil will remainthe largest energy source by 2040, although its share willdecline while renewable sources of energy will grow.
All major emitting countries have now submitted plans to theUnited Nations detailing how much they plan to curb theiremissions.
Many members of the Organization of the Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC), including leader Saudi Arabia, have yet tosubmit their plans.
For oil executives, pledges by key oil consuming countriesincluding China and India to cut fossil fuel consumption havecrystallised their need to act.
The World Bank estimates around 300 million tones of carbondioxide (CO2) is emitted from gas flaring each year, equivalentto around 77 million cars.
Total, Statoil, Shell, Eni and BG are already signed up to aU.N. initiative to stop routine gas flaring by 2030.
Critics say however that without clear goals to cut theiremissions, oil companies' efforts would have little impact.
"To determine whether or not this is just greenwash ... youneed to look for whether or not the initiative announcesconcrete, quantitative and measurable targets designed to makethe oil and gas industry part of the solution," said AnthonyHobley, chief executive of environmental think tank the CarbonTracker Initiative. (Additional reporting by Ana Martinez in Mexico; editing byAdrian Croft)
