* Leaders of 8 oil majors to meet in Paris on Oct. 16
* To present proposals ahead of U.N. summit
* Total boss says looking at areas of cooperation such as inCCS (Recasts, updates throughout)
By Ron Bousso and Karolin Schaps
LONDON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The leaders of eight of theworld's top oil companies will meet in Paris next week toexplain how they will help combat climate change, as part of anoffensive ahead of a U.N. summit later this year.
The Oct. 16 meeting will be followed by a press conference,where the company heads are also expected to renew their callfor a global carbon pricing mechanism, the chief executive ofFrench oil major Total, Patrick Pouyanne, said onWednesday at a conference in London.
Pouyanne said the company leaders would present proposals tocombat global warming ahead of the December Paris climate talks,where governments will set new goals for combating climatechange.
"We need to be on the offensive ... We need to be serious tobring answers and solutions to the table and not leave policymakers raising their fingers that they (oil companies) are thedevils," Pouyanne said at the Oil and Money conference.
"We are looking at areas of cooperation, for example inresearch and development, in CCS (carbon capture and storage)... We all have some experience individually but it's one areawhere we could join efforts," Pouyanne added.
The meeting will be part of the Oil and Gas ClimateInitiative, a U.N.-backed scheme involving a number of major oiland gas companies.
PRICING SYSTEM
Earlier this year BG Group, BP, Eni,Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Total wrote to U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, urginggovernments around the world to introduce a pricing system forcarbon emissions.
Pouyanne and other executives have called for replacing coalwith less polluting gas to reduce carbon emissions.
Setting a price for each tonne of carbon that emittersproduce is meant to encourage companies to adopt cleanertechnologies and shift away from fossil fuels, primarily coal.
In a joint statement, the companies acknowledged the currenttrend in greenhouse gas emissions was too high to meet theUnited Nation's target of limiting global warming by no morethan 2 degrees.
Responding to the letter, Figueres said oil companies neededto step up their own efforts to fight climatechange.
Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two largestU.S. oil companies, did not take part in the letter. Exxon chiefRex Tillerson on Wednesday called for a revenue-neutral globalcarbon tax that would differ in each country.
"We believe the risks posed by climate change are serious.We also believe by taking sound and wise action now we canbetter mitigate those risks," Tillerson said at the conference.
"We have held the view that a revenue-neutral carbon tax isthe best option. The revenue-neutral carbon tax could be aworkable policy framework for countries around the world. Theycan tailor it to their own economic conditions." (Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Susanna Twidale;Editing by Pravin Char and David Holmes)
