Attendance across the fossil fuel industry at COP28 reached a record level, with more than 2,450 fossil fuel lobbyists registering to attend, it added, nearly four times the number at COP27 held in Egypt.
At COP28, the number of agribusiness representatives was doubled compared to COP27, with 340 people registered. Analysis by DeSmog revealed. About a third of this came from meat and dairy companies. More than 100 delegates visited Dubai as part of their national delegations, up from 10 in 2022.
Being part of a national delegation gives you access to much more than being registered as a standard business representative, explains Pasco Sabido, researcher and activist at Corporate Europe Observatory. did.
Disclose
Individuals with government delegation badges can attend meetings that are not accessible to other representatives, including civil society observers and the media. What's important is that they have access to government office areas, he said.
„That's where all the ministers and negotiators are, and they're allowed direct access to the area with all the decision-makers. They can set up meetings, grab people in the hallways, improvise bumps. „You can do that,“ he added.
After COP28, the EU Green Party group of MEPs wrote to the European Commission expressing concern that the situation undermined the EU's credibility at the COP. The letter urges the committee to clarify the rules and procedures for granting party overflow badges to external officials and to develop a clear list of criteria when dealing with overflow badges to non-government officials. I asked.
The commission did not respond to the letter, said Jutta Paulus, the EU Green Party's environmental spokesperson. did not respond to a request for comment. ecologist.
The disclosure of the number of lobbyists at COP28 was made possible due to the following reasons: new rules This was brought in by the United Nations body that runs the summit (UNFCCC) and requires all participants to identify who they represent when registering.
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The UNFCCC subsequently announced: complete list The number of participants, including those obtained by governments with so-called „overflow“ badges, can be arranged until the night before the start of the COP.
„This is the first time we've had access to the overflow list, where most of the government-purchased fossil fuel lobbyists are located,“ Sabido said.
The new rules come after years of campaigning by organizations such as the European Enterprise Observatory and members of international watchdog groups. drive out big polluters Union. Initial attempts to get governments to agree to this change were blocked by countries including the US, EU, Canada and Australia, so activists instead asked the UNFCCC secretariat to intervene, Sabid explained.
The campaign calls on the UNFCCC to introduce a COP protocol on conflicts of interest and accountability rules setting out how it should be monitored and enforced. He has called for support from the EU, which has so far maintained its position that all industries should participate in climate change talks, Sabido said.
This position has been widely supported, including by former UNFCCC Executive Director Christiana Figueres. But last year, she publicly said she was wrong to support the involvement of fossil fuel companies, writing: Al Jazeera editorial: „Their unprecedented gains over the past year show they are unwilling to adapt. It's D-Day for them now.“
negotiation
Last year, more than 100,000 people gathered from all over Europe. signed the petition While calling on governments to remove polluters from politics, 100+ organizations Trade unions, anti-poverty networks and others support overhauling the political system to limit the influence of private companies on decision-making.
Tom Evans, senior policy adviser at climate diplomacy and geopolitics think tank E3G, believes that using a similar approach to exclude fossil fuel companies from negotiations is realistic, but it will take time.
“I can imagine a situation where there are enough countries that believe this is an important issue and push it forward. „The question may be whether to invest as much political capital as possible. I don't think I've ever seen a major country say this publicly,“ he said.
According to Gilmore, negotiations on the WHO FCTC began in 1995 and took a long time. The Convention was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2005. They also started from different places, she noted.
“When treaty negotiations began, the aim was to exclude the tobacco industry because it was recognized as part of the problem. This is different from climate, because the fossil fuel industry was already Because we are doing our best to negotiate,” she said.
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She thought climate change negotiations needed to be on the same footing as tobacco negotiations, but that would not be easy. “These companies are so powerful right now. They are using their resources to buy access, influence and change norms, so people are being fooled into thinking they are not part of the solution. They are made to believe they are part of the solution when they are not,” she said.
Paulus believed that removing fossil fuel companies from policymaking would be more complicated than with tobacco companies. „Fossil fuel companies need to be included in the negotiations because you can say they change their business models at any time, but the tobacco industry just sold cigarettes,“ she said.
She pointed out another problem. In many countries, fossil fuel companies were state-owned, allowing individuals to play dual roles: sultan al jaberHe pointed out that he was also the President of COP28 and the CEO of Adnoc, the UAE's national oil company. “The UNFCCC cannot ban government representatives.”
Mr Sabido acknowledged the importance of involving fossil fuel companies in parts of the energy transition, such as infrastructure decommissioning. „But they should not be involved in political decision-making that determines how quickly and by how much emissions cuts need to be made. That should be guided by science.“
„This has really grown as an issue. As it has become more prominent, I think people have realized that it's really important to capture this process. More voices are involved. „We want to use that as political power to mobilize the UNFCCC Secretariat to stop governments that are supposed to represent the people from supporting the fossil fuel industry,“ he concluded. .
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Katherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist. ecologist.She tweets at @Cat_Early76.