At least 1,773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists have been granted access to the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, a new report has found, raising concerns about the planet-heating industry’s influence on the negotiations.
Those lobbyists, according to The Guardian, outnumber the delegations of almost every country at the conference, the analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition shows, with the only exceptions being this year’s host country, Azerbaijan, next year’s host Brazil, and Turkey.
The finding comes during week one of the climate summit, known as Cop29. Days before the talks kicked off, Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and chief executive of Cop29, was caught on film agreeing to facilitate oil deals at the negotiations.
The Guardian quoted Sarah McArthur, an activist with the environmental group UK Youth Climate Coalition, which is a member of the KBPO coalition, as saying: “Cop29 kicked off with the revelation that fossil fuel deals were on the agenda, laying bare the ways that industry’s constant presence has delayed and weakened progress for years. The fossil fuel industry is driven by their financial bottom line, which is fundamentally opposed to what is needed to stop the climate crisis, namely, the urgent and just phaseout of fossil fuels.”
The 10 most climate-vulnerable nations have only a combined 1,033 delegates at the negotiations. “Industry presence is dwarfing that of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” the analysis says.
Activists have for years urged the UN to ban representatives of polluting industries from climate talks. Last year, officials imposed a new rule requiring registrants to disclose their affiliations; they were previously able to attend without formally disclosing these relationships.