Over 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists have shown up at the UN climate summit, making up one in every 25 registered attendees at talks designed to move the world away from coal, oil and gas.
This is the highest share of industry representatives since civil society organisations began tracking who attends these annual meetings. It raises a basic question: can the fossil fuel era end when those who built it and still profit from delay are writing the rules?
It’s like inviting the fox into the henhouse, a climate activist said.
The Kick Big Polluters Out coalition analysed the attendee list and found fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber every country’s team, except host Brazil. The 1,602 industry representatives are a 12% jump in their share compared to last year’s summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where 1,773 lobbyists showed up.At the 2023 Dubai summit, the coalition counted 2,456 fossil fuel representatives, but total attendance that year was much larger.
The lobbyists got two-thirds more passes than all delegates combined from the 10 countries hit hardest by climate disasters. About 599 got in through national delegations, giving them direct access to closed-door negotiations.
The push to limit industry access stems from proof that big oil companies hid what they knew. In 1977, Exxon scientist James Black told executives that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels was heating the planet.By 1982, Exxon’s own climate models predicted temperature rises as accurately as independent scientists would years later. But Exxon chose to pay groups to cast doubt on climate science in public.
The American Petroleum Institute formed a carbon dioxide task force in the 1970s that told member companies about warming risks. In 1998, the lobby group drew up plans to convince people that climate science was uncertain, manufacturing doubt.
Money keeps flowing to fossil fuels despite the 2015 Paris Agreement. The world’s 60 biggest banks have given $6.9 trillion to fossil fuel companies since Paris, the Banking on Climate Chaos report found. Half of thatwent to expand oil, gas and coal production, despite evidence of constantly rising temperatures.
Since the Baku summit, nearly $250 billion in new oil and gas projects got approved, industry analysts say.
India offers a way forward. It uses conflict-of-interest rules for tobacco, environmental audits and finance. This puts India in position to push for the same approach in the global climate talks.
The Kick Big Polluters Out coalition has over 450 member groups calling for formal conflict-of-interest policies at the UN climate talks. Countries with 70% of the world’s population have asked for these conflicts to be addressed.
Other global bodies have done this before. The World Health Organization’s tobacco treaty keeps industry representatives out of health policy talks. Chemical makers faced similar limits during talks to protect the ozone layer under the Montreal Protocol.
Supporters say climate talks need the same protection. Right now, the UN climate body has no conflict-of-interest rules for who can attend. New disclosure rules at this summit only cover non-government participants, not people who get in through national delegations.