Fossil fuel lobbyists are flooding UN negotiations in this year of record-breaking global temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions—nearly four times as many as were allowed entry the previous year.

This increase is timed to coincide with a COP that is centered around the phaseout of fossil fuels. Additionally, it strengthens the growing demand to remove polluters from negotiations made by governments, civil society organizations, and countries in the Global South.

According to a new analysis from analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition, at least 2456 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the COP28 summit.

Key findings:

COP28 is being exploited by Big Polluters to advance the fossil-fuel agenda, with:

• Fossil fuel lobbyists have received more passes to COP28 than all delegates from the ten most climate-vulnerable nations (1509)
• Fossil fuel lobbyists, including Shell, TotalEnergies, and Equinor, were granted access to the COP through a trade association, with nine out of the ten largest groups coming from the Global North.
• France brought fossil fuel giants such as TotalEnergies and EDF as part of its country delegation, Italy brought a team of ENI representatives, and the European Union brought employees of BP, ENI, and ExxonMobil.
• More than seven times the number of fossil fuel lobbyists were permitted entry to the Dubai talks than official indigenous representatives (316)

Quotes:

Alexia Leclercq, Start: Empowerment, Co-founder said, “Do you think Shell or Chevron or ExxonMobil are sending lobbyists to passively observe these talks? To advance climate solutions for the benefit of communities whose air and water they pollute? To put people and the planet over profit and their greedy dollars? Big Polluters’ poisonous presence has bogged us down for years, keeping us from advancing the pathways needed to keep fossil fuels in the ground. They are the reason COP28 is clouded in a fog of climate denial, not climate reality.”

Caroline Muturi from IBON Africa said, “These findings tell us that the dynamics within these spaces remain fundamentally colonial. It comes as no surprise that the majority of the corporations influencing these talks are from the Global North. In years past COPs have become an avenue for many companies to greenwash their polluting businesses and foist dangerous distractions from real climate action. This hinders the meaningful participation of African communities and the rest of the Global South in shaping climate policies that will primarily affect them.”

Hwei Mian Lim, Women and Gender Constituency said, “If governments had required oil and gas groups to decarbonize from the outset in line with what science says is needed to limit climate change’s worse impacts, we would not be in our current state of all-out emergency. We are where we are because of years of denial, delay, and false solutions from the very groups that are responsible for the problem.”

Recall:

Last year, KBPO’s analysis showed that at least 636 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to the COP27 climate talks in Egypt, up from 503 the year before that in Glasgow. And recent findings from KBPO have also found that fossil fuel lobbyists have attended COPs at least 7200 times over the last two decades.

The Kick Big Polluters Out campaign is calling on the UN climate body and governments to continue on the road towards a robust Accountability Framework to address the problem at its root, as with the tobacco industry at the World Health Organisation tobacco treaty talks.