KBPO: COP28 sees more fossil fuel lobbyists than last year

A record nearly 2,500 fossil fuel lobbyists have been accredited to the UN climate talks in Dubai. Yet the aim of COP28 is to limit global warming, and negotiators are facing calls to halt all new oil, gas and coal projects, Euractiv reports.

COP28 is hosted by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, which has made no secret of its intention to involve fossil fuel interests in the talks and has increased overall attendance to more than 80,000 participants, making this year’s COP the largest on record.

New COP rules

New UN rules have made it easier for observers to scrutinise those granted accreditation. For the first time, COP28 participants were asked to provide information about their employer and any financial or other ties to the entity applying for accreditation on their behalf.

Comparisons with previous years are therefore not entirely accurate. The NGO coalition Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) said, based on the preliminary list of participants, that 2,456 people linked to fossil fuel interests are at the conference. According to the group’s estimate, that is roughly four times the number of accreditations granted to these groups at last year’s talks in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Taken as a group, they outnumber the “delegations of all countries” except Brazil and the UAE, the coalition said in a statement.

Who is hosting whom?

All COP delegates must be invited by a government or a registered organisation. According to KBPO, France brought the head of its fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies, Italy included a team from Italian energy giant ENI, while the European Union brought employees of oil giants BP and ExxonMobil.

“Do you really think Shell, Chevron or ExxonMobil are sending lobbyists to passively observe these talks?” said Alexia Leclercq, co-founder of the NGO Start:Empowerment, in response to the findings.

Meanwhile, Geneva-based International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) brought 116 people, including representatives of Shell and Norway’s Equinor.

Controversy

COP28, taking place in a year widely expected to be the hottest on record, has been mired in controversy since Sultan Al Jaber, head of the UAE’s state-owned oil company, was appointed president of the climate talks.

On Monday, Jaber stressed that he respects climate science after coming under fire over a leaked video in which he questioned scientific findings about fossil fuels.

The KBPO coalition, which includes more than 450 groups such as Global Witness, Greenpeace, ActionAid and Transparency International, analysed the preliminary participant lists for the 28th conference line by line.

Last month, the group said that fossil fuel lobbyists had attended climate conferences at least 7,200 times over the past 20 years.