Fossil fuel lobbying at COP 30 in Brazil is gearing up, as more than 250 civil society organisations and experts from across the world
have signed an open letter calling for urgent action to protect the climate negotiations from undue influence.
Organised by Transparency International, a global movement campaigning to end the injustice of corruption, it called on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Brazilian COP30 leadership to tackle the lobbying influence fossil fuel companies. The COP will be held from 10 – 21 November in Belem, Brazil.
Open Democracy recently reported that more than 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to last year’s COP29 in Azerbaijan – more than the combined delegations of the ten most climate-vulnerable countries. The year before, the state oil firm of the host country, the United Arab Emirates, reportedly used COP 28 to negotiate fossil fuel deals. The lessons are clear-fossil fuel firms and other powerful interests have a growing influence at global climate talks. Nothing less than the credibility of the COP is at stake.
The letter urges the hosts, Brazil, to advance its proposed “global ethical stocktake”, which would bring together a geographically diverse group of thinkers, scientists, politicians, religious leaders, artists, philosophers, and Indigenous peoples and communities, to discuss ethical commitments and practices for dealing with the climate crisis. This should start with an independent audit of the undue influence exerted by fossil fuel interests at previous COPs, in partnership with civil society and frontline communities.
If action is not taken the credibility of climate diplomacy let alone the future of the planet are at serious risk.