A powerful contingent of lobbyists linked to the fossil fuel industry has descended upon the United Nations climate talks being held in the Brazilian Amazon, raising alarm among environmental groups. A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) revealed on Friday that their significant presence threatens to undermine the global effort to combat climate change.
Unprecedented Industry Presence
The coalition, known as Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), conducted an analysis of the official attendee list for the COP30 conference in Belem. Their investigation found that 1,602 delegates with direct ties to the oil, gas, and coal sectors have made the journey. This staggering figure means that approximately one in every 25 participants at the crucial climate summit represents fossil fuel interests.
To put this number into perspective, the host nation, Brazil, has sent a delegation of 3,805 officials. The list of industry-linked attendees includes representatives from multinational energy giants like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and TotalEnergies. It also encompasses personnel from state-owned oil firms from Africa, Brazil, China, and the Gulf region.
Defining a Fossil Fuel Lobbyist
The KBPO coalition employs a broad definition for identifying a fossil fuel lobbyist. They consider any delegate who represents an organization with the objective of influencing climate policy or legislation to benefit the oil, gas, or coal industry. Patrick Galey, head of fossil fuel investigations at Global Witness, explained to AFP that their analysis relies on data and open-source material to uncover these links.
This methodology means that even renewable energy companies that are subsidiaries of fossil fuel parent groups are included on the list. Galey stated that such companies are considered to be "at the beck and call" of their owners. This explains the inclusion of names like the Danish wind energy giant Orsted, which maintains a gas trading business, and the French energy firm EDF, which, despite its nuclear focus, still uses some fossil fuels.
Confrontation and Defence
The issue came to a head when a Greenpeace activist confronted TotalEnergies' Chief Executive, Patrick Pouyanne, about the attendance of fossil fuel lobbyists. Pouyanne vehemently defended his presence, insisting, "I am not a lobbyist at all... You are very wrong."
He argued that he was invited and believes in dialogue, questioning the logic of exclusion. "I don't think we will make progress on climate through exclusion because otherwise what will happen? We will stay in our corner, we'll make our oil and that's it?" he said.
A Growing Trend at Climate Summits
KBPO has been tracking the presence of fossil fuel interests at COPs since 2021. While the COP28 conference in Dubai in 2023 set a record with 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, the proportion in Belem is even higher. At COP30, 3.8 percent of all attendees are tied to fossil fuels, the largest share ever documented by the group.
Jax Bonbon from KBPO member IBON International in the Philippines, a country recently struck by a devastating typhoon, issued a stark warning. "It's common sense that you cannot solve a problem by giving power to those who caused it," Bonbon said. "Yet three decades and 30 COPs later, more than 1,500 fossil fuel lobbyists are roaming the climate talks as if they belong here."
Furthermore, the true number of industry representatives could be significantly higher. Transparency International reported that 54 percent of participants in national delegations either withheld their affiliation or selected a vague category like "guest" or "other," making a complete accounting difficult.
