Climate summits have been held for 29 years, but only in the last two, thanks to sustained pressure from civil society, have conference attendees been required to declare who they represent. New registration rules have exposed many lobbyists who may have attended previous meetings incognito and have sabotaged the efforts of the international climate community for years.
This year’s conference is attended by 1,773 lobbyists for fossil fuel companies, most often delegated as business representatives. Their number is greater than the combined number of delegations from the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change. This is why the global South, UN representatives and civil society have issued a declaration calling for reforms in the selection of the presidency and participation in the conference.
The UN’s highest-level climate conferences – the so-called COP (Conference of Parties) – have been held for 29 years. Apparently without result, if we judge by the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere recorded since the 1950s, which have been convincingly and rapidly increasing every year. They are followed by temperatures – of the air, of the soil, of the sea water, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more devastating.
For too many years, the oil industries have accumulated capital and controlled a large part of the media, established technologies and a way of life invariably linked to oil, dirty air and plastic, from which it is difficult and almost impossible for the average person to escape.
It turns out that the defenders of oil are present not just anywhere, but in the very heart of the greens – namely at the climate conferences that are supposed to save the world from the looming climate catastrophe.
This story was produced as part of the 2024 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews' Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security. It was first published in Bulgarian in Climateka on November 22, 2024. It has been translated to English and lightly edited for length and clarity.
Banner image: The Azerbaijan sign at COP29 / Credit: Climateka.
Zornitsa Spasova
