Army of 5,000+ Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Has 'Stranglehold on Climate Action' at COP30: Report

Big polluters led by the fossil fuel industry—which knowingly caused the climate crisis—are expanding their outsize presence and influence at the key event meant to tackle the planetary emergency, a report published ahead of this month's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil revealed.

The report, published Friday by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition, notes that "over 5,350 fossil fuel lobbyists have attended UN climate negotiations in just four years, with 90 of the corporations they represent responsible for nearly 60% of all global oil and gas production."

The analysis sounds the alarm on the "staggering scale of fossil fuel industry presence at the very negotiations that must urgently phase out their products" in order to meet the goal of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C as promised in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.

The world is failing to deliver upon that promise, and according to the report, "the primary reason for this failure is no secret—big polluters continue to be granted outsized presence, access, and influence at the very negotiations meant to address the crisis they knowingly caused."

"COP30 is set to proceed with effectively zero protections against interference in place."

"Among the world's largest fossil fuel corporations, Shell sent a total of 37 lobbyists to COP26-COP29, BP sent 36, ExxonMobil sent 32, and Chevron sent 20," according to KBPO. "These figures do not account for additional lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry's associated trade groups."

"As a result, they maintain a carefully orchestrated stranglehold on climate action, which consequently continues to fall way short of the strong and just global response we know we urgently need," the report states.

KBPO warned: "Despite the scale of fossil fuel industry presence revealed by this data, COP30 is set to proceed with effectively zero protections against interference in place. Ahead of COP30 happening in Belém from November 10-21, more than 225 organizations and networks around the world wrote to the COP30 presidency asking them to commit to a polluter-free COP by ensuring no fossil fuel ties or sponsorship and by advancing an Accountability Framework that protects the integrity and legitimacy of the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change].

"In response," the report's authors lamented, "little to no meaningful action has been taken to protect these talks from the fossil fuel industry and other big polluters."

KBPO partner Fiona Hauke of Urgewald, an environmental and human rights advocacy group based in Germany, said in a statement Friday that “over the last three years, oil and gas companies that lobbied at COP have spent more than $35 billion each year looking for new oil and gas fields, exacerbating the problem the nations of the world had gathered to solve."

“These companies have defended their fossil interests by watering down climate action for years," Hauke added. "As we head towards COP30, we demand transparency and accountability: Keep polluters out of climate talks and make them pay for a just energy transition.”

Nerisha Baldevu, a KBPO member from groundWork/Friends of the Earth South Africa, asserted: "Corporate power is at the root of the climate crisis. Fossil, mining, and agribusiness giants are seizing our global institutions and turning climate negotiations into trade expos for polluters."

"For climate justice, we must dismantle the corporate architecture of impunity and kick these big polluters out of policymaking," Baldevu stressed. "Our future cannot be written by those who profit from its destruction."