With Ever More Powerful Corporate Lobby, How Can We Hope for any Results from Paris?

"Two weeks to save the World in Paris."

"Paris is the moment of truth for our climate."

In the coming months leading up to the UN climate negotiations in Paris, you're likely to hear a lot more statements like these. But the negotiations are now so dominated by corporate interests that they are very unlikely to conclude in a deal that offers any solution for people or the climate.

Today, it emerged that BP and other big energy companies heavily lobbied the EU before the launch of new clean energy targets to favour gas (including shale gas). In a similar story, George Monbiot argues that the coal lobby is now so powerful that the government is scrapping air pollution regulations, risking tens of thousands of lives to make it easier for coal companies to make money.

The UN's Conference of Parties (COP) climate conference has been ongoing for over twenty years. It brings government representatives together to agree on a deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop climate change. But right from the very beginning, corporations have used every opportunity to steadily increase their presence and influence over the negotiations. These two examples from today aren't directly linked to the climate talks, but they do illustrate how corporations use their political influence to undermine effective climate action.

You rarely hear companies still denying climate change or see them openly supporting climate change-denying groups. Rather, some of the most polluting corporations in the world are now using the process to brand themselves as the solution to the very problem they've been creating in the first place. One example is BP lobbying for more natural gas instead of renewable energy. If you go to the negotiations in Paris this December, you will find that parts of the center of the city will be taken over by coal companies advocating "clean coal" as the solution to climate change.

We have reached a point where corporate lobbying is expected by everyone and, to a large extent, doesn't even have to be done behind closed doors anymore. Big climate-destroying businesses, such as energy companies and car manufacturers, officially sponsor the UN negotiations in Paris.

The problem is that our governments seem to be listening much more to big business concerns than to scientists warning against climate change. Fracking, despite its very dubious climate credentials, is being pushed harder than ever by politicians and carbon capture and storage, the flagship technology of "clean coal", is expected to receive big lumps of public money even though energy corporations themselves have admitted the technology isn't a feasible solution. The truth is that there is no such thing as "clean coal", just an awful lot of corporate lobby money.

We can no longer trust the corporate-controlled negotiations. Instead, we must grow the movement for democratic and sustainable energy. Global Justice Now will attend the negotiations in Paris this December, not with any hope for the UN process but with the hope that we can be part of an ever-growing grassroots movement to take back control of our energy and stop climate change. Get in touch if you would like to join us in Paris.