More than 100 corporations and industry groups linked to fossil fuel interests have sent delegations to the UN climate talks in Turkey, according to an analysis.
The Cop31 climate summit in Antalya is thought to be the largest ever in the three decades of the annual gatherings, with more than 92,000 delegates registered to attend talks aimed at shifting the world away from the fossil fuels that are dangerously overheating our planet.
This swell of people includes numerous groups that support or are influenced by coal, oil and gas interests, the review has found. In total, 103 groups with a track record of obstructing climate action or furthering fossil fuel interests are at Cop31, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, which comprises about 450 environmental organisations.
The groups include 60 fossil fuel industry bodies, 16 financial companies that fund fossil fuels, six industrial agriculture and foods products groups, three big tech groups and 20 cross-sector organisations.
Among the largest delegations are the International Emissions Trading Association, which has 29 people at Cop and has been accused of helping provide legitimacy to fossil fuel companies, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Amazon. The oil firm Exxon has a delegation of 13 people in Antalya, TotalEnergies has five and BlackRock, another big financier of fossil fuel projects, has five.
These delegations outnumber the national delegations sent by some of the countries most vulnerable to climate impacts. Nepal, which suffered a devastating, deadly glacier collapse this summer that has been linked to global heating, has just a sixth of the number of delegates of these groups.
Prakash Dahal from Pro Public/Friends of the Earth Nepal said: “Big polluters have caused loss of livelihood, emotional damage, trauma and survival challenges for our people.
“We cannot tolerate the disproportionate space given to them compared to civil society and our country delegations.”
Large numbers of fossil fuel lobbyists have long been a feature of the UN climate talks, with one in every 25 participants at last year’s summit in Brazil a fossil fuel lobbyist. Environmental advocates have called for better transparency and conflict of interest disclosures for those attending, and influencing, the climate talks.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a US senator and prominent climate advocate who is at Cop31, said: “The ticket to entry to this badge should be a disclosure form in which you lay out exactly who you funded in the climate space with how much, when.
“I think it’s important to know who the infiltrators are, who the moles are in the climate conversation and who are the legitimate participants. If people want to come they’ve got to come clean about their bad behaviour and they can’t hide it out in the real world and then come here and act like they’re responsible.”
TotalEnergies directed the Guardian to a statement on their website which says: “TotalEnergies aims to be a major player in the energy transition. Since 2020, TotalEnergies has been firmly committed to its transition strategy and TotalEnergies is currently the integrated energy major investing the most in the energy transition.” That is why the company attends Cop Conferences. “TotalEnergies is well on track to achieve its ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, particularly regarding methane emissions. In this respect, TotalEnergies can and wishes to help drive progress across the industry.”
Unlike previous years when the Kick Big Polluters Out group counted the overall number of fossil fuel-aligned delegates, this time the organisation highlighted the companies and associations it says have slowed or blocked action on the climate crisis.
Large banks, for example, continue to provide major financial support for coal, oil and gas projects, and 30 banks with delegations at Cop31 account for more than $2.2tn (£1.6tn) in fossil fuel financing over the past five years. Among the largest banks at the summit are JPMorganChase, Citigroup, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Bank of America and Barclays, all of which provide many billions of dollars in funding for fossil fuels.
Kathy Mulvey, a campaigner at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said: “Unfortunately, big oil, other polluters, their front groups and enablers running amok at the international climate negotiations has been the rule rather than the exception.
“The outsize presence of these corrupt influencers is all the more egregious in a year of record-breaking heat and devastating floods.”
The designations of those at Cop can be somewhat opaque. Nearly one in five participants at the Antalya talks chose not to disclose their relationship to the delegation they were attending with, according to Transparency International. Notably, BlackRock is in France’s delegation this year, while Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon, is with the US Chambers of Commerce.
While many at Cop31 have had complicated journeys to the Antalya venue, taking budget flights from developing countries and cramming on to trams and buses, others have arrived more luxuriously.
There have been 94 private jet flights to Antalya since Saturday, 23 times more than average, according to Oxfam. Many of them have carried some of the world’s wealthiest people, with 18 registered attenders considered billionaires by Forbes.
This group, with a combined wealth of nearly $200bn, includes business leaders who advocate for climate action such as Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Forrest. But it also includes the Turkish mining magnate Ahmet Çalık and the Indian fossil fuel executive Pranav Adani.
According to UNFCCC rules national governments have sole authority to decide who is in their delegations, including who receives Party Overflow badges.
IETA, and Exxon were contacted for comment.
