Boston, MA – Today, just two weeks before the Bonn Climate Change Negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a coalition of environmental and corporate accountability organizations announce a turning point in the climate change movement: a campaign to protect climate policymaking from interference by the globe’s biggest polluters.
The campaign, launched with an online petition to the Parties to the UNFCCC in the lead up to meetings in Bonn, Germany, comes as country delegates prepare for the next Conference of the Parties in Paris – largely regarded as a make-or-break moment for the agreement. Signed by more than 15 organizations, the petition calls for Parties to protect the talks and climate policymaking from the influence of big polluters.
“If our governments actually intend to crack down on carbon emissions and make polluters pay, then they will first need to declare independence from the fossil fuel industry. The energy giants are motivated by one thing: profits. As long as those profits mean the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, they will never be part of the solution,” said Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything.
From aggressive lobbying at the national level to financial sponsorship of international meetings, the industry interferes at all levels. Industry co-optation of treaty meetings has been a growing problem and a primary obstacle to progress. At the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Warsaw, corporate entities with a direct conflict of interest in the treaty’s success not only sponsored the talks, they were given preferential access to delegates.
In April, it was revealed that COP 21 in Paris may be yet another “Corporate COP” with the announcement of Louis Vuitton and Suez Environnement as lead sponsors. Suez Environnement, infamous for its dealings in water privatization, is partially owned by GDF Suez, which profits from fracking and coal mining operations around the world, putting it at direct odds with the advancement of the treaty.
“We know this works and we know how to get it done,” said John Stewart, deputy campaigns director at Corporate Accountability International. “Big polluters are not partners in the solution, these industries are the drivers of the problem. Allowing big oil, gas and coal a seat at the table is worse than letting the fox guard the hen house – it’s letting the fox right in.”
Corporate Accountability International will deliver the petitions to delegates at the June intersessional meetings and call for immediate action. Ten years ago, the group secured a powerful international legal precedent when it led the charge to successfully kick the tobacco industry out of treaty talks at the World Health Organization negotiations of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
The success of the FCTC has enabled meaningful public health regulation that is unencumbered by industry profit motives and protects 90 percent of the world’s population from one of the most deadly industries on the planet.
To view the petition, go to www.KickBigPollutersOut.com.
Full list of organizations officially participating in the joint action:
- Amazon Watch
- Chesapeake Climate Action Network
- Corporate Accountability International
- CREDO Action
- Daily Kos
- Environmental Action
- Food & Water Watch
- Forecast the Facts
- Greenpeace USA
- League of Conservation Voters
- Oil Change International
- People for the American Way
- Rainforest Action Network
- RH Reality Check
- SumOfUs
- The Natural History Museum
