Undue Influence on Climate Policy
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| Campaigns for climate policy and actions |
Prepare by Abraham Sumalinog
Anthropogenic activities fundamentally
cause climate change. Everyone emits greenhouse gases but to varying degrees.
Is everyone responsible for the impacts of climate events we are now
experiencing? Not exactly! There are only a few entities that are more
responsible and accountable for this global rise in temperature. The problem is
that these big polluters don't claim responsibility and don't plan on stopping
their fossil fuel business. Their worst activity is influencing the climate
policies and actions for mitigation at high levels local and international
negotiations.
The Big Polluters and "Net Zero"
Big Polluters are businesses and
corporations or trade associations whose operations are mainly responsible for
the emissions that have caused and continue to drive the climate crisis. However,
these polluters also include other high-emissions and polluting industries,
including industrial food and agribusiness, aviation, logging, retail,
technology, and the groups that advance those industries' agenda.
Big Polluters use "net zero"
climate plans to distract climate negotiations that produce real solutions. The
plan is composed of a variety of risky technologies, including geoengineering
and untested schemes. Such schemes have been tested but produced negative
results, such as continued emissions, human rights, social, equity, corruption,
and environmental issues. The most common dangerous distractions include
burning trees or biomass (dubbed Bioenergy), carbon capture and storage (CCS),
bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (BECCS), carbon markets, direct air
capture (DACT), nature-based solutions (NBS), carbon offsets, and recently
Hydrogen.
What is "net zero"?
The concept of "net zero" is
being misunderstood in political spaces and by individual actors to evade
climate action and avoid accountability. However, the idea is that an entity
can continue to pollute as usual—or even increase its emissions—and seek to
compensate for those emissions. It is a mathematical equation but deeply flawed
in reality. Net Zero schemes are used to hide inaction and foist emissions
reductions. (The Big Con, p.9).
The 'big
polluters' want to make people believe that it is okay to pollute and cut
emissions simultaneously. So they devised vital strategies to keep their
business-as-usual (BAU) activities. Basically, their overall strategies include
the following:
Strategy 1: Big polluters buy off political
goodwill to help secure "net zero" policies.
Strategy 2: The lobbyist influences policy
to lock in a "net zero" agenda.
Strategy 3: The fossil fuel lobbyist shapes
academic research to validate the "net zero" agenda.
The most obvious "net zero"
distraction plans of fossil fuel industries include making "net zero"
commitments that are heavy on public relations (PR) and light on the detail.
Second, they make sure that the timeline to reduce emissions is far off, which
means that the later, the better so they do not actually have to reduce
emissions. Third, they use announcements and publicity to greenwash their
image.[1]
Buying off political goodwill
The lobbying strategy of the industries
pushing "net zero" schemes is strong. It is the same machine that
weakened the Kyoto Protocol. This strategy counts on individual corporate
lobbyists and the most influential trade associations such as the American Petroleum
Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce. These groups are very effective and
influential in that they have not only stopped real climate solutions from
taking hold but also they advanced policies that increase their profits.
(p.24). one such example is a policy that undermines real solutions and
increases polluters' profits is a tax credit in the United States called the
45Q tax credit. It is believed that the largest credit went to Exxon, which
could be positioned to claim up to US$70 million a year through this credit per
CCS plant. Despite the tax credit's proven misuse, a policy proposal was tagged
onto the Consolidated Appropriation Act 2021. The policy paved the way for
climate inaction under the guise of "net zero" and removed policies
on real climate solutions.
Lobbyists influencing policy to lock in "net
zero" agenda
The UNFCCC is the leading international
space for global collaboration on climate policy. Unfortunately, the Big
Polluters have undermined equitable and strong policy proposals from climate
justice activists. They can influence and undermine climate policy by engaging
with policymakers and accessing decision-making processes through sponsorship
of negotiations and high-profile events, lobbying in corridors through their
industry groups, or even negotiating on behalf of government delegations.
Besides, they also lobby at the national level to advance their interests. They
use "corporate capture" to undermine political will which can weaken a
strong and equitable global response to climate change. Due to their 'puppeteering,'
the Paris Agreement is much weaker than it needs to be. Among other PA
policies, it is voluntary rather than binding and does not require specific
emissions cuts or any mention of fossil fuels (The Big Con, p.25). The push to
influence the UNFCCC decisions is led by the International Emissions Trading
Association (IETA), founded and still run by BP, Shell, and Chevron. IETA is
funded by over 170 corporations, banks, and firms. IETA brought 402 people to
talks (governments have only 15) that officialized carbon markets at COP11 in
Montreal and influenced policy outcomes at other COP meetings.
Shaping academic research to validate "net
zero."
Some famous and top-notch academic
institutions have intimate ties to some of the Big Polluters in the world.
These institutions, such as Princeton University, Stanford University, Imperial
College London, and even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are
receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for climate or "net
zero" related research. For example, Exxon is committed to reaching
"net zero" and has a formal relationship with over 80 academic
institutions globally; Cargill has over 63 relationships, and Chevron and
Amazon have each of the 10 such relationships. Other polluting corporations
have such kinds of relationships as well. Notably, Exxon funded (US$100 million)
Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project (GCFP) and produced research on
Carbon Capture and Storage. The corporate sponsors are allowed to formally
review research projects, including articles before they are completed. They
are also allowed to be part of the project development team as affiliates.
Big Polluters' Delegations to the UNFCCC's
COP events
The UNFCCC's Paris Agreement came into
force in November 2016 and was ratified by 143 governments as of April 2017. It
is a critical step in the global initiative to mitigate climate change. But,
unfortunately, there is an alarmingly high chance that there will be as little
progress on the Paris Agreement as has been made on the past agreements that
preceded it: Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Cancun. This is because corporations have played
a fundamental role in creating the current climate crisis, and they continue to
interfere and access a seat at the climate negotiation table. To date,
corporations, businesses, and industry non-governmental organizations (BINGOs)
are allowed to continue lobbying, and they weaken international efforts to slow
climate change, stifling policymaking and financing efforts.
Hundreds of BINGOs have links with the
fossil fuel industry and have been granted access to the UNFCCC negotiations.
Under the present UNGCCC policies, industry delegates aggressively promote
coal-centered agenda in the rooms where government delegates discuss policy
options to avert climate impacts. It does not mean that the fossil industry has
no role to play in slowing temperature rise. However, they must transform their
business practices to align with the relevant commitments of the global
community to prevent the climate from getting worse. Due to such reasons,
UNFCCC delegates representing almost 70 percent of the world's population took
a stand. They demanded that the UNFCCC must review its policies to identify
non-Parties undermining negotiations. However, the delegates' demands were
resisted by Parties who seemed more concerned with representing the interest of
the fossil fuel industry than the interests of the people facing the impacts of
climate change. The delegates who argued against addressing conflicts of
interest were from the wealthiest regions where fossil fuel industries are
based, including the United States, Australia, the EU, and Brazil.
The delegates of fossil fuel industries and
groups linked to the fossil fuel industry have been admitted to past COP
meetings, including the US Chamber of Commerce, The National Mining
Association, Business Roundtable, FuelsEurope, The Business Council of Australia,
and The International Chamber of Commerce.[2]
They are all granted UNFCCC observer status
despite their opposition to the Paris Agreement. To the big polluters out from
climate negotiations, conflict of interests must be appropriately defined to fit
UNFCCC's climate purposes. The definitions should then be implemented as a
policy that could prevent interference from fossil fuel industries promoting
their interests and selfish needs.
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