Keep fossil fuel lobbyists out of UN climate negotiations

At the United Nations climate talks, those invested in prolonging the fossil fuel era still help design its end.

- SOUMYA SARKAR

CoP-28 in Dubai had more than 2,400 accredited delegates linked to oil, gas and coal interests, a number that exceeded the size of almost every national delegation. Their presence raised a question central to the credibility of global climate governance: Can the architects of the carbon economy also draft the blueprint for its phaseout?

Today, six of nine planetary boundaries have been transgressed. The climate system faces a breakdown. Yet, at CoP-29 in Baku in 2024, 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists gained access to negotiations, outnumbering delegations from the world’s 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined. Nearly 70% attended as part of state delegations. Some were registered as state negotiators, shaping policy.

Global governance has faced this dilemma before. When tobacco threatened public health, governments drew a red line. Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005 established that the industry had a ‘“fundamental and irreconcilable conflict” with health policy. It required governments to protect policy from industry interference, removing tobacco lobbyists from negotiation spaces. That firewall restored credibility to public health governance.