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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">COP27 Looked More Like a Fossil Fuel Industry Trade Show Than a Climate Summit</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Simon Pirani - November 18, 2022<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_lar1azfi0" alt="image.png" width="435" height="290"><br><p>The international climate talks in Egypt — the 27th Conference of
Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP27 —
have become a dystopian nightmare: Oil companies, dictators and
greenwashers captured the process more effectively than ever. </p>
<p>But there is hope: Alliances are taking shape — between civil
society, scientists and labor — that aim to break the fossil fuel
companies’ deathly grip on climate policy.</p>
<h2>Corporate Capture </h2>
<p>This year’s United Nations climate summit, which ends on November 17 at the luxury Sharm el-Sheikh resort, is <span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a29c1204-70cf-46c1-b266-780788bfa048">the first</a></span>
to which oil and gas companies were invited to participate in the
official program of events. Rachel Rose Jackson of Corporate
Accountability <span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63571610">commented</a></span> that “COP27 looks like a fossil fuel industry trade show.” </p>
<p><span><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/636-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-swarm-climate-talks-up-25-from-last-years-cop26/">At least 636 fossil fuel lobbyists</a></span>
were there, 25 percent more than at last year’s talks in Glasgow. The
lobbyists outnumbered the combined delegations of the 10 countries most
impacted by climate change, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Mozambique, <span><a href="https://corporateeurope.org/en/2022/11/cop27-100-more-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-last-year">research</a></span> by Corporate Europe Observatory, Corporate Accountability and Global Witness showed.</p>
<p>The world’s largest oil producers strutted their stuff. Saudi Arabia ran an <span><a href="https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/government-news/program-and-speakers-revealed-for-the-saudi-green-initiative-forum-at-cop27-vf7s80n7">event</a></span>
to promote the “circular carbon economy,” under which carbon capture,
hydrogen, and other fossil fuel-based technologies are falsely <span><a href="https://cms.law/en/are/publication/cms-green-globe/saudi-arabia">promoted</a></span> as “clean.” </p>
<p>Wealth and power were flaunted. Coca-Cola, the world’s <span><a href="https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/brandaudit2021/">top plastic polluter</a></span>, sponsored the talks. Delegates flew in on private jets: Thirty-six <span><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63544995">arrived</a></span> at Sharm el-Sheikh as the summit began, and another 64 flew into Cairo. The Egyptian authorities ignored the international <span><a href="https://copcivicspace.net/ahead-of-cop27-1400-groups-parliamentarians-and-individuals-from-over-80-countries-urge-egypt-to-open-civic-space-and-release-political-prisoners/">campaign</a></span>
to free dissident Alaa Abd El-Fattah — who is serving a five-year jail
sentence for a social media post — and other political prisoners.</p>
<p>Central to the fossil fuel industry’s PR offensive is the new dash
for gas, kick-started by the Russian war on Ukraine and Moscow’s <span><a href="https://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2022/10/17/the-limits-of-western-economic-war-with-russia-and-the-failure-of-climate-policy/">decision</a></span>
to limit gas supplies to Europe. For the Gas Exporting Countries Forum,
an alliance of 17 big gas producers including Egypt, COP27 was “a great
<span><a href="https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/11/11/dash-for-gas-takes-off-at-cop-27/">opportunity</a></span> to make a case for gas in the energy transition.”</p>
<p>Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, plans to build 26 new
import terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) have been announced in
Europe; the EU has signed a <span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-israel-egypt-sign-deal-boost-east-med-gas-exports-europe-2022-06-15/">deal</a></span> with Egypt and Israel to support gas extraction in the East Mediterranean Sea; and European politicians have <span><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/europe-is-trying-to-solve-its-energy-crisis-with-fossil-fuel-projects-in-africa/">sought</a></span> gas project deals with African nations.</p>
<p>Once a gas project is decided on, it can take up to 10 years before
production starts. So Europe’s supply gap this year and next will be <span><a href="https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/the-eu-plan-to-reduce-russian-gas-imports-by-two-thirds-by-the-end-of-2022-practical-realities-and-implications/">filled</a></span>,
if at all, by existing producers such as Qatar, the U.S. and Australia,
not by new projects. The danger is that, over the next decade, those
projects will push the world still further from the goal of limiting
global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5°C) above pre-industrial
levels.</p>
<p>The International Energy Agency <span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/radical-change-needed-reach-net-zero-emissions-iea-2021-05-18/">says</a></span>
that, to hit “net zero” targets, there can be no new gas or oil fields,
and that gas demand must be slashed; UN Secretary-General Ant<span>ó</span>nio Guterres <span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/un-chief-says-dash-new-fossil-fuels-is-delusional-2022-06-14/">said</a></span> in June that investing in oil or gas production was “delusional.”</p>
<p>Although natural gas produces only about half the carbon emissions
per unit of energy that coal does, climate science says it must be
phased out. Moreover, leakages of methane (i.e. gas) have been
recognized as a significant climate <span><a href="https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/methanebudget/20/hl-compact.htm">threat</a></span>:
Methane’s greenhouse effect, over a 20-year timespan, is 86 times as
powerful as carbon dioxide’s. And yet in May, the European Commission <span><a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=JOIN%3A2022%3A23%3AFIN&qid=1653033264976">classified</a></span> natural gas as a “sustainable” source of energy under its investment taxonomy rules, and in September the U.K. government <span><a href="https://www.offshore-technology.com/news/uk-launches-new-north-sea-licensing-round-for-oil-and-gas-companie/#:~:text=The%20UK%20launched%20a%2033rd,authorisation%20for%20over%20100%20licenses.">offered</a></span>
new licences for North Sea oil and gas fields. It was these
greenwashing, wealthy country governments that, with oil companies,
turned COP27 into a climate disaster.</p>
<p>At Sharm el-Sheikh, African governments presented gas projects on the
continent as a means of economic development — but they “will not
deliver for African communities,” <span><a href="https://dont-gas-africa.org/cop27-report">warned</a></span>
Don’t Gas Africa, an alliance of civil society groups that advocate
large-scale renewables as opposed to export-focused fossil fuel
production. </p>
<p>Nigerian climate justice campaigner Nnimmo Bassey, coordinator of Oilwatch International, <span><a href="https://www.context.news/net-zero/opinion/the-colonial-exploitation-of-africas-fossil-fuels-must-stop">denounced</a></span>
the African governments’ pro-gas stance as “ecocide and
intergenerational crime” that “perpetuates colonialism and ecological
irresponsibility.”</p>
<h2>Governments’ Inaction and Civil Society Response</h2>
<p>The fossil fuel PR circus at Sharm el-Sheikh has obscured the
frightful crisis at the heart of the talks: that the door is closing on
the possibility of keeping global heating to 1.5°C, as Climate Action
Tracker researchers showed in an authoritative <span><a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/massive-gas-expansion-risks-overtaking-positive-climate-policies/">report</a></span> on climate inaction.</p>
<p>Nations’ current policies will produce global heating of between
2.2°C and 3.4°C by the end of the century, the report showed.
Commitments made at last year’s Glasgow talks to toughen up national
targets (Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs) have been broken;
commitments made to exit from coal have been disrupted; and rich
countries have again broken promises to finance the energy transition in
the Global South.</p>
<p>In Sharm el-Sheikh, talks about implementing already-inadequate
decisions went at snail’s pace. Delegates from outside the rich world
fumed at slow progress on <span><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-things-to-know-about-climate-reparations/">Loss and Damage</a></span>,
the principle that rich countries should pay for the billions of
dollars in damage already done by climate change — for example, by the
floods in Pakistan this summer. Campaigners <span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/08/rich-countries-climate-crisis-cop27-africa-loss-and-damage">urged</a></span> a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies for this purpose. </p>
<p>The fossil fuel companies’ brazen grandstanding, and governments’
acquiescence, has tested the faith of campaign groups, climate
scientists, and others in the prospect of top-down solutions to the
climate crisis.</p>
<p>Swedish activist Greta Thunberg stayed away from Sharm el-Sheikh, <span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/31/greta-thunberg-to-skip-greenwashing-cop27-climate-summit-in-egypt#:~:text=Greta%20Thunberg%20to%20skip%20'greenwashing'%20Cop27%20climate%20summit%20in%20Egypt,-Swedish%20climate%20activist&text=Swedish%20climate%20activist%20Greta%20Thunberg%20has%20said%20she%20will%20skip,a%20forum%20for%20%E2%80%9Cgreenwashing%E2%80">describing</a></span>
the negotiations as “an opportunity for leaders and people in power to
get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing.” Rather than
the COP’s incremental steps, “system-wide transformation” is needed, she
said at a London book launch, infuriating right-wing <span><a href="https://unherd.com/thepost/greta-thunberg-throws-her-lot-in-with-the-anti-capitalist-left/">commentators</a></span> and <span><a href="https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-elites-like-greta-thunberg-hate">techno-utopians</a></span>.</p>
<p>But Thunberg was reflecting deeply felt <span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11112022/cop27-protests-sharm-el-sheikh-egypt/">anger</a></span>
among campaign groups, including those who have for years invested hope
in the COP process. More than 450 organizations supported a <span><a href="https://kickbigpollutersout.org/">call</a></span>
for a UN Accountability Framework to “end corporate capture”; throw
“big polluters” out of the climate talks; require delegates publicly to
disclose their interests; ban partnership or sponsorship of talks by the
polluters; and ease restrictions on civil society access.</p>
<p>As the climate talks have lurched towards greenwashing, protests and
direct actions over governments’ failures are gaining momentum again
after being disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Pascoe Sabido,
researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a movement on the streets [about climate change], but it has
not been translated into political power. The problem is the power of
governments, and their alliance with fossil fuel companies. Until we
break open that relationship, there will not be a transition away from
fossil fuels.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Outside the Talks</h2>
<p>So are the climate talks part of the problem, or part of the
solution? It is not only activists who are asking. The authors of the UN
Environment Programme’s latest “<span><a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022">Emissions Gap Report</a></span><span>”</span>
described their findings as “testimony to inadequate action on the
global climate crisis, and is a call for the rapid transformation of
societies.”</p>
<p>There had been “very little progress” since the 2021 Glasgow talks,
and governments’ current policies are on track to cause 2.8°C rise in
temperature by 2100, the report says. “Multiple major transformations
must be initiated in this decade, simultaneously across all [fossil
fuel-based technological] systems.”</p>
<p>Thirty-plus years of history matters. Prior to the talks in Egypt, climate scientists shared on social media a <span><a href="https://twitter.com/tamara_bozovic/status/1508217770386763779">graph</a></span>
showing the relentless rise in the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content,
from about 360 parts per million (ppm) when the Rio climate treaty was
signed in 1992, to 420 ppm now. The inexorable rise in fossil fuel use
is the main cause.</p>
<p><img src="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Climate_Conferences_1979-2020.jpeg" alt="Graph showing trends in atmospheric CO2 vs Global Temperature Change" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="435" height="435"></p>
<p>The alliance of the world’s most powerful states, who negotiated the
climate agreements, is not only unwilling, but also unable, to do what
is needed. To prevent dangerous global heating, systems must change —
not only technological systems, but economic and social ones. And those
governments’ function is to defend and manage those systems, not
transform them. Society as a whole will have to deal with climate
change, in defiance of those governments.</p>
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