Report from Eco Watch
By Andy Rowell of Oil Change International
Corporate Accountability International (CAI) released a report exposing the “filthy” track record of some of the corporations sponsoring the Paris climate change summit COP21 on ther just a week before the talks.
The report, Fueling the Fire: The corporate sponsors bankrolling COP21, uncovers “the green veil of four of the meeting’s dirtiest sponsors,” including fossil fuel conglomerates Engie (formerly GDF Suez), Suez Environment, BNP Paribas and French utility Électricité de France (EDF).
The organisation argues that there is an inherent conflict of interest between the stated aims of the UN climate process and many of COP21’s corporate sponsors given their roles as global carbon polluters.
Together, these four corporate sponsors represent direct ownership of and/or investments in more than 46 coal-fired power plants, exploration of tar sands in Canada, fracking in the UK and India and more than 200 megatons of CO2-equivalent emissions.
CAI argues that “by detailing the corporations’ abuses to the environment and aggressive lobbying to undermine environmental policy, the report lays bare the conflict of interest inherent in allowing such sponsorship to exist.”
“Inviting some of the world’s biggest polluters to pay for the COP is akin to hiring a fox to guard a hen house. We must eliminate this conflict of interest before the COP become corporate trade shows for false market-based solutions,” CAI executive director Patti Lynn said.
The report details how the four sponsors have long track records of “policy interference that contradict the green public relations” they advance. While energy giant EDF claims to be “committed to a decarbonised world,” it is an active member—alongside ExxonMobil and Shell—of the European business lobby group, BusinessEurope.
Opposition history
Indeed, BusinessEurope has a long history of being opposed to climate action. In 2010, it came second in the EU’s Worst Lobby Awards. It was nominated “for its aggressive lobbying to block effective climate action in the EU while claiming to support action to protect the climate.” On behalf of its members, BusinessEurope openly opposes the “market deployment of energy produced from renewable sources.”
The report also outlines the greenwashing covering pollution. CAI reveals that Engie “is a polluter with few rivals,” responsible for more than 131 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This is the equivalent to pollution emitted from driving around the globe 12 million times.
“Despite recent announcements to stop new coal projects, Engie still owns 30 dirty coal power plants worldwide,” argues Célia Gautier, policy adviser at Climate Action Network France.
“The French state is directly responsible for Engie’s greenwashing activities as it owns 33 percent of its shares and accepted to put them in their list of COP21 sponsors.”
BNP Paribas is one of the largest coal financiers in France. Between 2005 and 2014 the corporation provided half of the total financial support (€15.5 billion) from French banks to the coal industry.
The momentum was growing to have large polluting companies excluded from the talks. In May, more than 60 organisations launched a global campaign to kick big polluters out of climate policy.
Using the UN legal precedent, Article 5.3 of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, they say the same should happen with Big Oil and COP21.
