A coalition of climate alarmism activists published a letter to the United Nations on Friday calling for a “fundamental overhaul” of the Conference of Parties (COP) environmental conferences, protesting that they have become platforms for fossil fuel interests to mingle and countries to continue polluting without consequence.
The letter, published by the Club of Rome advocacy group, arrived during the first week of COP29, the 29th iteration of the U.N.’s official climate alarmism summit. This year’s event is being hosted by the government of Azerbaijan, one of the world’s most prolific producers of natural gas. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev used his address to the summit to declare fossil fuels a “gift from God” and defend their continued use, outraging green activists.
COP29 is reportedly hosting thousands of lobbyists representing fossil fuel corporations – more of them than the delegations of many invited countries – and few expect the summit to yield any tangible action on the alleged climate crisis. The event follows 2023’s COP28, hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and organized by the president of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
The left-wing nonprofit Global Witness lamented on Friday that the COP events had been “co-opted” by the supposed bad actors the event is meant to contain.
“The COP climate talks are essential to fighting the climate crisis – they should be a space for cooperation to agree the collective action we need to build a safer and more stable world,” Dominic Kavakeb, co-director of campaigns at Global Witness, said in a statement. “It’s for exactly this reason that they cannot continue to be co-opted by the fossil fuel industry – whether that’s via sponsorship, links to the COP organising teams, or by the presence of their lobbyists at the talks.”
Kavakeb was responding to the Club of Rome letter which, using less combative terms, subtly condemned Azerbaijan as a host and called for the end of the COP events in their current form.
The COPs, the signatories of the Club of Rome letter wrote, “Simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity,” in their current form. “This is what compels our call for a fundamental overhaul of the COP.”
The letter outlines a series of reforms that environmentalist leaders would like to see to make the United Nations event more aggressive in fighting the alleged climate crisis, placing at the top of the list the urgency of choosing better host countries. Without naming Azerbaijan or the UAE, the letter suggested, “We need strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy. Host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
The Paris Agreement is a global pact organized by the United Nations to address greenhouse gas emissions. It allows non-Western countries, such as world’s worst polluters China and India, to increase emissions over the decade following its implementation, while demanding strict reductions in fossil fuel use from the United States. America abandoned the Paris Agreement during the first term of President-elect Donald Trump but returned to it under outgoing President Joe Biden.
The letter signatories also complained about the large number of lobbyists attending the COPs in recent years.
“Despite the climate COP’s new disclosure rules, a record number of 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access at COP28, nearly four times more than COP27,” the letter noted. “The fact that there were far more fossil fuel lobbyists than official representatives from scientific institutions, Indigenous communities and vulnerable nations reflects a systemic imbalance in COP representation.”
Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), an environmentalist group, documented the presence of nearly 1,800 fossil fuel lobbyists at COP29. The lobbyists are among more than 50,000 people flying into Baku for the event, creating a formidable carbon footprint.
“As with last year’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai, significantly more fossil lobbyists have been granted access to COP29 than almost every country delegation,” Global Witness, citing the KBPO report, revealed on Friday, “the 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists registered in Baku are only outnumbered by delegations sent by host Azerbaijan (2,229), COP30 host Brazil (1,914), and Türkiye [Turkey] (1,862).”
“We are continually dictated by the fossil fuel industry, which has destroyed people’s homes and livelihoods,” Beyrra Triasdian, representing the environmental group Trend Asia Big Polluters, lamented. “COP has been held 29 times, and climate change continues to get worse, while fossil fuel lobbyists flee their responsibility and use false solutions to prolong the fossil fuel era.”
While complaints about lobbyists have been effusive, environmentalists have remained quiet on the debut appearance of the Taliban jihadist organization at COP29, which seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 and is actively seeking global “climate financing” to secure its stranglehold in power.
Rather than an annual summit, the signatories of the Club of Rome letter suggested breaking up the COP “into smaller, more frequent, solution-driven meetings where countries report on progress, are held accountable in line with the latest science, and discuss important solutions for finance, technology and equity.”
They also demanded more “mechanisms to hold countries accountable for their climate targets and commitments,” among them “enhanced reporting and benchmarking, rigorous peer-review processes, independent scientific oversight and transparent tracking of pledges and action.”
The Club of Rome is a decades-old nonprofit that has for years advocated against economic development on the grounds of it conflicting with environmentalist goals. It describes itself as “a platform of diverse thought leaders who identify holistic solutions to complex global issues and promote policy initiatives and action to enable humanity to emerge from multiple planetary emergencies.”
The signatories included several individuals not directly associated with the Club of Rome, most prominently former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Reuters lamented on Friday that the first day of COP29 was a chaotic one in which “delegates struggled for hours on the opening day to agree an agenda.” The election of Donald Trump to a second term at the helm of the American government has also “soured” the conference, the news agency observed.
Aliyev, the Azeri president, also alarmed environmentalists with his address on Tuesday.
“Oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper – all are natural resources, and countries should not be blamed for having them, and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market, because the market needs them,” he proclaimed. “Quote me that I said that this is a gift of God, and I want to repeat it today here at this audience.”
