As Bonn negotiations came to an end, a letter sent to the Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans by 16 MEPs brought the issue of undue influence from polluting corporations in UNFCC processes back in the spotlight.
During the two weeks in Bonn, developing nations argued that the climate change they are experiencing has been caused by historic carbon emissions that originated in richer countries. They say that Europe and the US have a responsibility now to pay for these losses and damages.
The US and Europe don’t agree. They fear that if they pay for historic emissions it could put their countries on the hook for billions of dollars for decades or even centuries to come.
But despite two weeks of discussions here in Bonn, they have been unable to get the issue of a funding facility on the agenda for the COP27 conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in November.
It is in this context that 16 MEPs wrote a letter to Vice President Timmermans asking to protect climate policy-making from conflicts of interests with polluting corporations. They ask:
- For the EU to support and urge parties to the UNFCC to formally recognise the conflicts of interests that are inherently introduces when private actors representing polluting interests are introduced to climate policymaking.
- For the EU and the UFCC to recognise the established best practices already enshrined in other comparable UN institutions such as the World Health Organisation on Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – and urgently seek to address this lack of best practice within the UNFCC regime.
- To do this, a framework for managing the risk for conflicts of interests when engaging with non state actors should be developed, drawing on best practices and an available foundation of evidence to manage these risks
They also call on the European Commission to lead by example by taking measures to protect its own climate policy-making processes from the undue influence of vested interests, in particular the fossil fuel industry.
Rachel Rose Jackson from Corporate Accountability said:
“There’s a huge disconnect between the vision for EU climate leadership laid out in this letter and the obstructive role the EU played at the Bonn climate talks. Instead of protecting climate policy from Big Polluter influence, the EU advanced polluting interests over the people. Instead of honoring its climate debt by establishing a fund to support Global South communities enduring the worst impacts of the climate crisis, it reneged on its commitments and blocked any such fund. And instead of working to advance real solutions that will actually get us to Real Zero, it continued to charge forth with a too-little-too-late “net zero” agenda that is a get out of jail free card for polluters. The EU’s version of “climate leadership” is way off the mark.”