Phase-out or get out!
11 June 2015
The final days of Bonn have seen hundreds of thousands of people issue a resounding call to Parties to protect climate policymaking from the undue influence of the globe’s biggest polluters. ECO, too, wants it heard loud and clear: kick big polluters out of climate policy.
A broad coalition of individuals and NGOs delivered a petition with approximately 250,000 signatures to Parties through the Secretariat yesterday. ECO hopes that this call will be heard, and it will run interference with the fossil fuel industry’s aggressive lobbying at the national level, and bankrolling international meetings, including the climate COPs. The very industry driving the problem cannot be trusted to help find the solution.
Parties also need to protect COP21 from dirty energy sponsorship. As you might remember, industry co-option of treaty meetings is a growing problem. We were all there in Warsaw for COP19, where corporations with a direct conflict of interest in the treaty’s success sponsored the talks. This cannot happen in Paris when so much is at stake. Corporations such as EDF and Engie, with ties to coal and fracking, are now listed as lead sponsors, despite contributing close to 50% of France’s emissions. If this process wants to be credible, it needs to reject dirty energy sponsorship.
ECO acknowledges that this is a Party-driven process, which is why it is asking Parties to heed the call from people around the world to protect climate policymaking and the UNFCCC process from powerful corporate interests. The world is watching.