Goal Two: Ending Fossil Fuel Obstruction

For as long as countries have been working to tackle the climate crisis, the fossil fuel industry has been working to stop them. Literally. 

As Jeremy Legget details in his 2000 account, “The Carbon War: Global Warming at the End of the Oil Era,” back in 1992, countries were meeting at the UN in New York to continue hammering out the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (mercifully shortened to UNFCCC), the world’s first climate treaty. 

As part of the process, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the world’s top climate science body – was due to brief government leaders on the latest science on climate change. 

Only, one day before a little-known and rather benign-sounding group known as the Global Climate Coalition decided to put on a presentation of its own for the press. The star of the show was a scientist and professor from the University of Virginia named Fred Singer. 

As Singer laid out for journalists, despite what the IPCC would say, there was no significant evidence for global warming. What’s more, as briefings the coalition sent out to government leaders detailed, the kind of action countries were considering would have little environmental benefit.  

There was just one catch. As Legget reports, the coalition turned out to be a front group for the fossil fuel industry, with members including Amoco, Texaco, Dow Hydrocarbons, BP, and Shell. As for Singer, in the years to come, he would become increasingly isolated and unrepresentative as nearly 99% of climate scientists came to recognize the clear connection between human activity and rising temperatures. 

At the time, however, with a PhD scientist from a leading US university and a name like the Global Climate Coalition, the claims came with the veneer of authority. At least enough to confuse any non-experts out there – and give any countries reluctant to reign in fossil fuel emissions all the cover they needed. And that was exactly the point. 

From the Outside Game to Inside Players 

More than three decades on, the discussion has evolved. Increasingly regular climate-fueled disasters from lethal heatwaves baking India and Pakistan to the unholy devastation unleashed by Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean have made open climate denial increasingly difficult outside beyond certain corporate and national executives. 

But if circumstances have changed, the industry’s fundamental goal of stopping the transition away from coal, oil, and gas hasn’t. Only now it no longer has to stand outside global climate talks. 

In a line that felt ripped from dystopian fiction, in 2023, negotiators headed to the United Arab Emirates, a major oil and gas producer, for the UN’s COP 28 climate summit. Making the unlikely juxtaposition (or straight conflict of interest), the man selected to lead talks as COP 28 president also happened to lead . . . UAE’s national oil company, ADNOC. 

With this kind of resume, few were surprised when news leaked that the UAE COP presidency had used official COP preparatory meetings to make oil and gas deals. Nor were many surprised that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had an official pavilion at the summit touting the role of oil and gas in the energy transition. Or when Exxon CEO Darren Woods was arguing COP should focus merely on limiting emissions – not the fossil fuels that produce them. 

But then something surprising did happen. Maybe it was hearing an oil CEO imagining the day of loading the last barrel of oil as a “moment of celebration” while his company plans to load many, many more barrels. Maybe it was the conference coming at the tail end of a year of historic climate disasters. But whatever the reason, for a brief moment, negotiators began whispering about the possibility of a commitment to phase out fossil fuels in the COP 28 final decision. 

For OPEC, this was unthinkable. In the waning days of the conference, the organization sprang into action, sending a statement to member nations.   

"It seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences, as the draft decision still contains options on fossil fuels phase out," the letter said, urging members to "proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions." 

In the end, it worked. The words “phase out” never appeared in the final decision. Instead, nations agreed to a decision with language about “transitioning away” from fossil fuels – but with loopholes big enough to sail an oil tanker through. And the decision text ink was hardly dry before the Saudi energy minister was in the press downplaying any notion of a transition. 

Holding Back Progress 

The episode was yet another example of how –over 30 years after the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty, after 29 COPs, and amidst ever-increasing climate impacts and lives lost – the industry is still doing whatever it can to hold back progress. And that’s just what we can see out in public. It’s nearly impossible to know everything the industry is quietly doing  behind closed doors.  

Thanks to this incredible sabotage, it took a full 26 COP summits for the primary driver of climate change and the words “fossil fuel” to even appear in a decision text. COP still recognizes climate-changing gas as a “transition fuel.” And the last four COPs have seen over 5,000 fossil fuel representatives attend with access to the negotiation space. Some came as organizational guests. Some came representing shell organizations. Some even came with official credentials from countries. 

Petrostates and industry executives like to argue that fossil fuel companies are experts and essential partners in the energy transition key to global climate efforts. The trouble is, stopping rising temperatures depends on the world shifting away from their core business products. And that’s just not good for business. Which makes any involvement at climate talks an inescapable conflict of interest. After all, would you invite Coca-Cola executives to a conversation on how to drink less soda? 

Time for a New Way Forward 

How did we get here? 

One thing the industry has done exceptionally well is learn how to use the COP process to stop the COP process. COP decisions require consensus, which gives petrostates like Saudi Arabia – known as a “wrecking ball” in climate talks –the ideal way to water down and flat out block progress. (This requirement is itself the direct result of obstruction by petrostates.)  

The good news is that we aren’t powerless against the industry. The UNFCCC has already worked with civil society to implement a process for representatives of “observer organizations” (i.e., NGOs, research institutes, etc.) to reveal funding sources to attend a COP. We can do so much more. 

There are three main avenues for change.  

1. The UNFCCC Secretariat 

The UNFCCC secretariat (also known as UN Climate Change) is the entity that assists in organizing and facilitating UN climate efforts, including COPs. As part of this role, the secretariat has the power to negotiate agreements with COP host countries to sideline the fossil fuel industry.  

That’s just for starters. Other possibilities for the secretariat include passing a comprehensive conflict of interest policy to keep industry figures out of key roles where they can jam a stick in the spokes of negotiations. Another option is working with countries to require all members of COP delegations to transparently disclose who paid for them to be there, so industry representatives can’t hide behind credentials. 

2. The COP Presidency 

The COP president literally drafts the agenda for COP climate talks. Which gives them a whole lot of power. For COPs to make real progress, the world has to trust that the person drafting that agenda and leading talks comes with no ties to the fossil fuel industry or other conflicts of interest quietly influencing their moves. The same goes for any consultants and sponsors they engage.  

Once the president is named by the host nation, they should publicly commit to using their diplomacy only to further the objectives of the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement – never to advance fossil fuel interests. They should also ensure that no fossil fuel representatives are on their staff or the host country delegation.  

The beauty of these commitments is that they set a standard for COP presidents. One that’s really hard for future COP presidents to not meet. At least not without the potential for significant negative media and civil society blow back. 

3. Individual Countries 

It’s not just the UN and COP presidencies with the power to limit fossil influence. Individual member countries of the UNFCCC can leave the lobbyists at home and build a coalition to support final UNFCCC rules of procedure that shift from approval by consensus to a supermajority vote on most items where consensus cannot be found.  

Enabling supermajority decision-making would immediately deprive petrostates of perhaps their single-most effective tool for blocking climate progress. (Remember, the entire reason global climate agreements must pass by consensus is because of petrostates that never want to see ambitious agreements pass.) It’s past time we stop letting these handful of countries have a veto over the health of our planet.  

 

This is where you come in. These changes will only come once world leaders really feel the pressure and know people won’t accept the status quo. We’ve seen it before at COP 28, so we know it can happen. 

At its core, climate action has always been a collective action problem. Adopting these elements and removing fossil obstruction would free up nations to finally tackle the issue effectively. Agreements at COP would send necessary market signals on energy and domestic policies will shift in turn (if they can also hold off the lobbyists). A virtuous cycle becomes possible where the cheap clean energy technologies already threatening to push fossil use into permanent decline get even cheaper and more accessible. And who knows, we might just find ourselves on a path to a livable future.