‘A twisted joke’: UN’s flagship climate summit sees sharp jump in fossil fuel industry delegates

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — More than 600 fossil substance manufacture delegates person been registered to be the COP27 clime talks successful Egypt, according to analysis from run groups, reflecting an summation of implicit 25% from past year.

The crisp leap successful attendees associated with immoderate of the world's biggest polluting lipid and state giants astatine the U.N.'s flagship clime league is thought to bespeak the emergence successful the power of the fossil substance manufacture to signifier the debate.

Campaigners described the findings arsenic a "twisted joke" and said it appeared to acceptable the signifier for COP27 to beryllium a "festival of fossil fuels and their polluting friends, buoyed by caller bumper profits."

A spokesperson for Egypt's COP presidency was not instantly disposable to remark connected the findings of the report.

Around 35,000 delegates from astir 200 countries are expected to convene successful the Red Sea edifice municipality of Sharm el-Sheikh to sermon corporate enactment to tackle the clime emergency.

An investigation of information from the U.N.'s provisional database of named attendees by run groups Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness recovered that 636 fossil substance lobbyists had been registered to instrumentality portion successful the talks.

That reflects an summation of implicit 100 erstwhile compared to past year's talks successful Glasgow, Scotland.

It means that much fossil substance lobbyists are represented astatine the two-week-long acme than immoderate azygous state too the United Arab Emirates, which has 1,070 delegates registered compared to 176 past year.

The information besides showed that much fossil substance manufacture delegates were acceptable to be COP27 than immoderate nationalist delegation from the African continent, contempt the talks being described arsenic the "Africa COP."

Researchers pored done the U.N.'s provisional database of named attendees to number the fig of individuals registered either acting connected behalf of the fossil substance manufacture oregon those straight affiliated with lipid and state companies, specified arsenic BP, Shell and Chevron.

"With clip moving retired to avert clime disaster, large talks similar COP27 perfectly indispensable beforehand factual enactment to halt the toxic practices of the fossil substance manufacture that is causing much harm to the clime than immoderate different industry," a spokesperson for the groups said.

"The bonzer beingness of this industry's lobbyists astatine these talks is truthful a twisted gag astatine the disbursal of some radical and planet," they added.

To beryllium sure, the burning of fossil fuels specified arsenic coal, lipid and gas, is the main operator of the clime crisis.

A flurry of large U.N. reports published successful caller weeks delivered a grim appraisal of however adjacent the satellite is to irreversible clime breakdown, informing determination is "no credible pathway" successful spot to headdress planetary heating astatine the captious somesthesia threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"There's been a batch of articulator work paid to this being the alleged African COP, but however are you going to code the dire clime impacts connected the continent, erstwhile the fossil substance delegation is larger than that of immoderate African country?" said Philip Jakpor of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa.

"More than 450 organisations astir the satellite are calling connected satellite governments to bash what they should person done from time one," Jakpor said successful a statement. "It's clip to footwear Big Polluters out! No much penning the rules oregon bankrolling the clime talks."