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Oil lobbyist at COP27.


 COP27 has stood out as the first UN climate summit to invite oil and gas companies to participate in official events, allowing Saudi Arabia to say it does not see the effort to limit global warming as being «about fossil fuels». Just a short bus ride from the COP27 centre at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort town, the world’s biggest oil exporter has hosted its own «green initiative» inside a domed structure with luxury eco-hotel aesthetics. Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir told the Financial Times that the Paris Agreement goal struck in 2015 to keep global warming to 1.5C, ideally, was «achievable», but «we don’t see this as a discussion about fossil fuels». The rise of the oil and gas lobby is notable at COP27, where the host country itself announced a deal to sell gas to Europe in return for replacing thermal power plants with cleaner energy.

Campaign group Global Witness estimated that more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists were registered for COP27, a quarter more than the year before. The Saudi event featured TotalEnergies chair Patrick Pouyanné and Amin Nasser, chief executive of the state-owned Saudi Aramco.

Bechtel’s Stu Jones told the audience that COP27 was the first at which «international oil companies have been invited to participate . » The heads of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum and Opec will make formal statements at the UN summit next week, alongside world leaders, nonprofit organisation leaders and intergovernmental groups. The gas industry lobby was a «huge problem,» said Catherine McKenna, the former Canadian climate minister who launched an UN-commissioned report last week about how to combat corporate greenwashing. Among the divisive subjects at COP27 is whether gas can be regarded as a «transition» fuel or an interim step as the use of coal is phased out.

It is made mainly of methane, which has 80 times the warming power of carbon but is shorter-lived. «We are heavily investing in gas because gas is a transition fuel,» said Pouyanne at the Saudi summit.

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  1. Donna14 November 2022 at 13:19

    Corporate greenwashing is here to stay and we need to combat it as much as we can. They are trying to divert attention from the real problems and turn it towards less important ones. They minimize the importance of what needs to be done. I get it. They are afraid of losing money but it's unavoidable.

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