Oil and gas lobbyists cause stir at COP27 climate summit

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 warmingas being “about fossil fuels”. Just a short bus ride away 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 struckin2015 to keep globalwarming to 1.5C, ideally, was “achievable”, but “we don’t see this as a discussion about fossil fuels”. Meanwhile, US climate envoy John Kerrywas being pressedabouta push by some countries toomit the globalwarming goal of 1.5C, or 2C at worst, from the summit’s concluding text. He confirmed there were a “very few countries” that had “raised theissue”. Jubeir, who was set to dine with Kerry last night, would not be drawn on whether the kingdom wanted a reference to 1.5C in the text, saying he would “leave that to the negotiators”. 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 plantswith 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 United Arab Emirates, the petrostate that will host next year’s COP28 summit, had the most of any country, at 70 official delegates. What Saudi Arabia and some other fossil fuel reliant countries at the summit are keen to discuss is how they can continue to produce oil and gas. The focus should be on reducing emissions, not targeting the sector, theyargue. “You can achieve carbon neutrality while producing fossil fuels and we’re proving it in Saudi Arabia,” Jubeir said inaninterview. The Saudi event featured TotalEnergies chair Patrick Pouyanné, and Amin Nasser, chief executive of the stateowned Saudi Aramco. Nasser listed tree-planting, carbon capture technology, hydrogen fuel derived from gas and a “circular carbon economy”, or recycling,as climate solutions. Running in parallel at COP27, the “decarbonisation day” on Friday featured a panel on greening the oil and gas sector that posed questions such as “what is your vision for developing oil and gas resources while reducing emissions?” Bechtel’s Stu Jones told the audience that COP27was the first atwhich “international oil companies have been invited to participate . . . This recognises the fact that the [integrated oil companies] have an important role to play in decarbonisation and reducing emissions.” Many had promised to support the ParisAgreement goals, headded. “I have been to eight COPs and never seen such blatant oil and gas promotion from a presidency before,” said David Tong from Oil Change International. “There’s no legitimacy in a COP presidency giving a big platform to major polluters without even asking them hardquestions.” Egypt’s COP27 ambassador, Wael Aboulmagd, said he did not have exact figures for lobbyists present, but insisted that “decarbonisation day” speakers had been vetted to ensure they had demonstrated realaction. 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. “I don’t think we can continue having to cope with such an overwhelming presence,” said Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the Paris Agreement. “They have so much money to do public relations . . . They come when they see that things are getting really bad [for the industry].” The gas industry lobby was a “huge problem,” said Catherine McKenna, the former Canadian climate minister who launched a 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 up mainly of methane, which has 80 times the warming power of carbon but is shorterlived. “We are heavily investing in gas because gas is a transition fuel,” said Pouyanneat theSaudi summit.