Corporate Cop28: How a defining moment for the climate has been taken over by fossil fuel executives

The summit has attracted more oil and gas representatives than ever before, Louise Boyle reports from inside Cop28 in Dubai

Inside the ‘Green Zone’ at Cop28, outside of the official United Nationsl negotiating space. The Dubai has attracted more of the private sector - and record numbers from the oil and gas industry - than any climate summit in its 28-year history (Louise Boyle/The Independent )

Global climate summits are a smörgåsbord of statistics - and this particular figure attracted attention for all the wrong reasons.

Some 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted passes for Cop28 in Dubai, the largest number in the climate summit’s history, analysis has found.

This is four times as many as attended Cop27 in Egypt last year, and more than any country delegation except United Arab Emirates, the host country, and Brazil, understood to be holding Cop30.

The oil and gas industry is better represented at the Dubai conference than some of the groups most impacted by the climate crisis.

The numbers are seven times that of Indigenous people – who safeguard 80 per cent of the planet’s remaining biodiversity. Sudan, a country with extreme vulnerability to drought and desertification, has 46 representatives.

The glut of “Big Oil” along with other multinational corporations, banks, and consulting groups in the slick, sprawling “Green Zone” at the Dubai Expo has given Cop28 the air of an enormous trade show.

Less than 10 per cent of companies attending Cop28 have policies aligned with the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature goal to limit devastating climate impacts, according to InfluenceMap, a think tank which analyses how the corporate sector is measuring up to scientific benchmarks.

Watch: The Independent goes inside the Cop28 venue

This year’s 28th “Conference of Parties” has become a battleground over the future of fossil fuels. More than 100 countries have backed a call for “phasing out” the root cause of the climate crisis while oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia are strongly opposed.

In a leaked letter this week, the secretary general of the Opec+ group of oil-producing nations urged members to resist a Cop28 deal that targets fossil fuels.

“This is the fossil fuel COP. The definitive COP that we are trying to get the first commitment ever on fossil fuels,” Jean Su, energy justice director at climate advocacy group, Center for Biological Diversity, told The Independent.

Darren Woods, chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil, at the Cop28 climate summit at Expo City in Dubai on 2 December, 2023 (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Ironically, and perversely, fossil fuel companies are out and about. They’re emboldened and brazenly so.”

This year for the first time, the UNFCCC - the body which oversees Cops - required those registering to disclose affiliations to make the process more transparent.

The rule change has proven illuminating.

ExxonMobil, Shell, Total Energies, Gazprom, LukOil, Adnoc, and Eni are among the energy companies with more than 10 delegates at Cop28, according to InfluenceMap.

Adnoc, the UAE’s state oil company, is run by Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber who is also Cop28 president. Last week, he was forced to insist that he “very much respects science” after a video surfaced where he questioned the need to phase out fossil fuels.

Some of these companies made it on to the shortlist of heavy polluters responsible for one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions.

The Independent has contacted the companies and UNFCCC for comment.

In an email, Total Energies said: “TotalEnergies has already sent climate experts to previous Cops. TotalEnergies is an energy company, committed to net zero by 2050, together with society. The subjects broached at these events lie at the heart of the Company’s ambition; our experts attend to listen to the discussions and support collective action. No person employed by TotalEnergies takes any part in the negotiations between States or gains admission to these negotiations.”

It added: that its that its Cop28 priorities were "tripling renewables capacity and investing massively in power grids; eliminating coal in electricity generation and replacing it by gas; and slashing methane emissions everywhere".

Licypriya Kangujam, an Indigenous climate activist from India, holds a banner about fossil fuels, the key issue at the summit (REUTERS)

The Cop28 attendee list also reveals a hefty contingent of fossil fuel lobbyists and trade groups.

Some countries including France, Italy and Norway have brought fossil fuel representatives in their official delegations, according to separate research from Kick Big Polluters Out, a coalition of 450 organizations.

The European Commission brought ExxonMobil’s chief EU lobbyist to Cop28 - at the same time as the Texas-based oil giant is suing the EU over a tax targeting the industry’s excess profits, Corporate Europe Observatory found.

And it’s not just Big Oil. InfluenceMap found that 52 per cent of the biggest corporations at the Dubai summit, in the finance, consumer goods, retail and tech sectors, have poor climate records.

In a statement to The Independent, the Cop28 presidency described the event as the “most inclusive Cop ever” with more than 100,000 participants in total.

“We have invited stakeholders from across our action agenda, including the oil and gas industry, because broad collaboration is the only way we can design and deliver an agreement that keeps 1.5C within reach,” the Cop28 spokesperson said.

While some oil companies make no bones about their opposition to policies targeting fossil fuels, others deploy a more nuanced approach. Some European oil and gas majors have appeared to support taking action, while pushing for keeping fossil fuels in the energy mix on a longer timescale than science says is safe, InfluenceMap points out.

Yet, there are also a number of companies at Cop28 that are pushing for ambitious climate action and to grow renewables - among them Ikea, energy company Iberdrola, and Unilever, says InfluenceMap.

Climate activists protest during the Cop28 summit (REUTERS)

Cop28 has also attracted trade groups representing the booming clean energy sector but they have less presence and influence than those orbiting fossil fuels. The oil and gas industry has spent decades crafting a playbook of lobbying, misinformation, funded research and political donations, InfluenceMap says.

“It’s an integrated strategy, and the bedrock is communications,” Dylan Tanner, the think tank’s executive director and co-founder, told The Independent.

”That’s something you don’t see from the other side. They’re not as collaborative, and they just don’t see this as something that is in their expertise. That’s a huge imbalance.”

There’s also the fact that the companies more likely to support meaningful climate policies are a diverse bunch - utility companies, solar panel and wind turbine manufacturers, and tech giants to name a few.

“They’re not linked by anything other than the need to do renewable stuff,” Mr Tanner added. “On the other hand, the oil and gas companies are all lined up to sell oil and gas.”

For some climate advocates, peak fossil fuel saturation at Cop28 could backfire.

Protest after protest by activists inside the venue have zoomed in on the harm that fossil fuels are playing in communities, particularly in developing countries, and low-lying island states.

“I think ironically because this black box has been opened about how corrupt these talks actually are, it forces politicians to come to the table and they have to make a choice,” Ms Su said.

“Are they standing with the fossil fuel lobbyists, who are completely uncovered, or are they standing with people and the planet? And we hope that they choose the latter.”

On Tuesday, the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, a group of more than a dozen countries and states, said that Cop28 would be unsuccessful if the final agreement did not include a call for fossil fuel phase-out.

Wopke Hoekstra, a former oil executive who is the European Union’s new climate commissioner, also said that all fossil fuels must be phased out.

On Sunday, as negotiations entered their exhausting final days, the UAE’s Cop president finally made his position clear. He told reporters that the final text should have language addressing fossil fuel use for the first time.

“We need to find consensus and common ground on fossil fuel,” Al Jaber said.

With additional reporting from Bevan Hurley