Brice Böhmer is climate and environment lead at Transparency International.
As the dust settles after COP29, a feeling of despondency and betrayal has set in. But amid the inevitable post-mortem, the international climate community must ask itself: are we really that surprised?
This is the third year running that a repressive petrostate has hosted COP, and the second where the summit – intended to help reduce global emissions – has instead been used as a deal-brokering conference for some of the world’s biggest polluters.
The murky world of climate diplomacy
The fingerprints of the fossil fuel industry were all over Baku, chiefly those of the host country itself. An undercover Global Witness investigation caught the Azerbaijani COP29 chief executive using his role to discuss fossil fuel “investment opportunities” in the run-up to the conference. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s president opened the event by hailing oil and gas as a “gift from god”. His government then went on to sign new gas deals with Bulgaria and Slovakia while, elsewhere, developing nations were frantically scrambling for vital climate financing.
Overall, at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to COP29 according to Kick Big Polluters Out. In reality, however, it’s not possible to determine the true scale of the industry’s involvement. Our own analysis found that half of the registered participants (26,104) either chose not to disclose their relationship with their nominator, or hid behind unhelpfully vague categories such as ‘guest’ and ‘other’.
While it’s true that a fraught geopolitical landscape and the re-election of Donald Trump as US president meant negotiators in Baku were always facing an uphill battle, the vulnerabilities of climate diplomacy to climate corruption can no longer be ignored.
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In fact, the upsurge of climate denialism and dwindling faith in multilateralism makes rooting out undue fossil fuel influence and other conflicts of interest more important than ever.
The threat of climate corruption is an issue for at least two significant reasons. Most obviously, it undermines the integrity of the process when those who stand to gain little from a green transition – and everything to gain from the continued extraction of fossil fuels – are granted privileged access.
There is also the issue of trust. How can nations fully trust the negotiating process when it is so clearly infiltrated by private interests? Attendees need reassurances that their commitment will lead to meaningful progress, not exploited as diplomatic cover for behind-closed-doors manoeuvres and fossil fuel deal-making.
Strengthening climate multilateralism
As ever when it comes to questions of corruption, sunlight is the best disinfectant. To preserve the integrity of COP specifically – and multilateral climate action in general – we should be asking ourselves: which countries are being permitted to host COP? What suitability tests have they undergone? Who are they granting privileged access to?
Relatedly, Brazil’s President Lula recently announced that, in preparation for COP30, he is working towards a “global ethical assessment” bringing together different sectors of civil society to reflect on climate action “from the perspective of justice, equity, and solidarity”. His government has also joined forces with the UN to address disinformation campaigns that derail climate action.
Our recent report with the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, an organisation that aims to expose the threats to democracy, economic justice and the environment posed by financial secrecy and transnational corruption, offers recommendations to sustain this momentum and channel it into COP reform ahead of next year’s UN climate summit in Belém.
Big emitters accused of hiding behind climate treaties in international hearing
These include strengthening the selection process for host nations. Currently, these are chosen on a rotating basis between the five UN regional groupings. Regional group members consult with each other and make an offer to the UN climate secretariat (UNFCCC), which then adopts a decision before going on a fact-finding mission to determine that all “logistical, technical and financial elements for hosting the sessions are available” and reports back to the COP Bureau. This committee – which is elected from representatives of countries nominated by each of the UN regional groups and small island developing states – advises the COP president, acts as a focal point between governments and leads on issues of process management.
Our report proposes stricter criteria, by allowing only countries that have been vetted by the COP Bureau and whose proposal demonstrates commitment to the goals of the UN climate convention and the Paris Agreement, the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, international human rights law and managing potential conflicts of interest to be appointed hosts. The influential Club of Rome recently called for similar measures.
With Turkey, a country judged to have “critically insufficient” climate targets, and Australia, the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2021, currently competing for the COP31 presidency, host selection reform cannot come soon enough.
Full disclosure
Publishing the participant list, meanwhile, has proved an effective way of boosting public scrutiny at COP. The UNFCCC should build on this by mandating that delegates fully disclose their nominator-affiliation to allow for even more transparency. Host deals involving corporations and organisations granted partner status for the ‘Green Zone’ (where civil society gathers outside the government-led negotiations) should also be made publicly accessible.
In addition, the COP Bureau should review the Code of Ethics for Elected and Appointed Officers to ensure that hosts disclose any relationships, financial or otherwise, that could compromise the objectivity and impartiality of the presidency. Had such measures been in place pre-Baku, they would surely have helped limit the extent to which the summit appears to have been used to promote businesses connected to Azerbaijan’s first family; not least the $5.2 million government contract awarded, without any competitive tender process, to Aliyev’s son-in-law for summit accommodation, as reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
The entrance to the COP29 summit venue in Baku, Azerbaijan, November 2024 (Photo: Climate Home News/Megan Rowling)
To deter such cronyism, the Code of Ethics should include the powers to replace the COP President and other host-nation officials if they violate their duties of fairness, transparency and accountability.
To reinforce this approach, host country agreements should make the UNFCCC secretariat’s approval of partners compulsory. They should also follow the UNFCCC processes for due diligence and prevent sponsorship by entities “whose products, services or operations may negatively affect the objectives, activities or reputation of the secretariat, including but not limited to entities whose core products or core related services include fossil fuels”.
Multilateral climate diplomacy is far from perfect, but it remains our best hope of achieving meaningful climate action. The UNFCCC, with the co-operation of countries in the COP Bureau, must lead by example through major structural changes to the organisation and execution of COPs, extinguishing the threat of corruption and ensuring climate summits are preserved for those who want to fight climate change – not those profiting from it.
The post Here’s how we take back control of COP from the world’s biggest polluters appeared first on Climate Home News.
Here’s how we take back control of COP from the world’s biggest polluters
Governments at the COP17 nature summit in Armenia agreed on Saturday to scale up their policies to protect the planet’s shrinking biodiversity, and for the first time invited large emerging economies like China and Gulf states to take on donor responsibilities to help fund those efforts.
For the past two weeks, countries held talks in Yerevan under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to outline a plan to ramp up currently “insufficient” policies to conserve land and marine ecosystems. A recent UN progress report found the world is off track to meet 22 out of 23 global targets aimed at reversing species loss and protecting 30% of land and seas by 2030.
While a response plan, called the “Global Review of Collective Progress”, was expected to be the main outcome of COP17, negotiations struggled to advance amid a deadlock over the controversial subject of how to finance the boost in conservation measures needed.
After an all-night session on Friday, delegates agreed to invite developing countries to voluntarily signal their interest in assuming donor funding obligations alongside developed nations. Negotiators repeatedly warned that any stronger provisions on expanding the donor base would collapse the deal.
COP president: Results beat expectations
An exhausted COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan, Armenia’s environment minister, told journalists in the early hours of Saturday that “we’ve achieved more than we could’ve expected” given the “importance” of the decisions being taken.
“It was 100% possible that those items did not made it through. 100% possible,” he said, adding that the conference had made progress on “all the most important items”.
Speaking at the closing plenary, the group of Pacific Islands said that, while the summit had achieved “great outcomes”, delegates are also departing Yerevan “with realities not reflected in the official text”, such as the low replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a key funder of nature projects.
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Some observers also said the deal did not go far enough. Steven Guilbeault, a former Canadian environment minister who helped broker the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), said the Yerevan package of action is “an important step forward”, but still “falls short of what is needed to meet our 2030 commitments”.
An Lambrechts, biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International, said COP17 had kept things moving forward and set well-intentioned promises, but added that these “won’t remove major roadblocks to implementation” such as insufficient finance and debt constraints in developing countries.
WWF chief conservation officer Daudi Sumba noted that financial issues were not fully resolved. Despite the deal in Yerevan, “I fear finance will remain the key issue that continues to haunt the UN biodiversity summits,” he said in a statement.
‘Yerevan Pathway’ tackles nature plans and subsidies
In the lead-up to the summit, the UN assessment report showed countries are falling short on virtually all targets in the GBF, the 2022 global deal often referred to as the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’.
They include a landmark target to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030. If countries all stick to their current national goals, about 26% of land would be protected and only about 12% of marine ecosystems would be under conservation measures.
The main COP17 decision – named the Yerevan Pathway by the presidency – calls for countries to revise their biodiversity plans, subject to available funding, with a particular focus on addressing the gap in coverage of “marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems”.
It also urges the over 60 countries who have not submitted a biodiversity plan yet to finalise them “as soon as possible” and taking into account the gaps identified by the UN progress report.
Countries also agreed to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss by “accelerating” the reduction of subsidies for activities that damage nature. Subsidy reform, covered by Target 18 of the GBF, is where countries have made the least progress so far, according to the assessment report.
Jill Hepp, director of nature and marine policy and incentives at green group Conservation International, said singling out subsidies in the Yerevan Pathway “gives a strong signal” that closing the gap for biodiversity action requires “more urgent efforts to reform harmful incentives and scale up positive incentives”.
“Timid” steps to expand base of donors
Having failed to meet a target to channel $20 billion for biodiversity conservation by 2025 and faced with shrinking aid budgets, the EU pushed a proposal to expand the list of which countries count as donors, so that wealthy emerging economies like China and Saudi Arabia could also voluntarily contribute. The group of Arab nations strongly opposed this.
During the talks, Irish minister of state for nature, Christopher O’Sullivan, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the bloc wanted the world’s “new realities” to be reflected in the donor list.
Negotiations remained gridlocked for most of the two-week talks, until a last-day compromise was struck to invite developing countries that may want donor status “to indicate to the [Convention on Biological Diversity] secretariat their interest in being included in the corresponding list”.
Countries also asked the secretariat to send an invitation to emerging economies wanting donor status at each subsequent COP, and requested a technical report on “the implications of inclusion in the list” for emerging economies.
Swiss lead negotiator Gabriela Blatter said during one of the sessions that her country had expected greater steps towards expanding the base of contributing countries, but added that “if we’re mutually unhappy, it’s probably the closest we can get on these very delicate political compromises”. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, also noted their dissatisfaction but said it had expected “a lot less”.
The fragile deal was approved in a package of decisions together with the Global Review, after some delegations including Brazil and China appealed to the plenary not to make further changes to the text at the risk of collapsing the whole agreement.
In a statement delivered to the closing plenary, the EU said the finance outcome had delivered “timid” progress towards fully broadening the base of donors.
Cali Fund still not operational
Adopted two years ago at COP16, the Cali Fund was seen by some observers as a way to channel private-sector finance into biodiversity conservation, as governments struggle to find public funds. But it is still struggling to get up on its feet.
The fund allows big corporations to access certificates for the use of genetic material found in biodiversity in return for a financial contribution, which experts estimate has the potential to raise up to $6.9bn for biodiversity. While voluntary, companies are encouraged to pay 1% of their profits or 0.1% of revenue into the fund.
But since its creation, the fund has received little more than $10,000, which Guilbeault argued is because the rules for disbursements to local communities and the operation of the fund had yet to be fleshed out. This was due to happen at COP17.
Yet, while the final decision on the fund laid out some of the rules – including how companies can earn “Cali Fund certificates” – some key technical details were left to the next COP in 2028 in Ecuador. This includes the issue of whether companies can pay a lower rate if they use genetic data for only a small portion of their products.
“By punting essential decisions to two years from now, parties have all but ensured the fund remains empty until then,” said Pakhi Das, a public policy advisor at NGO Plant-for-the-Planet.
The post COP17 delivers fragile deal to boost conservation and funding for nature appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP17 delivers fragile deal to boost conservation and funding for nature
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje