Kate Cell is senior climate campaign manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a Climate Action Against Disinformation steering committee member and Kathy Mulvey is corporate accountability campaign director at UCS
For years, fossil fuel lobbyists have swarmed the international climate summits outnumbering most national delegations and drowning out the voices of climate-vulnerable nations. Their mission is clear: derail progress, spread disinformation, and dodge accountability for fueling the climate crisis.
This overwhelming influence raises urgent questions – how do we prevent industry obstruction of science-based policy, and what would a climate summit look like if fossil fuel interests were finally shut out?
Climate policy must be guided by science, evidence, and justice – not fossil fuel industry influence. Yet the industry relies on disinformation to undermine science and delay action. This tactic is neither new nor surprising: for decades, fossil fuel companies have funded climate denial, obstructed progress, and profited from confusion.
At the Union of Concerned Scientists, our team’s latest report documents the ongoing role of Big Oil corporations as key drivers and beneficiaries of climate disinformation.
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Climate is MIA in Australia and Türkiye’s bids to host COP31
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Tools now exist to confront this threat. The Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition seeks to classify climate disinformation as a serious risk under laws regulating search engines and social media. Meanwhile, advocates pursue litigation against fossil fuel companies for “greenwashing,” exposing misleading ads that conceal their role in driving the crisis and holding them accountable.
An international commitment to information integrity (accurate, consistent and reliable information) at COP30 can help remove barriers to strong national climate solutions.
This week, a coalition of civil society groups, local leaders, businesses, and individuals is urging participants to “UNEQUIVOCALLY RECOGNIZE that upholding information integrity on climate change is a prerequisite for effective climate action, democratic principles, public health, and human rights.”
Acknowledging both the importance of information integrity and the dangers of disinformation is vital to advancing robust, verifiable measures that curb greenwashing and manipulative content undermining climate progress.
Limiting the influence of fossil fuel companies
CEOs and lobbyists from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and others should not shape climate goals or clean energy plans; the fossil fuel industry has an irreconcilable conflict of interest with policies to curb climate change and advance renewable energy.
Yet, year after year, their representatives flood international negotiations, undermining progress and protecting profits while obstructing the urgent transition away from fossil fuels toward a sustainable, science-based future.
2023 marked the first COP where delegates were required to disclose affiliations with fossil fuel companies. These disclosures exposed the thousands of lobbyists granted access to negotiations. New research from the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition found that over the last four years, 5,350 oil, gas, and coal lobbyists were given access to COPs. At last year’s summit in Azerbaijan alone, 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists registered—70% more than the combined 1,033 delegates from the ten mostclimate vulnerable nations.
This staggering imbalance reveals how polluters dominate climate talks and weaken policy. Amid this lobbying blitz, nations’ fossil fuel production plans are set to double what’s compatible with a 1.5°C pathway by 2030. Major fossil fuel corporations continue to prioritise profits over people and planet. Research shows the 250 largest oil and gas companies invest almost nothing in clean energy compared to their vast fossil fuel extraction, disregarding climate goals; and their role in deepening the crisis.
COP30 PR firm found to be “uniquely reliant” on fossil fuel clients
Requiring delegates to disclose affiliations and funding is a vital step in exposing fossil fuel influence. Yet with the 1.5°C target slipping away, disclosure alone is insufficient. World leaders must advance to disqualification, barring fossil fuel companies from shaping COP negotiations. Future COP hosts must also refuse to retain PR firms tied to fossil fuel companies. This blatant conflict of interest shields industry culpability, distorts public understanding of the demand for climate action, and undermines trust in global climate negotiations.
A summit free from such conflicts of interest would empower nations most affected by extreme heat, rising seas, and other escalating climate impacts, ensuring their voices are not drowned out by lobbyists and spin doctors for the very industry primarily driving destructive, deadly climate change.
Advancing accountability at COP30
The challenge extends beyond the fossil fuel industry. Big Tech’s richest leaders are actively fueling climate denial, deception, and delay when they amplify lies to increase ad revenue—just like fossil fuel corporations and their trade groups. COP30 must confront this corruption head-on: advancing bold policies to hasten a just transition away from fossil fuels, protect a truthful information ecosystem, and hold corporate actors accountable for the lies they spread and the deadly damage they inflict on our planet.
By resisting disinformation and other fossil fuel industry influence at COP30, world leaders can propel a people-centered transition toward a clean energy future grounded in rights, fairness, equity, and solidarity. A summit safeguarded against conflicts of interest would finally prioritize those most affected by the climate crisis, ensuring that science, justice, and integrity—not corporate deception—guide the path forward.
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https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/11/12/bad-cop-to-good-cop-blocking-fossil-fueled-disinformation-in-belem-and-beyond/
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
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Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that, while these are important governance measures, their existence does not necessarily demonstrate that the underlying risk of forest carbon loss has been reduced.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence of actual risk reduction and assumptions about the effectiveness of policy commitments,” she added.
Moving target
A UN source told Climate Home News that, under the approved formula, improved cookstove projects must set aside at least 9% of credits linked to saved wood if they operate in the lowest-risk areas and the host country can claim all available discounts. The share of credits rises significantly in regions with high natural risk values, such as Guyana, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste, or that do not have REDD+ programmes.
These factors could change in the future as the Supervisory Body asked its technical experts to recommend revisiting the risk values “should credible new evidence arise”.
Climate change is likely to make forest destruction events, such as wildfires or hurricanes, more frequent and more severe in certain regions. Meanwhile, national policies on forest protection can shift significantly depending on government changes.
Johnstone said the UN carbon market needs periodic reassessment to respond to new evidence showing that previously assumed levels of risk were too low.
“The integrity of credits is not guaranteed simply because a reversal risk tool exists,” she added. “The real test will be whether the mechanism provides equivalent atmospheric protection over time, rather than simply introducing another layer of accounting requirements”.
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UN carbon market forces cookstove projects to protect against forest loss