Lately I’ve been speaking with a lot of big companies and universities as part of Greenpeace’s gas campaign.
We’re urging brands like Telstra, Bupa, Woolworths, UTS, NAB and more to cancel their membership of the Business Council of Australia (BCA) – a powerful lobby group that’s been advocating for more dirty gas projects on their behalf.
Greenpeace is focused on these brands because they all claim to care about climate action and have made strong individual commitments to decarbonise their businesses. As a company committed to reducing emissions, you’d think that fossil fuel lobbying is counterproductive to those efforts – right?
These companies don’t think so. What I hear in meeting after meeting is a version of “that’s not my problem.”
But fossil fuel lobbying is their problem – and not just because it destroys their credibility on climate. Direct or indirect lobbying can bring legal, investor, reputational, and governance risk that companies need to be taking seriously.
Why indirect lobbying matters: the political influence of Industry Associations
Direct lobbying is when a corporation goes directly to the government, or whoever they are trying to influence and pushes their views. Indirect lobbying is when a corporation pays to be part of an Industry Association (also known as a peak body) which will do that lobbying on its behalf.
For a company, indirect lobbying via an Industry Association is often more influential than their own direct lobbying. Industry Associations like the BCA and Australian Energy Producers (AEP) have a big impact on shaping policy, through directly lobbying the government, being active in the media and advertising, and making political donations. Indeed this influence is the key reason why companies choose to become members in the first place – because they recognise that by presenting as a united voice, they can get more done than lobbying as one company.
When the BCA or AEP speak – the government listens. Prime Minister Albanese gave the keynote address at the BCA’s annual gala dinner earlier this year. And these groups are amongst the first to be consulted and receive briefings when the government is designing policy.
Examples of times industry association lobbying shaped government policy:
- Both the AEP and BCA made submissions to the government consultation on the Future Gas Strategy – with their key demands and narratives showing up many times in the government’s final strategy. This is the document setting the direction for the role of gas in Australia’s energy mix out to 2050 and beyond, but it reads more like Woodside’s Strategic Plan.
- The BCA and AEP were vocal advocates for the approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf Extension – arguing, in spite of their commitments to the Paris Agreement, that we need more gas. Not long after, the government approved the project.
- The BCA lobbied the government around the setting of its emissions reductions targets, arguing that a more ambitious target would cost too much. The government soon announced a weak target – far below what the science says is required to meet our international climate targets.
The BCA and AEP gain power from the fact that they claim to represent over a hundred large businesses, acting as spokespeople for their collective interests. The BCA and AEP rely on the brand recognition and reputation of their member companies, and in turn those companies benefit by having their views represented in parliament and the media.
Companies like Telstra, Commonwealth Bank and others may choose to look the other way – but refusing to acknowledge a problem doesn’t make it go away.
Legal risk of indirect lobbying that is misaligned with a company’s own climate commitments
When companies tell their customers and investors they have certain policies on climate change, it is their responsibility to ensure that their actions match the commitments they have made on paper.
So when a company says it is committed to the Paris Agreement, but then is part of an industry association which is lobbying for policies that are incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement, that could amount to what is known in legal terms as “misleading and deceptive conduct”. There is also a legal risk for board directors, who often don’t have oversight over what indirect fossil fuel lobbying a company is engaged in.
A specific example of this is the BCA and AEP’s lobbying for further gas expansion, when there is scientific consensus that expanding fossil fuels is incompatible with the goal of limiting warming to below 1.5C. As stated in this Climate Integrity report:
The “net zero by 2050” target is based upon the need to limit warming below 1.5°C to prevent further tipping points from being reached and then maintaining that temperature. Any net zero pledge that undermines this 1.5°C limit is self-contradictory and could in certain circumstances be viewed as misleading
In the eyes of the law, this applies not just to a company’s individual climate commitments – but also its indirect lobbying activities.
Investor risk of misaligned corporate lobbying
The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) has outlined in depth the risks posed to a company’s investors from advocating on climate policy that is out of alignment with a company’s own policies and commercial interests.
Companies pay steep membership fees to be part of groups like the BCA and AEP. AGL for example paid $104,500 for its BCA membership in 2024. It could be considered a misuse of shareholder funds for a company to be a paying member of an industry association which does not represent its stated interests. In recent years investors have been doing more to hold companies to account for the activities of their industry associations.
In a report from over 5 years ago, ACCR explicitly identifies the core of the issue that still persists today:
There is often a significant difference between the formal policies of an industry association and the public advocacy that it undertakes. The most common example of this is companies that endorse the Paris Agreement while advocating for policies that are simply irreconcilable with its central objective: limiting global warming to 2ºC above pre-industrial temperatures. It is this fundamental disparity between policy and advocacy that poses the single largest risk to investors.
Companies that are part of these groups must take responsibility for their industry association lobbying that is out of alignment with the Paris Agreement and take note of the risks posed to investors.
What can you do to hold these brands accountable for their fossil fuel lobbying?
If you’re a member of the public:
- Greenpeace has created a Climate Credibility Scorecard, where we’ve ranked some of the most influential BCA members with strong climate commitments on what steps they’ve taken to distance themselves from the BCA’s lobbying for more dirty gas. This is a live resource that we’ll keep updating and adding more companies to, so keep checking back!
- You can email the CEOs of these companies using our easy tool and increase the pressure on them to act.
- Leave a message for Telstra’s leadership team here and urge them to quit the BCA. And help amplify our message on social media.
If you’re an employee of a company who is indirectly lobbying for fossil fuels:
- Check out this briefing for Telstra employees here (but the same tips apply to any company or university that is in the BCA or AEP!)
If you’re a member of an organisation or company considering partnering with one of these companies:
- Don’t take sponsorships from or offer speaking slots to companies in the BCA and AEP who aren’t walking the talk on climate. Prove that their reputation on climate is on the line.
The science is crystal clear: we can’t approve any new coal or gas projects if we want to avoid catastrophic climate impacts and limit global warming to 1.5C. We’re already feeling the impacts of climate change here in Australia and around the world – and the recent Climate Risk Assessment demonstrates just how bad things could get if we don’t urgently slash pollution from coal and gas now.
Until companies start actually taking responsibility for their fossil fuel lobbying – individual decarbonisation goals just aren’t going to cut it.
Will you join us and help hold these big brands to account?
Why indirect fossil fuel lobbying is everybody’s problem and big brands must be held accountable
June Rubis is a steering group committee member for the Cali Fund, from Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.
At COP16 in Cali, governments made a significant commitment: at least half of the funding from the new Cali Fund should support the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including women and youth. It was a watershed moment for multilateral benefit-sharing.
The challenge now is to translate that commitment into access arrangements that recognise the different institutions, priorities and decision-making processes of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
For generations, biodiversity and traditional Indigenous knowledge have provided significant value to companies who depend on nature’s genetic diversity to discover new drugs that fight diseases, create products that improve health, and grow crops resilient to extreme heat and flooding events. While some compounds are sampled directly from the source country, increasingly the digital blueprints are held in online public databases which are freely accessible to use for innovation and research.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
The Cali Fund was established at COP16 to encourage commercial users of Digital Sequence Information, or DSI, to share benefits arising from its use. Estimates suggest it could generate over $3.5 billion a year – a stark contrast to the modest $10,656 currently committed to the fund from just five SMEs, underlining how much progress must be made at COP17 over the next two weeks.
The COP16 decision that set up the fund offers two routes for money to reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities: through government authorities, and through direct payments to institutions identified by Indigenous Peoples and local communities themselves.
Varied ways of organising
Indigenous Peoples and local communities organise through a wide range of institutions. Some have national or regional organisations experienced in managing international grants. Others work through territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations, cooperatives or networks. Some have professional finance teams and audited accounts; others have extensive experience governing territories, collective resources or conservation work without having been organised around international funding requirements.
For direct access, some questions are already apparent. Which institutions should be able to receive funds? How should they be identified? What fiduciary standards should apply? How should safeguards and accountability work where institutional capacities differ? What support may be needed where institutions have strong community mandates but less experience with international finance?
Comment: Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
If access is designed mainly around institutions that already meet the expectations of large international finance mechanisms, early funding will tend to favour those already familiar to funders. They will gain further experience and become better positioned for future funding, while institutions with less administrative capacity may remain outside the system despite strong community mandates and long histories of stewardship.
These first decisions matter most, because they set the terms for everyone who follows.
The role of intermediaries requires care. Some Indigenous organisations may want a fiscal host to hold and manage funds on their behalf. Communities may choose to work through an NGO they trust. Government-facilitated arrangements may work well in particular national contexts.
What matters is the function an intermediary performs and the authority that comes with it. Providing administrative support is different from deciding which Indigenous organisations qualify, which priorities can receive support, or how success will be assessed. Direct access means communities keep that decision-making authority.
Decision-making power
The COP16 decision refers to institutions that Indigenous Peoples and local communities identify. But authority among Indigenous Peoples does not sit in one kind of body. It may sit with territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations or combinations of these. Legal recognition and customary authority do not always align neatly.
Global deforestation slowed in 2025 but Brazil’s election could undo “fragile” gains
An important feature of the Cali Fund’s governance is that Indigenous Peoples and local communities participate as full members of the Steering Committee, rather than as observers. Seven Indigenous Peoples and local community representatives, one from each of the seven socio-cultural regions, participate in consensus-based decision-making alongside representatives of governments and UN entities. Six additional representatives from civil society, scientific institutions and the private sector participate as observers.
That representation carries responsibility. Institutional legitimacy, access and representation take different forms across the seven socio-cultural regions. Indigenous Peoples and local communities members therefore have an important role in bringing those differences into the Fund’s governance and in ensuring that arrangements developed for one context do not become the assumed model for everyone else.
Safeguards and clear responsibilities
COP17 can establish the core principles and direction, while allowing operational pathways to develop in ways that respond to different regional contexts. The decisions countries take in Yerevan will shape how that flexibility is realised in practice.
The choices made around access will influence which institutions are able to participate, which routes become established and which forms of authority are recognised within the funding architecture. The aim should be an architecture with enough structure to maintain confidence while allowing for different forms of Indigenous and community governance.
A credible direct-access pathway will need safeguards, financial oversight and clear responsibilities. This would give the 50% commitment a stronger institutional foundation.
The Cali Fund’s importance will ultimately depend not only on how much funding reaches Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but on whether they are able to determine how the money is accessed, governed and used. This requires access pathways that recognise their institutions, priorities and decision-making processes, rather than requiring them to conform to a single predetermined model.
The post COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed
The UK government has approved extraction at the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, despite acknowledging that this decision could make it harder for Britain to convince other countries to move away from fossil fuel production.
UK energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the drilling on Wednesday after months of high-profile debate, fuelled in part by interventions from US President Donald Trump. She argued that the project would boost energy security in the wake of the Middle East fossil fuel crisis, protect hundreds of jobs and add £2.9 billion ($3.88bn) to the UK economy.
She said Jackdaw’s gas would be cleaner than imported gas and would not prevent the UK from meeting its legally-binding carbon targets and its goal of net zero by 2050. As the field is already licensed, she said extraction was consistent with the Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto promise not to issue any new oil and gas licenses.
The same morning, the government announced a new Energy Wealth Fund to reinvest oil and gas revenues in the climate transition. It will start with £2 billion ($2.67bn) from the government and be topped up over time with tax revenues from offshore oil and gas production.
Climate campaigners in the UK and abroad were quick to condemn the decision, while a leading legal expert told Climate Home News it goes against the advice of the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, the government’s own documents reveal that it recognises the drilling could damage the UK’s reputation and its ability to push forward the global transition away from fossil fuels.
“Climate leadership” blow
The 92-page decision document says Fahnbulleh “acknowledges that international standing on climate is important and accepts that a decision to grant consent may not further the UK’s international climate leadership.”
It adds: “She acknowledges concerns about the potential implications for the UK’s credibility and influence – including the difficulty inherent in encouraging other states to move away from fossil fuel production while the UK continues, in a limited and transitional way, to draw on its own domestic resources.”
While noting that Jackdaw has not been issued with a new license – just permission to extract gas – the document says Fahnbulleh “accepts this does not fully resolve the underlying tension in the UK’s position” but “considers this alongside the substance of the UK’s wider record [on emissions reduction], which remains significant”.
It continues that she accepts these concerns are “legitimate” and weigh against approving gas extraction, but only gives this argument a “moderate negative weight” set against the benefits of gas production.
“Huge” wrong signal
In international climate talks, the UK has long supported the transition away from fossil fuels and is one of very few major oil and gas producers to ban new licenses. Across the North Sea, the Norwegian government continues to make offshore areas available for oil and gas exploration through annual licensing rounds.
Climate experts and campaigners shared the concern, acknowledged in the decision document, that approving Jackdaw could set a precedent for fossil fuel production elsewhere. Sam Fankhauser, professor of climate change economics at Oxford University, said the direct climate impact of Jackdaw is “much smaller than the debate around it would suggest” but the “wrong signal it sends, however, is huge”.
-
Carbon capture industry faces tough future, as UK raids green spending
Despite a spate of projects getting underway, the mood at an industry conference in London this week was low with government subsidies set to shrink -
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs
More than 30 countries have failed to submit an NDC, but only three have repeatedly ignored the committee’s efforts to engage with them -
Turkish giant sponsoring COP31 cut climate goals then cashed in on oil boom
COP31 sponsors should be screened for “climate integrity”. Yet Koç Holding has become a top partner while its oil refiner runs flat out and its climate targets slip
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said that while Jackdaw’s output will be very small, “it will signal to other fossil fuel producers that they too should carry on with business as usual, less than a month before the COP31”.
Kenyan campaigner Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, called the decision “a serious blow to Britain’s international climate credibility” as “the UK cannot expect developing countries to move away from fossil fuels while giving the green light to new drilling in its own backyard”.
International Court of Justice
In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advised that government failure to take appropriate climate action “including through fossil fuel production” may amount to an internationally wrongful act.
The UK voted in favour of a United Nations resolution welcoming the advisory opinion. Yet, in its Jackdaw decision document, it notes that the ICJ opinion is not legally binding and says the UK does not accept the court’s opinion that the customary international law duty to prevent significant harm to the environment applies to climate change.
Fahnbulleh concludes that, although it will have “significant effect on the environment”, gas drilling in Jackdaw “would not lead to significant harm to the environment” – and so does not breach any duty to prevent such harm. Instead, the government document says the duty should be considered “as a matter of policy rather than legal obligation”.
Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who led Vanuatu’s legal team pushing for the ICJ’s advisory opinion, told Climate Home News that treating the duty as a matter of policy rather than legal obligation is “not how international law works”. “An advisory opinion is not a judgement,” she said, “but it states the law as it stands, and that law binds the UK whether or not it accepts it.”
“Even as a matter of policy,” she added, “the decision asks the wrong question: whether Jackdaw on its own would cause significant harm. The Court found that accumulated emissions are already causing significant harm. What matters is whether approving new production is consistent with the stringent due diligence the duty requires.”
Public support for decision
While the decision was criticised by climate campaigners and the opposition Green party, polling reported by Politico suggests that 55% of British adults support drilling at Jackdaw, with just 14% opposed. Even supporters of the UK’s net zero target back new drilling by more than two to one, the polling found.
Jackdaw is one of two North Sea oil and gas fields the government has been debating whether to extract more from for months. While Jackdaw is a small gas field, the other, Rosebank, is a much larger field that holds mostly oil.
Rosebank’s emissions are estimated to be around seven times higher than Jackdaw’s. Fahnbulleh told Sky News that Rosebank is “different” to Jackdaw because its oil would be exported, whereas Jackdaw’s gas will be used in the UK, adding that she will consider it “in its own right”.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that UK officials say Fahnbulleh is minded to refuse approval for Rosebank. She has not yet taken a final decision on Rosebank, the newspaper said, but a ruling is expected later this year.
The post UK approves gas drilling despite admitting blow to “climate leadership” status appeared first on Climate Home News.
UK approves gas drilling despite admitting blow to “climate leadership” status