International

The mass lobby from a number of huge polluters is threatening to undermine the success of the climate conference, known as COP21, to be held in Paris at the end of November. In the latest version of the draft agreement, shipping and air transport do not appear, despite the fact that these sectors together account for no less than 8% of CO2 emissions, a proportion which is moreover growing rather than dwindling. In addition, the proposal to phase out subsidies on fossil fuels has disappeared from the draft text. The SP is calling for maximum openness over the lobby’s role.

SP Euro-MP Anne-Marie Mineur is concerned about the far from transparent manner in which the lobby has been going about undermining the climate conference. ‘BP, Total and Shell, amongst others, are attempting a diversionary tactic in the form of an alternative plan which boils down to the idea that climate change can also be combatted by carbon sequestration and storage,’ she says. ‘This is an extremely transparent form of greenwashing. The fact that the conference is sponsored by corporations such as Renault Nissan, Coca Cola and GDF Suez is enough to make you despair of the entire event.’

What Mineur would really like to see is the lobbyists banned from the conference, as the World Health Organisation does in the case of the tobacco industry, but that isn’t possible. ‘COP 21 is an open market place which anyone can attend. That makes it all the more necessary that we insist on maximum transparency regarding all lobby activities, and that a great deal of room is given to the public and to social organisations, to NGOs, as to the lobby from corporate business interests.’

In the European Parliament, Mineur recently presented an amendment to this effect to the Parliament’s COP21 resolution. Her proposal was adopted by a large majority.