The Global Climate Change Lobby

The Global Climate Change Lobby

Inside the battle to influence the most important environmental treaty of our time.

After the Copenhagen stalemate

Modest progress expected at climate talks in Cancun

International climate change negotiations resume at a UN meeting in Mexico, but gains are expected to be modest and focused on narrow issues such as forest protection and climate financing for developing countries.

United States

The Climate lobby from soup to nuts

Campbell Soup Co. registered to lobby on the issue of climate change for the first time in the 3rd Quarter. Credit: Andy Warhol’s “Campbells Soup Cans” used under Creative Commons from freshwater2006.

An array of new interests joins Washington’s climate change debate.

The lobbyists

A global lack of transparency

Determining the influence of industry on legislation in the United States is tough. But tracking influence on an international scale can be a nightmare - and the lack of strong lobbyist registries allows special interests to flourish.

Video: Meet the BINGOs

The final video in our series from Copenhagen focusing on the overall influence of Business and Industry Non-Governmental Organizations and how they attempt to shape the climate debate.

Video: Meet the carbon traders

They started appearing at business and industry meetings in 2001 after Marrakesh — the UN climate meeting that established rules for a global market for trading greenhouse gases. Representatives for the emissions trading industry became increasingly more visible and today compete with rich, well-connected carbon-emitters for international influence.

Read more about Video: Meet the carbon traders

Video: Meet the oil and coal lobby

More than almost any other industry, oil has a lot hanging in the balance as world leaders meet here to discuss a low-carbon future. The world’s two largest publicly traded companies, Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, together earned nearly $8 billion in the last quarter alone.

Read more about Video: Meet the oil and coal lobby

Video: Meet the agriculture lobby

“Lobby On!” exclaimed Rosa Kiltgaar Andersen of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers. Andersen was wrapping up a closed-door meeting here in Copenhagen at which farmers from India to Australia discussed how to influence delegates at the climate change talks.

Read more about Video: Meet the agriculture lobby

Japan

Industry targets Tokyo's ambitious new climate goals

Japan's new government proves tough to lobby.

Video: Meet the electricity and gas lobbies

The electric industry is a hodgepodge of interests; High-carbon coal, lower-carbon natural gas, and near-zero-carbon nuclear. Each has a lot to gain and a lot to lose depending on the outcome of the Copenhagen climate talks. And the winner will depend largely on the agreed-upon targets for reducing emissions. Carbon-heavy power generators would like far-off targets. Carbon-light companies stand to gain from near-term goals.

Read more about Video: Meet the electricity and gas lobbies

Canada

Canada's about-face on climate

Tar sands and a tough business lobby pull Ottawa far from Copenhagen.

Europe

The EU's billion-Euro bet

David Hone, Shell’s senior climate change advisor, says the EU’s €1.05 billion support for CCS demonstration projects is merely a “cash-injection.”

How Europe ended up paying industry for carbon capture and storage.

Interactive: Global greenhouse gas emissions by country

European Ambitions Hit a Wall of Carbon

Supporters of climate activist group 350.org gather in Kiel, Germany, in October 2009, to pressure leaders in the run-up to Copenhagen.

Business, industry pare back EU climate goals.

Video: The alternative energy policy

Industry officials are arriving in droves today to take part in what’s being pegged as the seminal global event on climate change. The place is expected to fill with representatives of traditional carbon-intensive industries, like oil and coal. But the first to set up their exhibit booths at the conference center in Copenhagen are largely those whose voices have been drowned out — the people representing wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources.

Read more about Video: The alternative energy policy

India

India struggles to confront climate change

A billion people, a growing economy, and rising emissions.

Brazil

Caught between competing interests in Brazil

Plentiful oil, politics, in addition to fast growth, all making it tough to reduce carbon emissions.

China

A climate dilemma for China

The world leader in economic growth and carbon emissions faces competing forces.

Think global, lobby local

BINGOs and the global lobbyist

Industry climate change reps “loitering” instead of lobbying.

Washington, DC

A case of lowered expectations in the US

Todd Stern, chief U.S. climate negotiator, answers reporters’ questions after a Sept. 2009 congressional hearing on progress in the Copenhagen talks. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo

Washington gets serious about climate, but businesses push to curb U.S. commitments.

Australia

“Brown down” in Australia

Business interests thwart carbon controls on the hottest, driest continent.

Lowered expectations

Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen

A carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in Germany. Energy giants are lobbying for further funding to support development of the technology, which has many skeptics.

How industry pressures and national agendas dim prospects for a climate treaty.

Data, team, and funding

About This Project: The Global Climate Change Lobby

Starting in July 2009, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists fielded an eight-country team of reporters to uncover the special interests attempting to influence negotiations on a global climate change treaty.

Relying on more than 200 interviews, lobbying and campaign contribution records in a half-dozen countries, and on-the-ground reporting from Beijing to Brussels, our team pieced together the story of a far-reaching, multinational backlash by fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters aimed at slowing progress on control of greenhouse gas emissions.

Key Findings

Both developed and developing countries are under heavy pressure by fossil fuel industries and other carbon-intensive businesses to slow progress on negotiations and weaken government commitments.
China’s moves to hasten development of renewable energy, Brazil’s pledges to curb Amazon deforestation, and other steps to address climate change in the developing world have prompted a strong pushback from domestic in-country interests determined to maintain the status quo.
Instead of a broad frontal assault on the climate science that marked the pre-Kyoto battles, lobbyists seeking to dilute the Copenhagen treaty have changed strategy, acknowledging there is a problem while focusing on slowing or easing national commitments.
Powerful corporations are fielding multinational efforts to influence the debate, such as Peabody Coal, the world’s largest coal company, in Australia and the United States; and oil giant Exxon Mobil in Canada, the European Union, and the United States. Although largely operating at a national level, opponents of a strong climate change treaty are employing similar fear tactics worldwide, including threats of massive blackouts and job losses.
The voices of scores of business advocates for stronger climate change policy, including alternative energy companies and would-be players in the carbon market, can barely be heard above the clamor of the older, well-capitalized, and deeply entrenched industries that have been lobbying on climate change for more than 20 years.
As a result of the forces arrayed against stricter emissions limits, no developed nation has made a firm pledge for the kind of emissions cut scientists say will be needed within the next decade to stave off catastrophic climate change.

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International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

The World’s Best Cross-Border Investigative Team

The Global Climate Change Lobby

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