The COP19 Guide to Corporate Lobbying Climate crooks and the Polish government’s partners in crime The COP19 Guide to Corporate Lobbying Climate crooks and the Polish government’s partners in crime Published by: Corporate Europe Observatory Transnational Institute October 2013 Research and writing: Rachel Tansey, with contributions from Karolina Jankowska, Nina Holland and Belén Balanyá Many thanks to Lyda Fernanda Forero, Pascoe Sabido and Belén Balanyá for comments and feedback. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s yearly talks have become a “must attend” event for huge numbers of business and industry lobbyists, all eager to promote their preferred “solution” to tackling climate change – solutions which protect their business interests, provide them with new opportunities to profit and most importantly of all, allow them to continue polluting the climate and destroying the environment for everyone. False solutions to climate change have been promoted by powerful corporations and business interests for years, from a free market in pollution - a global carbon market that helps rich companies avoid emission cuts at source – to public funding for controversial technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS), nuclear power and agrofuels which have been shown to harm people and the planet. This year marks the 19th session of the UNFCCC’s Conference of the Parties (COP19), and the climate talks are taking place in the Polish capital of Warsaw, 11-22 November 2013. Poland’s government is renowned for its procoal, anti-climate stance. It is now infamous, together with other EU member states, for its blocking of more ambitious EU climate and energy policy, including increasing energy efficiency, renewables and emission reductions targets, and for pushing for the exploitation of shale gas and so called “clean coal.” COP19 is taking place against a backdrop of huge numbers of corporate side events, many given an extra boost of importance by official links with the Polish COP’s organisers. The Pre-COP, a crucially important moment of the negotiations, included an unprecedented “business day”. COP19 is also the first UN climate talks to have corporate sponsorship, with some of the biggest climate crooks as official ‘partners’, including ArcelorMittal, Alstom and BMW. The Polish Ministry of Economy has even teamed up with the World Coal Association to put on a parallel “International Coal and Climate Summit”, whose joint “Warsaw Communiqué” is simply a blunt call for more coal and CCS, wrapped in the language of sustainable development. Added to that, notorious big business – and anti-climate lobbies – have lined up to attend the Warsaw COP. All in all, this year’s UN climate talks are set to be the most corporate captured yet, at a time when genuine progress towards real climate action is more vital than ever. COP19 is a critical point on the road to Paris 2015, when a new, binding global climate deal must be reached, but it is at COP19 that countries need to commit to having concrete emissions reduction targets ready by next year’s COP in Peru, as well as lay the foundations for the new deal in 2015. Big business, industry and finance, keen to set the agenda and shape the rules in the interests of their profits – and at the expense of climate justice – have infiltrated COP19. This guide to the web of corporate lobbying and industry capture will expose the eleven official corporate partners of the conference, take a look at some of the other influential Polish lobbies, and examine an extensive (though non-exhaustive) list of the lobby groups attending the COP, according to the sector they represent. These sectors include fossil fuels, cross-sectoral big business groups, carbon market and financial players, agribusiness and agrofuels, as well as some of the big polluting industries. Throughout the lobby guide you’ll also find boxes on the false solutions that are being offered up by these corporate lobbies, such as shale gas (extracted through hydraulic fracturing), carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon markets. Big business is attempting to disguise its so-called ‘solutions’ as green, when in fact they serve their narrow economic interests whilst jeopardising real, effective and fair climate action. The real alternatives are clear: we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, ensure a just transition towards a post-fossil fuel society, based on community-owned decentralised renewable energy, social justice, equity and an end to the exploitation of resources and people. 3 The big fossils: oil, gas and coal lobbies The fossil fuel lobby - power companies that rely primarily on the exploitation of oil, gas and coal, and the numerous associations, groups and think tanks that they work through - will be heavily present at COP19. Worryingly, with its corporate partners including fossil fuel giants Alstom, PGE and Lotos, the Warsaw COP has already gone a step further in embracing companies that have everything to gain from climate inaction. Two other fossil fuel companies with strong ties to the Polish government, the state-owned Coal Company and Katowice Coal Holding, are detailed in the ‘Powerful players in Polish lobbying’ section, while some of the other oil, gas and coal lobbies registered to attend COP191 are examined below. 1. UNFCCC, ‘COP19 Admitted NGOs’, http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo. pl?sort=const.og_name, accessed October 2013 2. IPIECA website, ‘Membership’, http://www.ipieca.org/membership, accessed October 2013 3. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘Polish government’s official climate website in (volcanic) hot water after giving platform to climate deniers’, 11 October 2013, http://corporateeurope.org/blog/ polish-governments-official-climatewebsite-volcanic-hot-water-aftergiving-platform-climate, accessed October 2013 4. Shell, ‘Shell in the Arctic’, http://www. shell.com/global/future-energy/arctic. html, accessed October 2013 5. Polluter Watch, ‘Royal Dutch Shell’, http://www.polluterwatch.com/royaldutch-shell, accessed October 2013 6. New York Times, ‘Russia Embraces Offshore Arctic Drilling’, http://www. nytimes.com/2011/02/16/business/ global/16arctic.html?_r=2&ref=world& and Polluter Watch, ‘BP’, http://www. polluterwatch.com/bp, accessed October 2013 7. World Coal Association, ‘Corporate Members’, http://www.worldcoal. org/about-wca/corporate-members/, accessed October 2013 8. World Coal Association, ‘About’, http://www.worldcoal.org/about-wca, accessed October 2013 9. World Coal Association, ‘The Warsaw Communiqué’, http://www.worldcoal. org/extract/the-warsaw-communique/, accessed October 2013 10. REDD-Monitor, ‘Climate change is “unequivocal” says the IPCC. Could someone tell the UNFCCC?’ by Chris Lang, 27 September 2013, http://www. redd-monitor.org/2013/09/27/climatechange-is-unequivocal-says-theipcc-could-someone-tell-the-unfccc/, accessed October 2013 11. See for example, Corporate Europe Observatory, http://corporateeurope. org/pressreleases/2010/how-industrywon-eu-subsidies-ccs, NOAH, http:// ccs-info.org/, accessed October 2013 4 International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) The International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) is the formal oil and gas industry channel into the UN; IPIECA attempts to promote an image of an environmental and socially responsible industry, but its members, including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Repsol, Saudi Aromco, Shell, Statoil and Total,2 represent some of the world’s biggest polluters, companies that have lobbied against effective climate action for decades – and continue to do so. ExxonMobil for example has worked hard to amplify the voice of climate deniers, with a Greenpeace report showing it has given $22 million to climate-sceptic groups between 1998 and 2011.3 Shell, deaf to environmental warnings from governments, has jumped at the chance to open the Arctic up to oil drilling,4 as well as continuing its harmful practice of gas flaring and the environmentally devastating and emissions-intensive tar sands.5 BP, even after its disgraceful negligence over the BP DeepWater Horizon disaster, has partnered with the Russian state-owned Rosneft to begin offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean.6 Clearly, the word “conservation” has no place in IPIECA’s name, just as the companies comprising it should have no place at the climate-policy-making table. World Coal Association The World Coal Association (WCA) is a global coal industry association, including ArchCoal, Glencore, General Electric, Rio Tinto and Katowice Coal Holding (see Katowice’s entry).7 WCA’s core goal is “acceptance for the fundamental role coal plays in achieving a sustainable and lower carbon energy future”.8 For COP19, the WCA has officially joined up with the Polish Ministry of Economy to host the “International Coal and Climate Summit” on 18th-19th November, inside the Ministry’s Warsaw office. Together they have launched a joint ‘Warsaw Communique’, which calls for the use of highly-polluting but ironicallynamed high-efficiency ‘low-emissions’ coal combustion technologies (but only where it is economically and technically feasible) as a step to lowering emissions, until “the deployment of carbon capture utilisation and storage technologies, once demonstrated and commercialised.”9 The communiqué also calls for development banks to help developing countries get their hands on this ‘clean coal’ as a way of driving electrification, despite its proven failure in providing energy access and dire environmental and health impacts. It is a blunt attempt to keep the coal industry in business while governments and tax payers continue to foot the bill for the damage it causes to people, their environment and the climate. As REDD-Monitor notes, “renaming ‘coal’ as ‘clean coal’ is about the only acknowledgement that the World Coal Association makes of the dangers of climate change.”10 (See False Solutions: Carbon Capture and Storage box). Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) FA L S E SOLUTIONS ! Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technology that, in theory, would capture CO2 from (fossil fuel) power plants, and transport it to sites for “permanent” storage by injecting it into underground geographical formations. CCS technology is not expected to be ready before 2020 and not on a commercial scale before 2030, yet it is being aggressively pushed by the fossil fuel industry as the panacea to climate change. This is because it would not only allow them to continue burning fossil fuels, but reap billions of dollars of public money to fund pilot projects and carry out research. Pushing CCS means pushing for new coal, oil and gas power stations with the hope that in a decade or two they can suck out all the CO2 and store it somewhere underground, where they hope it will stay, forever. CCS’ long-term effectiveness, feasibility, cost, health and safety, environmental impact and crucially, its time-scale, are all hugely controversial and potentially dangerous. The potential damage of applying this kind of technology should be more than enough reason to stop trying to deploy it. Developing CCS locks us into continued fossil fuel use and all the negative consequences for local communities and environments affected by extraction, not to mention the climate, at the expense of investments into real solutions like community-owned decentralised renewable energy and ending the use of fossil fuels.11 European Union of the Natural Gas Industry (EUROGAS) EUROGAS represent the interests of the gas industry “towards European and global stakeholders”, and its members include big time climate culprits Total, Shell, RWE, GDF Suez, E.ON, Eni, Dong Energy and BP.12 Lobbying for “a robust European gas market”13, it argues that “policy towards shale gas should be determined by what is best for our customers’ welfare. As always, this means that economics and security of supply should be in the driving seat.”14 The serious health, environment and climate impacts of shale gas are well-documented (see False Solutions: Shale gas), but according to EUROGAS they’re not a serious concern to the public. EUROGAS member and Polish gas giant PGNiG – which holds most of the country’s shale gas exploration licenses15 – is renowned for using astro-turf campaigns to give shale gas the appearance of public support. For example, in November 2012, the day before a key vote in the European Parliament about the environmental impacts and future of shale gas, the socalled “Citizens Coalition for Responsible Energy” put on a cocktail exhibition entitled “How Shale gas will transform Europe?” inside the Parliament building, unashamedly promoting shale gas in the name of Europe’s citizens. What the propaganda exhibition didn’t show was that this “Citizens Coalition” was in fact funded by PGNiG, together with COP19 partner LOTOS.16 PGNiG also has ambitions of drilling in the Arctic.17 Union of the Electricity Industry (EURELECTRIC) The Union of the Electricity Industry (EURELECTRIC) is the European electricity industry lobby, and its business members include General Electric, Areva and two of COP19’s official partners – and biggest polluters – Alstom and PGE. EURELECTRIC’s president is the CEO of energy giant E.ON, which has recently gained exploration licenses for Arctic oil drilling.18 EURELECTRIC is a staunch supporter of market-based mechanisms like the EU ETS, which has given electricity companies huge windfall profits, arguing that “it is not the ETS, but rather taxes and the burden of expensive renewables subsidy policies that are today causing end-user electricity costs for society as a whole to rise”.19 12. EUROGAS, ‘Our Members’, http:// www.eurogas.org/about-us/ourmembers/, accessed October 2013 13. EUROGAS, ‘Our mission, vision, objectives’, http://www.eurogas. org/about-us/our-mission-visionobjectives/, accessed October 2013 14. EUROGAS, ‘Unconventional/Shale Gas:Policy Recommendations’, February 2012, http://www.eurogas. org/uploads/media/Position_Paper_ Eurogas_Policy_recommandations_ on_Unconventional_Gas_20.02.12. pdf, accessed October 2013 15. www.worldenergyoutlook.org/ goldenrules/#d.en.27023 , accessed October 2013 16. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘Citi-zens coalition or industry frontgroup? Covert lobby for shale gas enters European Parliament’, 25 November 2012, http://corporate europe.org/climate-and-energy/20 12/11/citizens-coalition-or-industryfrontgroup-covert-lobby-shale-gasenters, accessed October 2013 17. PGNIG, ‘2012 Annual Report,’ http:// www.pgnig.pl/reports/annualreport 2012/en/ar-grupa-segment-1.html, accessed October 2013 18. EURELECTRIC, ‘Comments on the revision of the carbon leakage list’, August 2013, http://www. eurelectric.org/media/86091/ eurelectric_comments_on_the_ revision_of_the_carbon_leakage_ list-final-2013-030-0564-01-e.pdf, accessed October 2013 19. EURELECTRIC submission to UNFCCC on Inclusion of CCS in Clean Development project activities, https://cdm.unfccc.int/about/ccs/ docs/ccs_eur.pdf, accessed October 2013 5 Shale Gas and Fracking FA L S E SOLUTIONS ! Shale gas is methane gas trapped in sedimentary rock deep underground, and is extracted by a process known as hydraulic fracturing – ‘fracking’ – which involves drilling deep wells into the ground and pumping a mixture of water, toxic chemicals and sand at high pressure, to fracture the rock and force the gas trapped in it to the surface. Fracking has well-documented disastrous social and environmental consequences: movements opposing shale gas have arisen in every corner of the globe, as communities rally against the pollution of their ground water and land with poisonous chemicals and methane, and localised earthquakes. Not to mention the high greenhouse gas emissions due to the energy intensive extraction process and methane leakage. Poland itself had witnessed grassroots resistance from local farmers and residents to companies such as Chevron threatening to contaminate their land and water with shale gas exploration.20 Other unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and shale oil, are also associated with appalling human rights abuses and environmental destruction, as well as higher emissions than conventional fossil fuels. At a time when it is vital for the climate that we keep the fossil fuels in the ground, as the IPCC’s fifth assessment report confirms, energy companies are pushing for the exploitation of ever-more inaccessible, expensive and polluting sources of hydrocarbons. Instead of taking the steps necessary to kick the habit, turning to unconventional fossil fuels now makes limiting a global temperature increase to an already-insufficient two degrees impossible, taking us well into the realm of ecosystem devastation and catastrophic climate change.21 20. EJOLT, ‘Fracking: activists occupy Chevron in Poland’, 14 June 2013, http://www.ejolt.org/2013/06/frackingactivists-occupy-chevron-in-poland/, accessed October 2013 21. See for example, Friends of the Earth Europe, ‘Shale gas: unconventional and unwanted’, September 2012, http:// www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/ files/publications/foee_shale_gas_ unconventional_unwanted_0.pdf, accessed October 2013 22. The Guardian, ‘Centrica, E.ON and RWE lead Arctic rush for oil’, 4 July 2013, www.theguardian.com/ environment/2013/jul/04/uk-energycompanies-arctic-oil, accessed October 2013 23. CCS Association, ‘Our Members’, http:// www.ccsassociation.org/about-us/ourmembers/, accessed October 2013 24. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘CCS “getting it right in Copenhagen”,’ 8 October 2009, http://corporateeurope. org/climate-and-energy/2009/10/ ccs-getting-it-right-copenhagen and ‘EU billions to keep burning fossil fuels’, 14 December 2010, http:// corporateeurope.org/news/eubillions-keep-burning-fossil-fuels, and ‘How industry won EU subsidies for CCS’, http://corporateeurope.org/ pressreleases/2010/how-industrywon-eu-subsidies-ccs, accessed October 2013 25. www.ccsassociation.org/index.php/ download_file/view/327/97/, accessed October 2013 6 Power companies gained windfall profits estimated at €19 billion in phase l of the ETS while customer bills continued to soar, and were expected to rake in €71 billion by the end of phase ll – so its no wonder EURELECTRIC is trying to shift the burden of negative public opinion onto renewables, whilst keeping carbon prices low. It is also vocal in lobbying for the expansion of the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), after successfully lobbying the UNFCCC to include CCS – i.e. new coal power stations – for CDM credits.22 Business as usual, while the planet cooks. Carbon Capture and Storage Association The Carbon Capture and Storage Association represents the key players in carbon capture and storage, from fossil fuel and power companies to finance and manufacturers. Its members include Shell, BP, Vattenfall, GDF Suez, Zurich Financial Services Group, Siemens and E.ON, not to mention official COP19 partner Alstom.23 An impressive list for an industry and technology that remains barely more than theoretical, and decades away from commercial viability or widespread deployment. (See False Solutions: Carbon Capture and Storage box). The CCS industry has lobbied so ef- fectively to promote CCS as a solution to climate change, through channels like the Zero Emissions Platform, and with a helping hand from close-to-industry think tanks like Bellona and E3G, that it has received billions of euros of EU public money.24 The Carbon Capture and Storage Association lobbied for the inclusion of CCS in the CDM (see False Solutions: Carbon Markets box), and warmly welcomed its ‘success’ after COP17, at winning CDM credits for new CCS coal plants - a bizarre and extremely dangerous way of rewarding new coal with “offsetting” credits that are supposed to reduce emissions!25 Cross-sectoral big business and industry lobbies Big business knows that successful lobbying requires getting its message through as many channels as possible, to build up the appearance of legitimacy. Which is why, as well as lobbying directly, companies join their particular industry’s associations, employ lobby consultancies, and fund think tanks and front groups to help disseminate their messages. But they also represent their interests through cross-sectoral business platforms, the prominence of which is particularly evident at the climate negotiations. All of the following cross-sectoral lobbies are signed up to attend COP19, alongside many more.26 BusinessEurope BusinessEurope, the European employers’ confederation, is one of the most powerful EU-level business lobbies. Aside from national employers associations, its direct business members include Unilever, Pfizer, Phillip Morris International, BASF, Rio Tinto, Microsoft, Lukoil, Shell and BP, as well as COP19 partners Alstom, ArcelorMittal and BMW.27 These companies “enjoy an important status”, setting the agenda and policies of the lobby group. BusinessEurope enjoys systematic privileged access to EU decision makers, and makes extensive use of the revolving door between public officials and private lobby firms, gaining valuable inside knowledge, contacts and know-how.28 With an army of lobbyists, it is infamous for trying to block, weaken and/or delay just about every environmental measure proposed. It lobbied intensively to undermine efforts to make the EU ETS more ambitious, successfully scaring policy makers with tales of increased costs forcing companies to relocate production, resulting in carbon leakage (i.e. emissions will just increase outside Europe to neutralise its own efforts). As a result, it secured free permits for 77% of the European manufacturing sector until 2020,29 worth billions in windfall profits every year. BusinessEurope was successful at preventing an increase of the EU’s 2020 emissions reduction target from 20% to 30%, with European Parliament sources naming BusinessEurope as one of the worst, most aggressive lobbies. It has close ties with other industry and business lobbies, enabling coordinated repetition of their goals; the head of its climate change working group, Nick Campbell30 from chemical company Arkema, used to simultaneously chair the climate group of chemicals lobby CEFIC31 and the Climate Change Task Force of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)32 (see their entries in the guide). BusinessEurope, with its Polish member Confederation Lewiatan, has already had unprecedented access to policy makers at the pre-COP in Warsaw (see Lewiatan’s entry). BusinessEurope’s standard line for the climate negotiations is that it supports an international agreement, but only one that covers all competitors – including emergent economies and countries in the global South – and applies the same targets to all. Which, because of different historical responsibilities and current capabilities, is a position that de facto blocks an equitable and ambitious agreement. BusinessEurope’s declared COP19 wish list includes a heavy neo-liberal agenda of free and open carbon markets, as well as working through the World Trade Organization to “eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers and avoid protectionism linked to climate change” - i.e. stopping countries supporting their domestic renewables industries through policies like feed-in tariffs. It wants a global carbon market which enables “sectors to reduce their emissions in a technology-neutral way” - i.e. by developing nuclear, shale and CCS - beginning with the expansion of the environmentally and socially disastrous CDM (see False Solutions: Carbon Markets box). BusinessEurope is also demanding institutionalised access for big business to the UNFCCC (which we already saw at the Pre-COP), and the strict protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) around the use and development of climate-friendly technology – which stops the transfer of clean technology to countries in the global South that could help them avoid following the same dirty development pathways of the North.33 IPRs are one way, amongst others, that multinationals seek to control production (and profit), even at the cost of the human rights to health and food, for example. 26. UNFCCC, ‘COP19 Admitted NGOs’, http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo. pl?sort=const.og_name,, accessed October 2013 27. BusinessEurope, ‘Partner Companies’, http://www.businesseurope.eu/content/ default.asp?PageID=604, accessed October 2013 28. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘RevolvingDoorWatch: Marten Westrup’, http://corporateeurope.org/ revolvingdoorwatch/cases/m-rtenwestrup-0, accessed October 2013 29. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘The corporate lobbies in Copenhagen’, December 2009, http://corporateeurope. org/news/corporate-lobbies-copenhagen, accessed October 2013 30. BusinessEurope, ‘Policy committees and working group’, http://www. businesseurope.eu/content/default. asp?PageID=603, accessed October 2013 31. Nick Campbell bio, http://62.50.73.67/web/ bali/nick.htm, accessed October 2013 32. ICC, ‘ICC team delivers at UN climate talks’, 2 December 2010, http://www.iccwbo.org/ News/Articles/2010/ICC-team-delivers-atUN-climate-talks/, accessed October 2013 33. BusinessEurope, ‘European Business Key Messages For Pre-COP Meeting, Warsaw, 2nd October 2013’, http://www. businesseurope.eu/content/default. asp?PageID=568&DocID=32152, accessed October 2013 7 FA L S E Carbon Markets SOLUTIONS ! Carbon markets do not take account of the principles of climate justice, but attempt to put a price on, and profit from, ecological services such as carbon sequestration. This leads to a privatisation of the atmosphere – a common good – whilst ignoring the climate debt owed to those people and countries who did least to cause the problem but are, and will be, worst affected by it. Carbon trading has a disastrous track record since its adoption as part of the Kyoto Protocol. Cap and Trade Cap and trade is one of the main forms of emissions trading (the other is offsetting). It is based on the idea of trading greenhouse gas emissions allowances, or permits to pollute, which are limited in number by an overall cap. The capand-trade system is presented by its proponents as a “cost-effective” way of reducing emissions. In practice, it has failed to reduce emissions while rewarding major polluters with windfall profits, all the while undermining genuine efforts to reduce pollution and achieve a more equitable and sustainable economy. Clean Development Mechanism The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the UNFCCC’s largest offsets market mechanisms (the other is Joint Implementation, focused on Central and Eastern Europe). The CDM encourages rich countries and companies to pay for carbon reductions in developing countries. Such projects are supposed to be “additional” – they would not have otherwise happened without the investment from the CDM - but in many cases it has been demonstrated that the claimed projects in developing countries would have happened anyway, thereby resulting in a net increase in emissions. In other words, companies in the North continue to pollute the atmosphere, while taking credit for something that would have happened without their involvement. CDM projects, which include coal plants, large hydro projects and monoculture plantations, have seriously damaged local communities and environments in the global south and led to manifest human rights abuses. According to Carbon Trade Watch, a majority of the largest “project developers” are financial consultancies, and “the majority of credits are purchased for use in the EU Emissions Trading System, or by banks and financial services companies for speculation.”34 The CDM is not about cutting emissions but making (financial) corporations richer. EU Emissions Trading Scheme The Emission’s Trading Scheme (ETS) is the EU’s regional carbon market and flagship climate policy, and the world’s largest carbon market. Since its inception, the ETS’s permeability to industry lobbyists has ensured it is so full of loopholes that polluters can avoid making any domestic emissions reductions. As well as avoiding making the necessary structural changes towards decarbonisation, the free and excessive numbers of emissions allowances have enabled polluters to make billions of euros of windfall profits, in some case scandalously passing on the costs of the allowances to consumers, as if they had been paid for. Some corporate lobbies are trying to ensure the ETS remains full of loopholes and the carbon price stays low, and so are opposing reform proposals like backloading, which would temporarily remove excess permits to pollute and theoretically induce a higher carbon price. Groups like BusinessEurope and energyintensive industry lobbies like EUROFER and CEMBUREAU push for a weak ETS in order to use it as a shield against other, more effective climate policies. Other industry actors, including many energy companies and those with an interest in CCS, like Shell, support a stronger ETS, both in order to make high profits through speculative trading, as well as wanting a higher carbon price in order to make CCS viable. 34. Carbon Trade Watch, ‘Carbon Offsets’, http://www.carbontradewatch.org/ issues/carbon-offsets.html, accessed October 2013 35. http://scrap-the-euets.makenoise. org/, accessed October 2013 36. See FERN, CEO, TNI et al, ‘EU ETS myth busting: Why it can’t be reformed and shouldn’t be replicated’, April 2013, http://scrap-the-euets. makenoise.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/04/Myths_internet.pdf, accessed October 2013 8 With or without reform – both of which serve the interests of polluting industry, false solutions and a continued fossil-fuel system – the ETS is not working to prevent climate change, but to line the pockets of polluters. Recognising that the existence of the ETS is blocking and undermining more direct, ambitious, and socially just policies, over 140 civil society organisations have signed a declaration calling for the EU to scrap the EU ETS35. Trying to ‘fix’ the ETS, broken from the start, diverts attention and resources away from policy instruments that have been shown to work, such as feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, redirecting public subsidies from fossil-fuels to low-carbon infrastructure and improving energy efficiency and savings.36 The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a club of CEOs of multinational corporations, claiming to work for “a sustainable future for business, society and the environment.”37 Its 200 members have a combined revenue of over $7 trillion,38 including many companies with well-documented records of human rights and environmental abuse, such as Shell, GDF Suez, Duke Energy, Veolia, Vale, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, E.ON, BP and Rio Tinto.39 COP19 partners Alstom, ArcelorMittal, BMW and International Paper are also members. WBSCD was founded on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit40 “to ensure the business voice was heard”, and since then has successfully pioneered the re-branding of corporations as part of the solution to climate change and sustainability. In practice, WBCSD has opposed legally binding environmental and social standards for corporate activities at every major international UN summit, undermining momentum for effective international solutions to solve global environmental and social problems. It advocates a global carbon market, voluntary sectoral agreements for industry, agrofuels, nuclear energy and CCS (see False Solutions boxes). WBCSD has, since 2007, organised a Global Business Day at each COP – a mammoth lobbying opportunity for thousands of business delegates. For COP19, it has joined forces with another business platform, World Climate Ltd, to organize the ‘World Climate Summit – Warsaw Business Day’, taking place on 17-18 November in Warsaw’s Marriott hotel.41 With the tagline “Climate Solutions”, the event will discuss market mechanisms, public private partnerships (PPPs) and host a workshop entitled “Driving profits while reducing carbon”42 – priorities which stand in stark contrast to the demands of negotiators from the global South and those worst hit by the effects of climate change. Nonetheless, this lucrative business event’s highprofile speakers include Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary and the Global Head of Carbon Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch43 – the third biggest coal financier in the world.44 Invited guests include COP19 partners BMW and Alstom, as well as the WTO, the Climate Group (see entry), Coca Cola and the Financial Times.45 The World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international forum for business leaders, whose members include COP19 partners Kaspersky Lab and ArcelorMittal, oil and gas leviathans BP, Exxon Mobil, Statoil, Total, Shell and Gazprom, as well as Rio Tinto, BASF, Lockheed Martin and Monsanto.46 The Forum’s ‘Task Force on Low-Carbon Prosperity’ focuses on “greening economic growth” and the need to ensure “a high-growth and low-carbon economy.” In practice, this includes pushing for nuclear power, CCS and global carbon markets47. Not surprising given its membership and use of “experts” like Henry Derwent, former CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and Björn Stigson, former President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). WEF’s ‘Green Growth Action Alliance’ produced a report in June 2013 which starts by claiming to dispel “the myth that economic growth and low-carbon, environmentally-sensitive development are competing objectives” and goes on to suggest ways for public money for climate-change mitigation and adaptation to be given to big business, to “leverage significant private sector investment in low carbon infrastructure and adaptation”.48 37. WBCSD website, ‘About’, http://www.wbcsd. org/about.aspx, accessed October 2013 38. WBCSD, ‘WBCSD and World Climate Ltd create a unique forum for business during the UNFCCC COP19, Warsaw Poland’, 24 June 2013, http://www.wbcsd.org/Pages/ eNews/eNewsDetails.aspx?ID=15783&NoS earchContextKey=true, accessed October 2013 39. WBCSD, ‘Members’, http://www.wbcsd. org/about/members/members-list-region. aspx, accessed October 2013 40. In 1992 the Business Council for Sustainable Development was established, and in 1995 it merged with WICE, the World Industry Council for the Environment, to form the WBCSD 41. WBCSD, ‘WBCSD and World Climate Ltd create a unique forum for business during the UNFCCC COP19, Warsaw Poland’, 24 June 2013, http://www.wbcsd.org/Pages/ eNews/eNewsDetails.aspx?ID=15783&No SearchContextKey=true, and World Climate Ltd., ‘Climate Solutions 2013 – UNFCCC COP19’, http://www.wclimate.com/ category/events/, accessed October 2013 42. WBSCD Business Day and World Climate Summit, ‘Climate Solutions’, http://www.wclimate.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/09/Climate-SolutionsProgramme-10.9.2013.pdf, accessed October 2013 43. WBSCD Business Day and World Climate Summit, ‘Climate Solutions: SPEAKERS’, http://www.wclimate.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/09/Speakers-+-9.9.2013.pdf, accessed October 2013 44. Based on list of ‘Top 20 Banks financing coal fired electricity and coal mining since 2005’, p. 15 of ‘Bankrolling Climate Change’ report, 2009, published by urgewald, groundWork, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg and BankTrack, http://www.banktrack.org/ download/bankrolling_climate_change/ climatekillerbanks_final_0.pdf, accessed October 2013 45. WBSCD Business Day and World Climate Summit, ‘Climate Solutions’, http://www.wclimate.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/09/Delegatebrochure_09.09.2013-with-social-mediabuttons.pdf, accessed October 2013 46. WEF website, ‘Industry partner groups’, http://www.weforum.org/industry-partnergroups, accessed October 2013 47. WEF website, ‘Climate Change’, http:// www.weforum.org/issues/climate-change and WEF, ‘Task Force on Low-Carbon Prosperity: Policy Recommendations’, 2009, http://www.weforum.org/pdf/ climate/SummaryRecommendations_ TFLowCarbonProsperity.pdf, accessed October 2013 48. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/IP/2013/ ENVI/GreenGrowthActionAlliance_2013.pdf, accessed October 2013 9 49. http://www3.weforum. org/docs/GAC/2013/ WEF_GAC_ClimateChange_ MidtermReport.pdf, accessed October 2013 50. ERT website, ‘Members’, http://www.ert.eu/members, accessed October 2013 51. ERT website, ‘Working groups’, http://www.ert.eu/working_ groups, accessed October 2013 52. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘Industry hits carbon leakage jackpot’ May 2010, http:// corporateeurope.org/climateand-energy/2010/05/ industry-hits-carbon-leakagejackpot and The Guardian, ‘Industry threats to relocate over carbon targets exposed as ‘misleading’’, 24 May 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2010/may/24/ industry-relocate-carbontargets-misleading, both accessed October 2013 53. ERT, ‘Energy and Climate Change :Developing a sustainable energy economy for Europe, tackling climate change and maintaining competitiveness’ November 2010, ‘http://www.ert.eu/ sites/default/files/ECC%20 Report%20FINAL%20 VERSION%20A4.pdf, accessed October 2013 54. ERT website, ‘Climate Change’, http://www.ert.eu/issue/ climate-change, accessed October 2013 55. ERT website, ‘Climate Change’, http://www.ert.eu/issue/ climate-change, accessed October 2013 Nuclear Energy Even more worryingly, WEF – representative of the never-ending self-interest of big business and the super-rich – has gone into partnership with the UNFCCC – the international body tasked with getting genuine and just global action on climate. Together, they are “to launch a pillar entitled Innovative Financing for Climatefriendly Investment under the UNFCCC Momentum for Change Initiative.”49 Put simply, this “innovative financing” is another way to make money from climate change and a triumph for business interests painting themselves as part of the solution, when their very business models are at the root of the problem. (See False Solutions: Green Economy and Technology Focus box) The European Round Table of Industrialists The European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) group is an exclusive club of (almost exclusively male) leaders of the biggest European multinationals, including Rolls-Royce, BP, Total, BASF, Titan Cement, GDF Suez and COP19 partner BMW.50 The ERT climate working group is chaired by Bruno Lafont, the CEO of Lafarge Cement51 – a company which spearheaded the wildly exaggerated threats of ‘carbon leakage’ from EU climate policies (see BusinessEurope’s entry).52 Prior to this, it was chaired by Shell’s former CEO Jeroen van der Veer. ERT’s position on the climate negotiations focuses on protecting the competitiveness of European industry. Like BusinessEurope (with whom it shares many members), it lobbied hard against increasing EU emissions reductions targets from 20% to 30%, as well as pushing nuclear energy and public financing for new technologies like CCS. It also lobbies for strong protection of intellectual FA L S E property53 and for a global carbon market, claiming that carbon markets “deliver CO2 reductions at the lowest cost”54 – despite the evidence that they do not deliver CO2 reductions at all (see False Solutions: Carbon Markets box). At COP19, ERT is pushing for “a continued and modified Clean Development Mechanism” plus industry involvement in developing the framework for the ‘technology mechanism’ (which is supposed to increase the transfer of technology from North to South), and the financing of the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) of developing countries through the Green Climate Fund, i.e. how developing country emissions reductions are funded.55 In other words, ERT wants industry to have a seat at the climate table, helping shape the rules on financing climate mitigation and adaptation in the global South to ensure they serve the interests of a few very rich men. Even if it results in climate and human disaster. SOLUTIONS ! Nuclear energy has for decades been opposed because of its inherent risks, costs and the hazardous radioactive waste it creates, for which there is no safe or permanent disposal, not to mention the social and environmental costs of extraction. The nuclear industry has however heralded climate change as its saviour, using the challenges of decarbonizing our economy to argue for more nuclear energy, despite the fact that nuclear energy, like fossil fuels, has unacceptable social and environmental consequences, poses huge risks and makes waste that future generations have no say over. Previous nuclear accidents (like Fukushima, Japan in March 2011) show that the risks of disastrous impacts should be enough reason to stop trying to develop nuclear energy. 10 The Climate Group The Climate Group claims to “drive bold climate action through our network of business, government and thought leaders”.56 Set up in 2004, it brings together polluting, exploitative and irresponsible companies – such as Duke Energy, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Veolia and Rupert Murdoch’s notoriously climate sceptic media empire News Corporation – with government partners.57 The World Bank and the UN Global Compact are also partners of the Climate Group. In June 2012 the Climate Group launched the “The Clean Revolution Campaign”, during the Rio+20 Earth Summit, with the help of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair .58 One ‘Clean Revolution’ briefing explains that “without the cost-effective commercialization of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the short to medium term, the use of unconventional gas will be limited to a brief, transitory role” - not only is it advocating CCS and unconventional fossil fuels, but it wants environmentally and socially destructive shale gas to be a permanent feature of our energy system!59 (See False Solutions boxes). Another briefing argues that “now is not the time to jump off the carbon pricing bandwagon.”60 The Climate Group works closely with other business lobbies, including the International Emissions Trading Association (see entry in the guide). It is also a strategic partner to the UN Global Compact’s “Caring for Climate Business Forum” held during COP19, on 19-20 November (see entry for Foundation for the Global Compact). The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) One of the most influential corporate drivers of international trade and investment deregulation, the International Chamber of Commerce is a powerful player on the global climate scene. It is comprised of national chambers of commerce, business associations and corporate members, including many of the world’s biggest polluters. The ICC has privileged access to both national governments and to international bodies including the UN, G8 and WTO. Until this year, it co-organiseed the COP Global Business Day with the WBCSD (see its entry). They have been increasingly successful at co-opting the UN into its agenda of putting profit-driven corporations at the centre of any ‘solution’ to climate change, and this self-interested spin has now become part of the mainstream rhetoric. ICC chairman Harold McGraw III is CEO of financial intelligence company McGraw Hill Financial, whose brands include Standard & Poor’s Rating Services and S&P Dow Jones Indices.61 With the might of global finance sitting behind it, the ICC’s idea of a climate agreement pivots around carbon markets, government funding for new technologies (such as CCS), and the protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).62 The ICC wants to see a global agreement that covers all major emitters, regardless of historical responsibility and equity, the principles underpinning climate justice but which the US and other major polluters are fighting against. 56. The Climate Group website, http://www.theclimategroup.org/, accessed October 2013 57. The Climate Group, ‘Network’, http://www.theclimategroup.org/ what-we-do/network/, accessed October 2013 58. The Climate Group, ‘The Clean Revolution’, http://www. theclimategroup.org/the-cleanrevolution/, accessed October 2013 59. The Climate Group, ‘Unconventional Gas Briefing’, February 2013, http:// thecleanrevolution.org/_assets/ files/Gas-Insight-Briefing-Feb-2013. pdf, accessed October 2013 60. The Climate Group, ‘Carbon Pricing Briefing’, May 2013, http:// thecleanrevolution.org/_assets/ files/May-Insight-Briefing---CarbonPricing.pdf, accessed October 2013 61. ICC website, ‘Executive board’, http://www.iccwbo.org/about-icc/ governance/executive-board/, accessed October 2013 62. ICC, ‘ICC team delivers at UN climate talks’, 2 December 2010, http://www.iccwbo.org/News/ Articles/2010/ICC-team-deliversat-UN-climate-talks/, accessed October 2013 63. Polluter Watch, ‘US Chamber of Commerce’, http://www. polluterwatch.com/us-chambercommerce, accessed October 2013 One of the ICC’s most powerful national members is the US Chamber of Commerce, which claims over three million business members, but gets most of its revenues from the top few, like Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobil and Duke Energy. Some companies, including Apple, Nike and Pacific Gas and Electric, left the Chamber in protest against its climate policy; it has consistently blocked attempts at regulating emissions in the US, and has even called for climate science and the US Environmental Protection Agency to be put “on trial.”63 11 FA L S E “Green Economy” and Technology Focus SOLUTIONS ! The so-called “green economy” is a shift in rhetoric that attempts to appear to incorporate criticisms of the destructive socio-economic model that drives global inequality, resource conflict and climate change, without fundamentally addressing any of its underlying assumptions and drivers. An overwhelming focus on technology (and its accompanying control regime of intellectual property rights - IPRs) like carbon capture and storage (CCS), market-based mechanisms, the “bioeconomy” and “sustainable growth” are all symptomatic of the “green economy”.64 But this re-branding does not address the underlying problems of unequal and unjust power structures, or the economic drivers of environmental destruction and infinite growth in a finite system. More and more social and political movements across the globe, from the climate justice movement to Occupy and Via Campesina, are challenging this discourse and the false promises of the dominant and powerful (see False Solutions: Real Alternatives box). At the COP and in every capital city, corporate lobbyists are demanding political and financial support for technologies they rebrand as “climate-friendly”, such as second generation agrofuels or CCS. These technologies are pseudo solutions and delay real action. Corporations would have us believe that we can continue burning fossil fuels and that technology and markets will save us further down the line, not coincidentally two areas in which corporations are taking the lead as they offer the potential of handsome profits. Unrealistic technofixes are also diverting attention away from the root causes of climate change – our economic and political systems – while perpetuating the myth that they are fighting the problem. 64. See for example, Transnational Institute, ‘’The Green Economy: the Wolf in Sheep’s clothing’, http://www.tni.org/sites/www. tni.org/files/download/green-economy.pdf, accessed October 2013 65. Foundation for the Global Compact website, ‘Relationship with the United Nations’, http://globalcompactfoundation.org/aboutrelations.php and http://globalcompact foundation.org/funding-why.php 66. Foundation for the Global Compact website, ‘2012 Contributors’, http://globalcompact foundation.org/contributors-2012-0.php, accessed October 2013 67. UN Global Compact, ‘UN SecretaryGeneral Opens Historic Leaders Summit on Corporate Citizenship’, 5 July 2007, http://www.unglobalcompact.org/ NewsAndEvents/news_archives/2007 _07_05a.html, accessed October 2013 68. UN Global Compact, ‘Oxfam International and the United Nations Global Compact To Partner on Poverty Assessment Tool’, 17 October 2013, http://www. unglobalcompact.org/news/561-1017-2013, accessed October 2013 69. Caring for Climate website, http://caringfor climate.org/ and UN Global Compact website, ‘Caring for Climate’, http://www.unglobal compact.org/Issues/Environment/Climate_ Change/index.html, accessed October 2013 70. Caring for Climate Business Forum website, ‘A Global Call for Climate Action’, http:// caringforclimate.org/forum/ and ‘Venue’, http://caringforclimate.org/forum/partici pantinfo/venue/, accessed October 2013 71. Caring for Climate Business Forum website, ‘Programme’, http://caringforclimate.org/ forum/programme/ ,accessed October 2013 12 Foundation for the Global Compact (FGC) The Foundation for the Global Compact (FGC) is the fundraising arm of the UN Global Compact; all companies participating are asked to contribute annually.65 In 2012, an annual contribution of over $65,000 each was received from CocaCola, Bayer, Daimler, Nestle, Novartis, Shell and Unilever, amongst others.66 So what are these corporate giants and climate crooks giving money to? The UN Global Compact is a UN body, claiming to be the “world’s largest voluntary corporate citizenship initiative”.67 However, its non-binding nature combined with the appalling track record of many of its members has fuelled wide-spread criticism that the compact gives a cloak of legitimacy to its members, which fail to improve their overall behaviour due to its lack of real substance, monitoring or enforcement. This conundrum led to the term “bluewash”, whereby polluting and exploitative companies gain some appearance of legitimacy through their link to the United Nations, and unfortunately, from groups like Oxfam who have teamed up with the Compact.68 The Global Compact’s ‘Caring for Climate Initiative’, launched in 2007 with UNEP and the UNFCCC and endorsed by around 350 companies,69 is co-hosting a “Caring for Climate Business Forum” during COP19. The forum will be held at Warsaw’s Palace of Science and Culture, with high-level roundtables at the National Stadium, on 19-20 November, and aims to “showcase the contributions that business and investors can make towards climate action while providing a high-level leadership platform with policymakers.”70 This strategy, like that of the WBCSD, picks isolated examples of initiatives by business, and showcases them as “proof” of the overall commitment of that company to responsible social and environmental behaviour, attempting to silence the huge negative impacts of that company’s core activities. Speakers from Dow Chemicals and Confederation Lewiatan (see entry) will take part in the roundtables.71 Among the solutions championed by the initiative are a global carbon market and the expansion of agrofuels. (See False Solutions: Carbon Markets and False Solutions: Agrofuels boxes). The Polish Government’s ‘Partners’ in Crime The Polish presidency of COP19 has officially affiliated the climate talks with a selection of the biggest climate crooks in history – from fossil fuel giants and car companies to aviation and heavy industry. According to the Polish government, the 11 official partners (originally 12) will “help in organizing the COP19 [and] provide substantial support. The products and services they offer are green.”72 Quite how they are measuring this “green-ness” is unclear, for these partners have terrible climate records and vociferous histories of 72. Official COP19 website, ‘Partners for lobbying against climate-friendly policies. In return for their “support”, these COP19’ press release, 17 September 2013, corporations get to call themselves partners, enjoy privileged access to the http://www.cop19.gov.pl/latest-news/ items/partners-for-cop19, accessed conference and of course, exploit a great greenwashing opportunity. Many October 2013 civil society groups have already condemned this development, while REDD73. REDD-Monitor, ‘Climate change is Monitor has pointed out that whilst “COP19’s doors are open wide to polluting “unequivocal” says the IPCC. Could someone tell the UNFCCC?’ by Chris Lang, 27 industry, places for observer organisations have been cut back. Several civil September 2013, http://www.redd-monitor. society groups have received less than half their usual number of places.”73 org/2013/09/27/climate-change-isunequivocal-says-the-ipcc-could-someoneSo how does reality compare to the greenwash of the COP19 partners? tell-the-unfccc/, accessed October 2013 74. Alstom website, ‘About’, http://www.alstom. com/about-us/, accessed October 2013 1. ALSTOM Power Alstom Power is a French energy conglomerate, specialising in power generation and transmission as well as rail infrastructure. Alstom claims to be a key component in nearly a quarter of the world’s power production capacity and had sales of over €20 billion in 2012/13.74 As a COP19 partner, Alstom will provide free drinking water, water coolers and 100,000 organic cups to COP19 attendees.75 In its partner webpage, Alstom paints itself as the benchmark for “environmentally friendly technologies” and solutions that take a “lifecycle design approach” incorporating “sustainability needs whenever possible.”76 It cites the increasing efficiency of its gas plants and “steam plants” - a cuddlier sounding name for coal and oil power plants. Despite this rhetoric, the crude fact remains, as Alstom states on its own website, that it has “the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of thermal technologies – coal, gas, oil and nuclear”77 and it is the original equipment manufacturer for 95% of Poland’s coal plants installed since 1990.78 Moreover, Alstom claims to have its sights set on a major role in the construction of two new 900 megawatt coal plants in Poland, set to be the biggest in Europe.79 According to CEE Bankwatch and Greenpeace Poland, they will have devastating effects on surrounding local communities in terms of air, water and land pollution, as well as health problems, including hundreds of premature deaths and thousands of working days lost from increased risks of respiratory disease, heart disease and lung cancer.80 Despite its talk about a commitment to environmental stewardship and tackling climate change, Alstom’s sophisticated lobby documents show it is a staunch supporter of “cleaner fossil fuels, the deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and the scaling up of nuclear”, paths which would entrench the continued use of fossil fuels and take unacceptable risks over future emissions and other harmful environmental wastes (for more details, see the False Solutions boxes). Alstom’s neo-liberal agenda calls for the strict protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and the elimination of trade barriers, whilst at the same time pushing for public subsidies for big business – what it calls “risk-sharing”, through public-private partnerships and loan guarantees.81 In other words, when it gets down to business, profit comes before people and the planet, and sometimes even before the law; Alstom has been repeatedly investigated for, or convicted of, bribing local politicians to secure contracts all over the world.82 Its involvement in corruption scandals led it to being a finalist for the 2013 People’s Public Eye Awards.83 75. All details about services provided by the COP19 partners are from correspondence with the COP19 Logistic Team’s Partnerships Expert, Katarzyna Weronika Nowak, October 2013 76. Official COP19 website, ‘Alstom’ http://www.cop19.gov.pl/alstom-1, accessed October 2013 77. Alstom website, ‘About’, http://www.alstom.com/about-us/, accessed October 2013 78. Alstom, ‘Alstom in Poland Factsheet’, http://www.alstom.com/Global/Group/ Resources/Documents/Factsheets/Poland _factsheet.pdf, accessed October 2013 79. Reuters, ‘Alstom eyes role in Poland’s biggest power project’, 12 September 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/ poland-alstom-idUSL5N0H72ID20130912, accessed October 2013 80. See, for example, CEE Banktrack Network, ‘Dodgy Deal: Turów coal power plant Poland’, August 2013, http://www.banktrack.org/ manage/ajax/ems_dodgydeals/createPDF/ turow_coal_power_plant, Greenpeace Poland, http://greenpeace.pl/wegiel_zabija/ index.php, Stop EP campaign, http://www. stopep.org/en 81. Alstom, ‘CO2 Policy Position Paper: Supporting a Sustainable Future’, 2011, http://www. alstom.com/Global/Resources/Documents/ Clean%20Power%20Strategy/alstompower-policy.pdf, accessed October 2013 82. Public Eye People’s Award 2013, ‘Alstom’, http://www.publiceye.ch/en/vote/alstom/, accessed October 2013 83. CEE Bankwatch Network, ‘ALSTOM nominated for “Prestigious” Public Eye Awards’, 7 January 2013, http://bankwatch. org/news-media/for-journalists/pressreleases/alstom-nominated-prestigiouspublic-eye-awards, accessed October 2013 13 84. Alstom, ‘CO2 Policy Positions: Supporting a sustainable future’, 2011, http://www. alstom.com/Global/Resources/Documents/ Clean%20Power%20Strategy/alstompower-policy.pdf, accessed October 2013 85. World Steel Association, ‘Publication Announcement: World Steel in Figures 2013’, http://www.worldsteel.org/mediacentre/press-releases/2013/World-SteelFigures-2013.html, accessed October 2013 86. ArcelorMittal, Annual Report 2012, http:// corporate.arcelormittal.com/~/media/ Files/A/ArcelorMittal/investors/annualreports/2012/AR-UK-internet-2012.pdf, accessed October 2013 87. DESMOGBLOG, ‘Poland Partners with Coal and Oil Corporate Sponsors for COP19 Climate Conference’, 18 September 2013, http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/18/ poland-partners-coal-and-oil-corporatesponsors-cop19-climate-conference, accessed October 2013 88. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘Industry hits carbon leakage jackpot’, May 2010, http://corporateeurope.org/climate-andenergy/2010/05/industry-hits-carbonleakage-jackpot, accessed October 2013 89. ArcelorMittal, ‘ArcelorMittal Response to the Consultation on structural options to strengthen the EU Emissions Trading System’, http://ec.europa.eu/clima/ consultations/articles/0017/organisations/ arcelor_en.pdf, accessed October 2013 90. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘Industry lobbying on emissions trading scheme hits the jackpot: the cases of Arcelor Mittal and Lafarge’, May 2010, http://corporateeurope. org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/ files/resource/lafarge_arcelor_mittal_ jackpot.pdf, accessed October 2013 Sandbag’s Carbon Fat Cats Map, http:// www.sandbag.org.uk/maps/companymap/, accessed October 2013 91. Sandbag, ‘Losing the lead? Europe’s flagging carbon market’, June 2012, http://www.sandbag.org.uk/site_media/ pdfs/reports/Losing_the_lead_ modified_3.7.2012_1.pdf, and Press Release, ‘Call for ArcelorMittal to make 2012 Olympic Games carbon neutral by cancelling a fraction of its vast surplus of carbon allowances’, 2012, http://www.sandbag. org.uk/site_media/pdfs/press_releases/ PressRelease_ArcelorMittalORBIT_FIR.pdf, accessed October 2013 92. Global steel industry CO2 emissions are estimated to be 1500 to 1600 MtCO2 (Kim and Worrell, 2002a). IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: http://www.ipcc.ch/ publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch7s74-1.html, accessed October 2013 93. “About two thirds of this being direct and the reminder due to its equally prodigious electricity consumption.” Carbon Trust, 2010 http://www.carbontrust.com/ media/84908/ctc767-tackling-carbonleakage.pdf, accessed October 2013 14 Alstom also lobbies for a global carbon market, beginning with an upscaling of the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a system blighted by human rights abuses and environmental failure (see False Solutions: Carbon Markets box). But because carbon markets enable profits (without changing polluting business models), Alstom argues that a strong carbon market is needed for so-called ‘green growth’ (see False Solutions: “Green economy” box) and that “evidence shows that such market-based approaches deliver results most effectively and economically”84 – despite the bulk of evidence to the contrary (see False Solutions: Carbon Markets box). Alstom is also a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), BusinessEurope, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), EURELECTRIC, and the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, all of which have a track record of lobbying for climate policies that benefit big business and sideline the climate and those most effected by it. For more information, see their guide entries. 2. ArcelorMittal Poland ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel and mining company, producing twice as much steel in 2012 as its next largest competitor,85 and making sales of over $80 billion.86 As a COP19 partner, ArcelorMittal is covering the costs of building the temporary conference halls in the National Stadium’s arena in Warsaw. On its partner webpage, ArcelorMittal describes how it supports a “lower-carbon world through energy savings, and greener products and services”, spending over $50 million on developing green products and processes last year. It heralds its highly efficient coke plants at Zdzieszowice and Kraków in Poland, and boasts that the European steel industry “has already cut its CO2 emissions by half in the last 40 years and many of our sites have already done all that is currently possible.” Reality is a stark contrast to this greenwashing. With annual emissions approximately equal to those of the Czech Republic,87 the steel giant has lobbied ferociously and effectively against stricter climate policies in the EU.88 It threatened that higher energy prices from EU climate polices “are jeopardizing the competitiveness of the EU industry” and that a “successful climate and energy policy is an affordable one.”89 ArcelorMittal’s portrayal of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) as a burden on industry is particularly contradictory, given its gigantic windfall profits from it. After scaring policy-makers with stories of relocation to countries with no CO2 constraints – the fabled “carbon leakage” - it received a huge over-allocation of free permits, including hundreds of thousands extra for the Polish coke plants it boasts of.90 According to Sandbag, ArcelorMittal had in 2012 a surplus of 123 million freely allocated carbon allowances, worth an estimated €1,6 billion, making it the most oversupplied company in the entire EU ETS.91 The steel industry is very energy intensive; according to the IPCC it is responsible for 6 -7% of global human emissions,92 and a report by the Carbon Trust puts its contribution to EU emissions at 20%.93 ArcelorMittal’s strategy is not to sell all of its surplus allowances, but to keep a significant proportion for use against future emissions, meaning there is nothing to make ArcelorMittal reduce its emissions; and with its influential position at COP19, it intends to keep it that way. This track record led to ArcelorMittal’s nomination for Worst Climate Lobbying in the 2010 Worst EU lobbying Awards and the 2009 Angry Mermaid Awards.94 Global campaigns against ArcelorMittal have also arisen in response to “the pollution, health and safety and labour problems experienced by neighbours and workers at ArcelorMittal plants”, as described by CEE Bankwatch,95 who have documented its impacts on vulnerable communities around the world, as well as working with them and other NGOs to challenge ArcelorMittal in the courts of South Africa.96 ArcelorMittal is also a member of the World Steel Association, with its CEO Lakshmi Mittal sitting on its Executive Committee,97 and of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), BusinessEurope and EUROFER. See their guide entries for details on their dodgy climate credentials. 3. BMW Group Poland German automobile giant BMW, renowned for its big, expensive and fuel-guzzling cars, had a revenue of nearly €80 billion in 2012,98 and as a COP19 partner will be providing 60 cars (including hybrids) for the conference, fuel costs and chauffeurs. Its partner webpage boasts that it is “considered one of the most sustainable companies in the world” and describes in detail its first fully electric car model, the i3.99 But these credentials turn out to be a very dirty shade of green: BMW has lobbied fiercely, using its influence with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to repeatedly delay new EU rules to reduce vehicle emissions. According to its lobby documents, BMW complains that tighter emissions targets for cars will lead “to a massive burden shift to the disadvantage of the premium manufacturers [such as BMW].” It also says that car makers such as BMW that have previously cut emissions “should not be punished by harder targets in the future.”100 Despite this indefensible and climate-hostile position – for of course car companies that make more polluting cars must do more to reduce their emissions – luck was on BMW’s side, with the timing of the German elections. RTCC reported that prior to the September 2013 elections, Merkel “did not want to be seen harming the German car industry. And BMW’s hierarchy let her know this is how any EU deal would be portrayed.”101 Merkel therefore personally stepped in to delay the EU directive, forcing it to be pushed from the Irish EU presidency to the Lithuanian one, which – surprise, surprise – is also being sponsored by BMW, who is supplying it with 180 new cars.102 Unsurprisingly, the Lithuanian presidency has been letting the vehicles emissions proposals slip off the agenda,103 with a vote on car emissions reductions recently delayed for a third time.104 According to the Financial Times, the day after Germany won this third delay, Merkel’s party received donations from the BMW family, which together own half of the company, totalling €690,000.105 BMW is a member of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) which has also lobbied hard against emission reduction targets for the automobile industry.106 BMW is also in the European Roundtable of Industrialists (see ERT entry for more information on its anti-climate lobbying). 94. http://www.worstlobby.eu/2010/nominee/ arcelormittal, accessed October 2013 95. CEE Bankwatch, ‘In the wake of ArcelorMittal: The global steel giant’s local impacts’May 2008, http://bankwatch.org/documents/mittal_ local_impacts.pdf, accessed October 2013 96. CEE Bankwatch and groundWork South Africa supported local communities in the area of Valle, South Africa, to successfully demand through the courts that ArcelorMittal South Africa hands over documents revealing their ‘Environmental Masterplan and Vaal Disposal Site’, a step closer to stopping their dirty activities, http://cer.org.za/news/joint-mediarelease-victory-vaal-community-court-ordersarcelormittal-sa-hand-documents 97. World Steel Association, ‘Officers, executive and board’, http://www.worldsteel.org/ about-us/officers-executive-and-board.html, accessed October 2013 98. EU Worst Lobbying Awards 2010, ‘ArcelorMittal’ http://annual-report2012. bmwgroup.com/bmwgroup/annual/2012/gb/ English/pdf/report2012.pdf, accessed October 2013 99. COP19 official website, BMW Group Polska, http://www.cop19.gov.pl/bmw-group-polska, accessed October 2013 100. The Guardian, ‘BMW accused of hypocrisy over opposition to European car targets’, 9 July 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2012/jul/09/bmw-hypocrisyeuropean-car-targets, accessed October 2013 101. RTCC, ‘Does BMW’s new i3 range mean it’s going green?’ 13 August 2013, http://www. rtcc.org/2013/08/13/does-bmws-newi3-range-mean-its-going-green/#sthash. HjxNf7ah.dpuf, accessed October 2013 102. Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 24 September 2013, ‘Presidency Supporters’, http://www.eu2013. lt/en/presidency-and-eu/budgetsponsors/ Presidency-supporters, accessed October 2013 103. Transport & Environment, ‘When is ein deal not a deal?’, 29 July 2013, http://www. transportenvironment.org/newsroom/blog/ when-ein-deal-not-deal, accessed October 2013 104. Transport & Environment, ‘Germany blocks vote on agreed CO2 limit for cars – again’, 4 October 2013, http://www. transportenvironment.org/press/germanyblocks-vote-agreed-CO2-limit-cars%E2%80%93-again, accessed October 2013 105. Financial Times, ‘BMW family gave €690,000 to Merkel party’, 15 October 2013, http:// www.ft.com/cms/s/0/362f17d6-35ba-11e3b539-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hsXvblTR, accessed October 2013 106. ACEA website, http://www.acea.be/collection/ about_us_acea_members/ and http://www. acea.be/index.php/news/news_detail/ press_release_CO2_legislation_balanced_ fact-based_not_politically_driven, accessed October 2013 15 107. Emirates Airlines, ‘Annual Report 2012-2013’, http://content. emirates.com/downloads/ek/pdfs/ report/annual_report_2013.pdf, accessed October 2013 108. Official COP19 website, ‘Emirates’, http://www.cop19.gov.pl/ emirates-193, accessed October 2013 109. Who’s Lobbying website, ‘Emirates,’ http://whoslobbying. com/uk/emirates, accessed October 2013 110. IATA, ‘CEO Interview: Emirates Airline Make it Happen Attitude’, June 2012, http://www.iata.org/ publications/airlines-international/ june-2012/Pages/ceo-interviewemirates.aspx, accessed October 2013 111. European Commission, Press Release ‘Climate change: Commission proposes bringing air transport into EU Emissions Trading Scheme’, 20 December 2006, http://europa.eu/rapid/ press-release_IP-06-1862_en.htm, accessed October 2013 112. Friends of the Earth and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, ‘Growth scenarios for EU and UK aviation policies’, 2005, http://www.foe. co.uk/resource/reports/aviation_ tyndall_summary.pdf, accessed October 2013 113. IATA, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), ‘The Environment’, ‘http:// www.iata.org/about/worldwide/ middle_east/Pages/index.aspx, accessed October 2013 114. Official COP19 website, ‘EUROPRESS Polska Sp. z o.o.’, http://www.cop19.gov. pl/europress-polska-sp-z-oo, accessed October 2013 115. Ringier Axel Springer, Press Release, ‘Ringier Axel Springer Poland takes over EuroPress Poland’, 19 January 2012, http:// www.ringieraxelspringer.pl/en/ ringier-axel-springer-polandtakes-over-europress-poland-a, accessed October 2013 116. Ringier Axel Springer Polska website, ‘Corporate Responsibility’, http://www.ringieraxelspringer. pl/en/company/corporateresponsibility, accessed October 2013 117. WikiNews, ‘Springer-Presse boykottiert Linkspartei’, 26 July 2005, http://de.wikinews.org/ wiki/Springer-Presse_boykottiert_ Linkspartei, accessed October 2013 16 4. EMIRATES Emirates airline is owned by the Dubai government, part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the most oil-rich states in the world. It is the largest airline in the Middle East, operating over 3,000 flights per week, and with revenues in 2012 of around $20 billion.107 As a COP19 partner, Emirates will be providing seats and coffee tables for the conference and offering a 10% discount on its flights to all participants over the COP19 period. Its partner webpage brags that it “is one of the world’s fastest growing airlines” with a “commitment to eco-efficiency” including “multi-billion dollar investments in the most modern, eco-efficient technology available” and even a “drive to collect clothing for re-cycling.” But its real business model is best summed up by its statement that “Becoming an ecologically-efficient organisation means growing our business to be economically sustainable”.108 Through its membership of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Emirates has consistently fought against limiting aviation emissions by including them in carbon markets like the EU ETS (see section on IATA in the guide). Emirates has used lobby consultancy Bell Pottinger, (who also represented toxic waste dumpers, Trafigurra), to represent its interests to the UK government, a notoriously industry and aviation-friendly government.109 Emirates President Tim Clark said that the EU’s plan to include aviation in the ETS “is extra-territorial and therefore would illegally punish airlines for their emissions even when flying outside of EU airspace”.110 The successful lobbying by the aviation industry means that the sector will receive 85% of ETS allowances for free, and the projected carbon cost is far lower than the equivalent tax breaks for aviation fuel. Yet aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of emissions, increasing by 87% in the EU between 1990 and 2006, and by 2020 – without action – is likely to more than double.111 Globally, the industry is projected by the IPCC to grow at around 5% every year.112 Despite this, IATA’s middle eastern section – which covers the UAE, home to state-owned Emirates – claims it is working to “limit their impact on the environment” by “avoiding a global climate-related tax on passengers, carbon or fuel [and] by protecting the industries interests at the UNFCCC and COP19” – an astonishingly blatant, and dangerous, contradiction.113 5. EUROPRESS Poland EUROPRESS Poland is a foreign press distributor in Poland,114 and as a COP19 partner will be supplying foreign press titles for the conference. EUROPRESS, one of the least controversial sponsors, is owned by media group Ringier Axel Springer Poland,115 which claims that its primary raw material, paper, “is sourced from well managed forests in accordance with the highest production standards”.116 However, its heavy reliance on paper means that it has interests which align with the paper industry – an industry not renowned for lobbying for the most climate-friendly solutions (see entry on International Paper). Of note, Ringier Axel Springer Poland is part of a media empire with both enormous reach and traction in terms of shaping public opinion, not to mention a notoriety for right-wing leanings; its parent company Axel Springer is infamous for refusing to publish advertisements for left-wing parties.117 6. General Motors Poland General Motors (GM), whose brands include Chevrolet, Opel and Vauxhall, is one of the largest automobile companies in the world, selling nearly one billion vehicles, with a total revenue of over $150 billion, in 2012.118 As a COP19 partner it is providing vehicles for COP19, in this case ten vans, fuel costs and “chauffeurs trained in efficient driving”.119 Its partner webpage claims that “caring for the environment is crucial”,120 yet GM has a history of funding climate sceptic think tanks, including the US-based free market think tank Heartland Institute, which has tried to push climate change denial into the US school curriculum by painting it as “a major scientific controversy.” Heartland maintains a $300,000 staff dedicated to undermining the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), spouting pseudo-scientific climate sceptic arguments in its newsletters and website, and hosting a conference entitled “Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?”121 After it was revealed that GM was giving tens of thousands of dollars to the Heartland Institute, GM defended its donations, saying “We support a variety or organizations that give careful and considerate thought to complex policy issues and Heartland is one of them.”122 GM was eventually forced to pull its support of Heartland after a campaign mounted by environmental groups and the general public. General Motors is however still a member of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, an industry coalition, which lobbies the US government and internationally on the extremely damaging greenhouse gases HFCs and HCFC, which are used in the refrigeration and air conditioning industry. The dangerous effects they have on the ozone layer has been proven for a long time, and their global warming capacity is thousands of times higher than CO2. They are one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, with estimates suggesting that by 2050 they could account for up to 20% of global emissions, unless action is taken.123 The Alliance however released a report this year arguing that the Fluorocarbon industry contributes $158 billion to the US economy, and that the industry is already “minimizing impacts on the stratospheric ozone layer and the climate” – in other words, no need to regulate us!124 GM is also a member of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which has been a vociferous lobby in Brussels against the EU introducing emissions reduction targets for the automobile industry.125 7. LOTOS Group Lotos Group is the second largest Polish, majority stateowned, oil company, and as a COP19 partner, will provide 11,000 felt document bags for conference attendees. Its partner webpage claims it is constantly “working on its image as... an ecological company” and that thanks to its clean production methods, “LOTOS’s petroleum products pose probably the lowest possible nuisance to the environment.”126 Whatever ecological image LOTOS is trying to create however is far from the reality of its business activities. LOTOS is the only Polish company involved in oil extraction in the Baltic Sea, and an avid proponent of shale gas, lobbying at EU level through astroturf organisations – front groups created by industry to look like grassroots organisations – such as the so-called “Citizens Coalition for Responsible Energy” (see entry on EUROGAS). Lotos is a member of the World Petroleum Council, the “premier” organization representing the global petroleum industry”127 and a founder of Central Europe Energy Partners (CEEP), an EU focused lobby group comprised of coal, oil and gas companies.128 118. General Motors, Annual Report 2012, Financial Highlights, http://www.gmannualreport.com/ financial-highlights.html, accessed October 2013 119. All details about services provided by the COP19 partners are from correspondence with the COP19 Logistic Team’s Partnerships Expert, Katarzyna Weronika Nowak, October 2013 120. COP19 Official website, ‘General Motors Poland Sp. z o.o.’, http:// www.cop19.gov.pl/general-motorspoland, accessed October 2013 121. Huffington Post, ‘General Motors Decides Climate Change Is Real, Pulls Support From Heartland Institute’, 30 March 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ 2012/03/30/general-motorsheartland-institute-climatechange_n_1391217.html, accessed October 2013 122. SumOfUs, ‘Petition to General Motors’, http://sumofus.org/ campaigns/gm-heartland/, accessed October 2013 123. Corporate Europe Observatory, ‘Climate bombs called HFCs’, 13 September 2013, http:// corporateeurope.org/climate-andenergy/2012/09/climate-bombscalled-hfcs, accessed October 2013 124. Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, Press Release, ‘Fluorocarbon industry contributes $158 million to US economy’, 29 April 2013, ‘http://www.alliancepolicy.org/ downloads/042913_press-release. pdf, accessed October 2013 125. ACEA website, http://www.acea. be/collection/about_us_acea_ members/ and http://www.acea. be/index.php/news/news_detail/ press_release_CO2_legislation_ balanced_fact-based_not_ politically_driven, accessed October 2013 126. COP19 Official website, ‘LOTOS Group’ http://www.cop19.gov.pl/ lotos-group, accessed October 2013 127. World Petroleum Council, “The Values We Add – an introduction to the WPC”, http://www.worldpetroleum.org/index.php?/LatestPublications/the-value-we-add. html, accessed October 2013. 128. Grupa LOTOS S.A., “Członkowstwo w organizacjach/ CEEP”, http:// www.lotos.pl/1126/poznaj_lotos/ grupa_lotos/czlonkostwo_w_ organizacjach/ceep, accessed October 2013. 17 129. LOTOS Group, Comments of the Management Board, “Energy for Europe – solid base for growth” in: Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, 25 April 2013, http:// www.lotos.pl/en/1031/p,712,n,3852/ lotos_group/our_companies/lotos_oil/ news/energy_for_europe__-_solid_ base_for_growth, accessed October 2013. 130. Central Europe Energy Partners (CEEP), http://www.ceep.be/multimedia/ Central%20Europe%20Energy%20 Partners%20-%20Proposition%20 for%20the%20EU-10%20 countries/229?mode=pobierz, accessed October 2013 131. CEEP, ‘Security In Energy Sector Without Abundant Costs’, 1 July 2011, http://www. ceep.be/www/SECURITY_IN_ENERGY_ SECTOR_WITHOUT_ABUNDANT_ COSTS/31/news.html, accessed October 2013 132. QCEA, ‘Climate Change, Coal and Curbing a Lobbyocracy?’ 5 April 2011, http:// qceablog.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/ climate-change-coal-and-curbing-alobbyocracy/, accessed October 2013 133. CEEP, http://www.ceep.be/ multimedia/CEEP%20position%20 /283?mode=pobierz, accessed October 2013 134. CEEP website, News, ‘4th European Coal Days, 12th-14th of November, 2013’, http://www.ceep.be/www/th_European_ Coal_Days_th_th_of_November/102/ news.html, accessed October 2013 135. 4th European Coal Days 2013 Agenda, www.ceep.be/multimedia/4th%20 European%20Coal%20Days%20%20agenda/955?mode=pobierz, accessed October 2013 136. International Paper, ‘Corporate Profile’, http://www.internationalpaper.com/ US/EN/Company/Governance/ CorporateProfile.html, accessed October 2013 137. COP19 Pfficial website, ‘International Paper Kwidzyn Sp. z o.o.’, http://www. cop19.gov.pl/international-paperkwidzyn-sp-z-oo, accessed October 2013 138. International Paper, ‘Climate Change’, http://www.internationalpaper.com/US/ EN/Company/Sustainability/Climate.html, accessed October 2013 139. SPP website, ‘Paper Section’, http://www.spp.pl/paper_section.php, accessed October 2013 140. CEPI website, ‘Organisation’, http://www. cepi.org/about-us/organisation, accessed October 2013 141. CEPI, Position Paper, ‘Competitive Gas CEPI position to the costs of natural gas in Europe’ 24 April 2013, http://www. cepi.org/node/15774, accessed October 2013 18 CEEP advocates the scrapping of climate policies and the promotion of coal, wrapped up in rhetoric about the need for “consistent policy supporting competitiveness”.129 Which boils down to the view that “environmental policy should not be further tightened”130 and that the EU should strengthen energy security “by enabling use of the cheapest and the most available indigenous energy sources.”131 In other words, coal. CEEP argues that because newer coal plants are more efficient than older ones, promoting new coal is promoting emissions savings132 – so why not replace climate legislation with the promotion of new, 40% efficient, coal power plants!?133 CEEP’s position – and the position of its founding member, Polish-government controlled LOTOS – on climate would be laughable, if it wasn’t so influential. During the COP19 period, CEEP is co-hosting an event in the European Parliament in Brussels, the 4th European Coal Days, on 12-14 November.134 The event will include a “Coal in Action” exhibition by EURACOAL and a “Coal, Poland and COP-19” dinner debate, featuring Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Janusz Piechociński, who – together with the EURACOAL President – will “explain what Poland hopes to achieve during these important negotiations”.135 More coal. 8. International Paper Kwidzyn International Paper (IP) is a global giant in the paper and packaging industry, with sales of $28 billion in 2012,136 and a huge paper mill in Kwidzyn, Poland. As a COP19 partner, it will provide ten thousand reams of A4 organic paper to the COP. Its partner webpage says it is “committed to respecting, protecting and improving the environment” and lists the ways it has improved its energy efficiency, recycling, sustainable forest management and much more.137 But if you take a look at the COP19 partner’s own website, shockingly it appears to doubt that climate change is caused by humans, noting that it “may be caused by natural factors or processes, such as changes in the sun’s intensity or changes in ocean circulation”. It does concede that activities like burning fossil fuels can also cause it, but points out that “Greenhouse gases prevent heat from escaping earth to space and are necessary for life on the planet”. With this in mind, IP encourages “balanced public policies” on climate, which recognise “the carbon neutrality of biomass, pulp and paper manufacturing jobs and international competitiveness”138 – despite the fact that industrial biomass can have a larger footprint than coal, mainly due to deforestation to make way for the plantations. Large-scale industrial monoculture plantations have a high social and environmental impact, and the use of forest carbon sinks for offsetting – as an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels – is a hot issue at COP19 (see False Solutions: Offsetting with Carbon Sinks and False Solutions: Agrofuels box). International Paper belongs to the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), through national paper associations like the Polish branch, the Association of Polish Papermakers (SPP),139 and has a high-level company representative sitting on CEPI’s board.140 CEPI lobbies for a whole host of climateunfriendly things, including the expansion of shale gas into Europe, citing cheaper US prices following their shale gas boom. As 40% of the paper industry’s energy needs are natural gas, CEPI argues that “Europe needs to tap into its domestic gas production, including EU shale gas.”141 CEPI also lobbies to keep EU climate policy full of loopholes, in part via its membership of the Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries, alongside the chemicals industry’s CEFIC, Europe’s cement association CEMBUREAU, steel lobby EUROFER, and the European Petroleum Industry Association EUROPIA.142 The Alliance has fought vehemently against reform of the EU ETS, threatening that it would “relocate investments in manufacturing industry outside Europe” – the tired old carbon leakage card.143 International Paper is also a member of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) – by putting its support behind the red herring of carbon markets, it hopes to distract from effective climate action – and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) – see their entries in the guide. 9. Kaspersky Lab Poland Kaspersky Lab is a Russian multi-national computer security company, with a global revenue of $628 million in 2012.144 As a COP19 partner, it is providing 850 licences for its antivirus software to the conference organisers. Kaspersky’s partner webpage brags that “the dominant colour in our corporate colours is green”,145 and the company indulges in some greenwashing through a partnership with a carbon offsetting company called OxTreeGen, which plants trees on behalf of companies, to “enhance [their] Corporate Social Responsibility strategy”.146 Offsetting with carbon sinks however is no substitute for reducing emissions at source, for many reasons (see False Solutions: Offsetting with Carbon Sinks box). By aligning itself with Microsoft, IBM and Intel (‘strategic partners’ according to its website), it is involved in the digital industry’s damaging system of production, with well-documented environmental and human rights abuses centred around rare earth material mining and sweat-shop style labour conditions. It is also a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF),147 (see guide entry on WEF). 10. LeasePlan Fleet Management Poland LeasePlan is a Dutch fleet and vehicle management company, worth nearly €20 billion in 2012, and managing over 1.3 million vehicles globally.148 As a COP19 partner it will provide “workers for the sustainable management of a car fleet”, as well as two electric cars to the Ministry of the Environment.149 Its partner webpage boasts that in the “last five years LeasePlan planted over 42 thousand trees, compensating emission of over 30 thousand tonnes of CO2 by the fleets of its customers”150 – a particularly damaging offsetting strategy (see False Solutions: Offsetting with Carbon Sinks box). Despite its PR spin, and a promise to buy 100 electric cars,151 LeasePlan is 50% owned by Volkswagen,152 Europe’s biggest car company and well-documented heel-dragger on climate policy and CO2 emissions reductions. Volkswagen obstructed EU targets for CO2 emissions, claiming they were not based on a “realistic appreciation of the costs and technical progress necessary” - i.e. that it was too expensive and too difficult. Following a Greenpeace campaign supported by more than half a million people, Volkswagen was forced to do a u-turn, and admitted the falsity of its claims.153 Like BMW and General Motors, Volkswagen is a member of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which has lobbied hard against EU emission reduction targets for the automobile industry.154 Volkswagen is also a member of the World Economic Forum and BusinessEurope (see their sections in the guide). 142. CEMBUREAU, ‘Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries’, http://www. cembureau.be/alliance-energyintensive-industries, accessed October 2013 143. CEPI, Press Release, ‘Growth and Employment first: EnergyIntensive Industries warn against competitiveness impacts of proposed changes to the EU ETS’, 9 April 2013, http://www.cepi.org/node/15640, accessed October 2013 144. Kaspersky webiste, http://www. kaspersky.com/about, accessed October 2013 145. Official COP19 website, ‘Kaspersky Lab Polska Sp. z o.o.’, ‘http://www. cop19.gov.pl/kaspersky-lab-polska, accessed October 2013 146. OxTreeGen website, Partners: Kaspersky page http://www. oxtreegen.com/Partners/Kaspersky. aspx and About page http://www. oxtreegen.com/Home/About.aspx, accessed October 2013 147. WEF website, ‘Industry Partner Groups’, http://www.weforum.org/ industry-partner-groups, accessed October 2013 148. Leaseplan website, ‘About’, http:// www.leaseplan.com/pu/en/About_us, accessed October 2013 149. All details about services provided by the COP19 partners are from correspondence with the COP19 Logistic Team’s Partnerships Expert, Katarzyna Weronika Nowak, October 2013 150. COP19 Official webiste, ‘Leaseplan’, http://www.cop19.gov.pl/leaseplanfleet-management-polska-sp-z-oo, accessed October 2013 151. Leaseplan website, http://www. leaseplan.com/pu/en/electric_ vehicles and http://www.leaseplan. com/pu/en/driving_green, accessed October 2013 152. Leaseplan, http://www.leaseplan. co.in/public/en_IN_New/index. jsp?id=menu6200129, accessed October 2013 153. Greenpeace, ‘Greenpeace takes on Europe’s biggest carmaker… and wins!’, 6 March 2013, http:// www.greenpeace.org/international/ en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/ greenpeace-takes-on-vw/blog/ 44214/, accessed October 2013 154. ACEA website, http://www.acea.be/ collection/about_us_acea_members/ and http://www.acea.be/index.php/ news/news_detail/press_release_ CO2_legislation_balanced_factbased_not_politically_driven, accessed October 2013 19 155. Official COP19 website, ‘PGE’, http://www.cop19.gov.pl/pgecapital-group, accessed October 2013 156. ENDS Europe, “EU ETS emissions dropped by 1.4% in 2012”, 2 April 2013, http://www.endseurope. com/31222/, accessed October 2013 157. PR-Controlled, “Poland’s largest energy company to invest in coal”, 24 July 2013, http://www. pr-controlled.com/pr-controlledpoland-s-largest-energycompany-to-invest-in-coal.php#. UlWzZXgvDVM, accessed October 2013 158. EURACOAL, http://www.euracoal. org/pages/home.php?idpage=1, accessed October 2013 20 11. PGE Polish Energy Group PGE Polish Energy Group is the largest Polish, majority state-owned power company, and as a COP19 partner, it will provide 11,000 organic notebook and pen sets for conference guests. Its partner webpage tells us that PGE’s “ambition is to conduct its business activities in a sustainable manner and in compliance with high ecological standards” as well as “to be the leader in the Polish market of renewable energy sources with at least a 40% share in the new renewable energy capacities”. And of course it emphasises the “continuous improvements in the efficiency of lignite- and coal-based electricity generation”.155 This picture is a long way from the reality on the ground: the government controlled power giant operates two large lignite coal mines with plans to open more, as well as around 40 conventional coal power stations; its lignite power plant in Bełchatów is the biggest single source of CO2 emissions in the whole of Europe and the biggest recipient of free EU ETS allowances in 2012.156 Only around 3% of PGE’s installed capacity are renewable energy sources, and according to Polish government plans, PGE will build the first Polish nuclear power plant. It is also involved in shale gas exploration in Poland and plans to build more “higher efficiency” coal power plants. PGE’s President Krzysztof Kilian says these plans are in line with the EU energy and climate package, because the package “does not say anything about closing down coal mines and resigning from coal power plants.”157 PGE is collaborating with the European Association for Coal and Lignite (EURACOAL), the EUlevel coal industry lobby, to convince policy-makers of “the importance of coal’s contribution to security of energy supply within the EU, to price stability, added value and environmental protection”158. PGE’s status as COP19 partner, not to mention its government ownership, ensures it has easy access to the climate negotiations, particularly the Pre-COP Business Day on 2 October (see Confederation Lewiatan’s entry in the guide). PGE is also member of the Polish Electricity Association (Polski Komitet Energii Elektrycznej), which is a member of EURELECTRIC (see guide entry). Powerful players in Polish lobbying Poland’s two biggest fossil fuel companies are official partners of COP19, PGE and Lotos, and the clash between the reality of their activities and lobbying with the greenwash they’ve daubed themselves in, is documented in the COP19 Partners in Crime section. Here, we explore several other key Polish lobbies. Kompania Weglowa Coal Company The Polish state-owned Coal Company is the largest hard coal producer in the EU. Its former Chairwoman, and former deputy Minister of the Economy in Poland, Joanna Strzelec-Łobodzińska, said that the energy sector in the EU should be developed “based on hard coal and lignite”159. The government controlled Coal Company claims there is no contradiction between further use of coal and reduction of carbon emissions, suggesting that the necessary reduction “should be achieved by increasing the energy efficiency of new and already existing power plants”160. The state-owned Coal Company (and so, de facto, the Polish government) is a member of Central Europe Energy Partners (see LOTOS’ entry), which loudly and openly proclaims that “coal is the fastest developing source of energy, one that is indispensable amid the ever-growing demand for electricity worldwide and enables countries to maintain profitable production”161. The Coal Company is also a member of the Polish Hard Coal Employers´ Association (Związek Pracodawców Górnictwa Węgla Kamiennego), which pushes the interests of the Polish coal industry in the legislative process, and of EU coal lobby EURACOAL (see PGE’s entry for more info), of which the Coal Company’s vice-chairman, Piotr Rykala, is a vice-president. The Coal Company is one of the official partners and speakers at the grossly misplaced coal lobby event during COP19, Warsaw’s ‘International Coal and Climate Summit’, officially endorsed by the Polish Ministry of Economy (see World Coal Association entry for more details). 159. Kompania Węglowa S.A., ‘Polska energetyka musi się zmienić’, http://www.kwsa.pl/aktualnosci/z_ zycia_firmy/970,Polska%20 energetyka%20musi%20 si%C4%99%20zmieni%C4%87. html, accessed October 2013 (own translation from Polish) 160. Power point presentation of Dr. Filip Grzegorczyk, Proxy of the Board and Acting Director for Energy Development in the Coal Company: ‘Social and Economic Benefits of Coal Mining in Europe – Polish Case (on the example of Kompania Węglowa S.A.)’. 161. The Warsaw Voice, ‘Talking Coal’, 27 June 2013, http://www. warsawvoice.pl/WVpage/pages/ article.php/26304/article, accessed October 2013 162. Frack off, ‘20 Impacts of Underground Coal Gasification (UCG)’, July 2013, http://frack-off. org.uk/resource/20-impacts-ofunderground-coal-gasificationucg/, accessed October 2013 163. E-mail answer from Wojeciech Jaros, spokesperson of Katowice Coal Holding on 14 October 2013 164. Forsal.pl, ‘Polityka klimatyczna UE: Unijne limity CO2 zaszkodzą firmom’, 19 September 2013, http:// forsal.pl/artykuly/733288,politykaklimatyczna-ue-unijne-limityemisji-CO2-zaszkodza-firmom. html, accessed October 2013 165. E-mail answer from Wojeciech Jaros, spokesperson of Katowice Coal Holding on 14 October 2013 166. Ibid. Katowice Holding Weglowy Katowice Coal Holding The Polish state-owned Katowice Coal Holding is one of the largest domestic and European coal producers. Katowice Coal claims to follow a strategy of ‘climate friendly activities’, which in reality translates to maintaining the “crucial role” of coal for energy production in the EU, with increasing efficiency in mining and energy use, plus the development and deployment of underground coal gasification (UCG) – a technology associated with toxic and carcinogenic wastes, ground-water contamination, subsidence, fires, explosions and hazardous working conditions.162 Not to mention the exploitation of previously unattainable fossil fuel reserves and consequent increasing emissions. According to a Katowice Coal spokesperson,163 the company lobbies mainly through the pro-coal and anti-emissions reductions Central Europe Energy Partners (see LOTOS’ entry) and the Polish Hard Coal Employers´ Association, which is a member of EURACOAL (see PGE’s entry). Additionally, Katowice Coal is a member of the Polish Forum of Power and Gas Consumers (Forum Odbiorców Energii Elektrycznej i Gazu), a lobby organization infamous for its anti-EU climate policy stance, particularly against closing ETS loopholes.164 Katowice Coal Holding is one of the official partners and speakers at the International Coal & Climate Summit (see World Coal Association entry, of which Katowice Coal Holding is also a member), where it hopes to stand up to the attempted elimination of coal as an energy source,165 especially as they claim “there is no unambiguous evidence that burning coal has a decisive impact on global warming”.166 21 Konfederacja Lewiatan Confederation Lewiatan 167. Lewiatan, ‘Wielka debata biznesu i ministrów środowiska’, 1 October 2013, http:// konfederacjalewiatan.pl/opinie/ aktualnosci/2013/1/wielka_ debata_biznesu_i_ministrow_ srodowiska, accessed October 2013 (own translation from Polish) 168. BusinessEurope, polish confederation lewiatan, ibid., p. 4. 169. Official government website for COP19/CMP9, ‘PreCOP has ended’, 7 October 2013, http:// www.cop19.gov.pl/latest-news/ items/precop-has-ended, accessed on 14 October 2013 and email correspondence from the Polish Ministry of the Environment with researchers for this paper, October 2013 170. COP19 Official website, ‘PreCOP has ended,’ 7 October 2013, http://www.cop19.gov.pl/latestnews/items/precop-has-ended, accessed October 2013 Confederation Lewiatan is Poland’s biggest representative of private employers, and the Polish member of BusinessEurope, the most powerful cross-sectoral business lobby in Brussels (see its entry in the guide). Lewiatan is widely criticized in Poland for its anti-labour views. Together with the Polish Ministry of Environment, Lewiatan organized an unprecedented “Business Day” as part of the Pre-COP meeting of environmental ministers from 2-4 October in Warsaw, designed to give business the opportunity to discuss “the possibilities for climate protection by preserving the conditions for economic growth”.167 Lewiatan, together with BusinessEurope, issued a statement for the occasion, calling on governments to ensure that a global climate agreement builds upon the “market-based approach... as it gives an economic incentive for sectors to reduce their emissions in a technologyneutral way”168 In other words, they want business-as-usual enshrined in the climate treaty, with “technology-neutral” approaches that don’t set specific targets for renewables or energy efficiency technologies, so that big business can pick the technologies it wants (to profit from), such as fracking (shale gas), CCS and nuclear (see False Solutions boxes). The Polish Ministry of the Environment has confirmed that the following global corporations and climate crooks took part in Pre-COP business day: Alstom, ArcelorMittal, BASF, CEMEX, Intel, International Paper Kwidzyn, General Electric, Philips, LOTOS Group, CEZ, Dalkia, CitiBank, BusinessEurope, Lewiatan, Symid, US Chamber of Commerce – US Council for International Business, PGE, Japanese Business Forum Keidanren, Business New Zealand, Brazilian Industry Confederation (CNI), the Climate Markets & Investment Assiociation, European Economic and Social Committee and Cleantech Poland.169 Polish Environment Minister Marcin Korolec heralded it as a success, saying that these business representatives were “very well perceived by virtually all participants. Business has expressed its interest in participating in the process, because it obviously affects their longterm plans. We will work with future COP Presidencies to ensure continuity also in this topic.”170 Despite their existing heavy involvement, corporate interests have been demanding more direct business engagement in the climate talks for years, and it seems Poland has been eager to give them exactly what they want – a seat at the table for the world’s biggest polluters and profiters from climate change. Polish or “Coalish” government? The Polish government, organisers of COP19, is renowned for its – often successful – attempts at blocking or weakening EU climate and energy policies, including increasing emissions reductions targets, binding energy efficiency targets and pushing for exemptions in the ETS rules so its power companies can keep getting free permits to pollute. Poland is heavily dependent on coal, but also has enormous potential to make deep energy (and emissions) savings through efficiency measures, and massive potential for renewable energy and green jobs. Yet the Polish government is one of the biggest pro-coal lobbies at COP19, teaming up with the World Coal Association to issue propaganda statements calling for more coal and co-hosting the paradoxically named “International Coal and Climate Summit”. It wholly or majority owns climate crooks (and pro-fossil fuel lobbies) including the Coal Company, COP19 partners PGE and Lotos Group, as well as Katowice Coal Holding, which astoundingly claims that “there is no unambiguous evidence that burning coal has a decisive impact on global warming”. (See their entries in the guide for more information). 22 Carbon markets and financial players Carbon markets have become the panacea for self-interested big business to claim they care about the climate, but push for policies which will enable them to profit on a grand scale (see False solutions: Carbon Markets box). Many of the groups examined in the ‘Cross-sectoral big business and industry lobbies’ section are lobbying for carbon markets, but the carbon trading industry also has its own lobby players. Powerful financial players are also pushing for carbon markets, eager for more opportunities to create high-risk-but-high-profit derivatives, and so fuel further speculative bubbles and market collapses like we saw happen to the financial system in 2008. Only this time, they want gamble on our climate. Many of these financial giants are also bankrolling billions of dollars worth of fossil-fuel projects every year, providing the finance that fuels climate change (and makes them richer). Both of the following carbon market lobbies will be attending COP19,171 and you can read more about market policy debates in the ‘COP19 Policy Debates: The push for expanding markets’ box. International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) has 140 members, ranging from polluting industry players like BP and COP19 partner Alstom, to big banks (e.g. Goldman Sachs and Commerzbank), consultancies (e.g. Ernst & Young and PriceWaterhouseCoopers) and carbon trading companies (e.g. EDF Trading and Vattenfall Energy Trading).172 Many of its financial members are also massive investors in fossil fuels: five of the top ten biggest fossil fuel financiers are influential members of IETA, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas.173 IETA was formed in 1999 by a group of companies including Shell, BP, RioTinto, KPMG and Ecosecurities, and with the support of the United Nations Commission for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (see WBCSD entry). Since then IETA has grown into a lobbying powerhouse at the UN climate talks, year after year receiving the title of largest accredited nongovernmental delegation (at COP15, IETA had 486 delegates!). At the COPs, IETA routinely organises parallel quasi-conferences, with dozens of side events where business representatives get first-class access to decisionmakers, which is not surprising given that IETA’s Chairman is Shell’s David Hone, and its President and CEO is Dirk Forrister, who has headed not only one of the world’s largest carbon funds, Natsource, but also former US President Carbon Markets and Investors Association (CMIA) The Carbon Markets and Investors Association (CMIA) is comprised of some of the most influential carbon market investors, including Climate Change Capital and KPMG, and many which are big bankrollers of climate change-causing projects as well as carbon-market hounds such as Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Bank of America Merryl Lynch.174 Like IETA, CMIA’s staff ensure the group gets privileged access to key climate decision-makers; its Vice President, Yvo de Boer, is the Vice President of KPMG, a remarkable revolving door case who was formerly the President of the UNFCCC, but switched sides to KPMG to lobby the same body he had presided over for several years. Bill Clinton’s Climate Change Task Force. Forrister has been through the revolving door between public and private sector many times, but started in US NGO the Environmental Defense Fund. IETA works actively to expand carbon markets all over the world, and its Business Partnership for Market Readiness, in which it cooperates with actors like the World Bank and the EU, has secured the emergence of several carbon trading systems over the last few years. (See False Solutions: Carbon Markets and COP19 Policy Debates: The push for expanding markets boxes). 171. UNFCCC, ‘COP19 Admitted NGOs’, http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo. pl?sort=const.og_name, accessed October 2013 172. IETA website, ‘Our Members’, http://www.ieta.org/our-members, accessed October 2013 173. Based on list of ‘Top 20 Banks financing coal fired electricity and coal mining since 2005’, p. 15 of ‘Bankrolling Climate Change’ report, 2009, published by urgewald, groundWork, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg and BankTrack, http:// www.banktrack.org/download/ bankrolling_climate_change/ climatekillerbanks_final_0.pdf, accessed October 2013 174. CMIA website, ‘Membership Directory’, http://www.cmia.net/ membership-directory, accessed October 2013 23 COP19 Policy Debates: The push for expanding markets Carbon market lobby groups like IETA175 and CMIA, as well as many of the cross-sectoral lobbies discussed above, want to use COP19 to expand carbon markets. This is a battle that has been unfolding over several years of UN climate talks. COP19 is supposed to move forward on two controversial schemes: the New Market Mechanism (NMM) and the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA). The NMM is intended to expand the scope of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)176 to cover broad sectors of Southern countries’ economies, thereby multiplying the well-documented detrimental impacts from carbon markets on affected communities and the climate.177 (See False Solutions: Carbon Markets box). The FVA could be the first step towards a global carbon market – which is what countries like Japan and the EU hope for. It could potentially bring all the different bilateral emissions trading schemes which are currently outside the UNFCCC into the Convention, allowing countries to count those credits towards their official emissions targets. Both IETA and CMIA, along with the EU, US and Australia which are, amongst others, pushing for expanded carbon markets, blatantly ignore all the evidence that carbon markets are not working to solve the climate change crisis (see False Solutions: Carbon Markets box). Emissions continue to sky-rocket, 175. IETA, ‘Response to the Call for carbon markets fill the pockets of the companies that have created the Inputs on FVA, NMM and nonmarket problem, whilst locking us into a global system dependent on fossil fuels. based approaches’, 2 September Yet defenders of carbon trading continue to parrot the mantra that markets 2 2013 http://www.ieta.org/ assets/UNFCCC/ieta_fvanmm%20 are the best way to reduce emissions; IETA for example maintains that failing unfcc%20input_020913.pdf, to agree on modalities and procedures for both the NMM and FVA “would be accessed October 2013 a major lost opportunity for the UNFCCC and could ultimately undermine its 176. For more information on the severe impacts of the CDM see fi Checker, attempts to limit global emissions.”178 M. (2009) Double Jeopardy: Pursuing the Path of Carbon Offsets and Human Right Abuses, in Bohm, S. and Dabhi, S. (2009) Upsetting the Offset: The political economy of carbon markets, UK: MayFly / Carbon Trade Watch (2009) Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails, www.carbontradewatch.org/ publications/carbon-trading-howit-works-and-why-it-fails.html / EJOLT (2012) The CDM Cannot Deliver the Money to Africa. Why the carbon trading gamble won’t save the planet from climate change, and how African civil society is resisting, www.ejolt.org/2012/12/ the-cdm-cannot-deliver-themoney-to-africa-why-the-carbontrading-gamble-won%E2%80%99tsave-the-planet-from-climatechange-and-how-africancivil-society-is-resisting, accessed October 2013 177. Carbon Market Watch, ‘Intro to the CDM’, http://carbonmarketwatch. org/learn-about-carbon-markets/ intro-to-the-cdm/, accessed October 2013 178. IETA, ‘IETA’s Response to the public stakeholder consultation on the 2015 International Climate Change Agreement’, 26 June 2013, http://www.ieta.org/assets/ PositionPapers/ieta_2015_ agreement_june_2013.pdf, accessed October 2013 24 EU position, the Centre for European Policy Studies and Andrei Marcu Traditionally, the EU position favoured centralised approaches, such as the NMM with rules devised under the UNFCCC. However the EU is now also supporting a decentralised approach, with bilateral credits to be traded internationally for UNFCCC compliance under the FVA. This change of heart may have something to do with the fact that the main architect of the EU’s position is Andrei Marcu, Head of the Carbon Market Forum at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), an influential Brussels-based think tank. Marcu has gone through the revolving door between public service and private profit countless times: he has served at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as President of IETA, managing director for Climate and Energy at the WBCSD, CEO of Bluenext (a Paris-based environmental trading exchange), worked with the World Bank on carbon finance, and been head of Mercuria Energy Group, a position he held whilst acting as a negotiator for various countries at previous COPs. Whilst a negotiator for Papua New Guinea at COP 16 Marcu pushed for CCS, and he has also coordinated the G-77 and China. In his new position at CEPS, Marcu has lobbied to get the EU to embrace the idea of a push for FVA, a position they initially opposed, supporting instead centralized markets under the UNFCCC (such as the NMM). With his influence and connections, Marcu has tried to convince countries in the global south that new carbon markets will deliver them the money they need (even though this is the opposite of all experience to date) and to convince rich country blocks that taking the reins out of the UNFCCC’s hands with versions of the FVA, is a good idea. Marcu is also an advisor to the Polish Presidency on carbon markets; the Polish government is determined to get a decision at Warsaw, and launch a pilot FVA. A very dangerous direction indeed. Agribusiness and agrofuels lobbies Agriculture accounts for 10-12% of global greenhouse gas emissions,179 largely thanks to the fossil fuel and chemical intensive industrial agricultural methods that have taken over in most rich countries. Land use change – including deforestation – related to industrial agriculture and agrofuels puts the sector’s emissions much higher. The dire impacts of global agribusiness include the degradation and salination of fertile soils, loss of small-scale farms and increase in rural poverty, eutrophication of water supplies, loss of biodiversity and vastly increased greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on oil, chemical, pharmaceutical and machinery inputs. But because agribusiness has concentrated power and wealth (and land) in the hands of the few, it has created an enormously powerful industry lobby, from the biotechnology and fertilizer industries to the agrofuels lobby. The following lobbies are all signed up to attend COP19. Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) The Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) has over 1,200 members worldwide, including Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow Chemical and sugar giant Tate & Lyle, plus biotech lobbies like EuropaBio and AfricaBio. BIO claims that biotechnology can help solve climate change, and the Genetically Modified Organism (GMO or GM) industry has tried to fix its bad reputation by shifting the discourse to the ‘biobased economy’. It claims that the biotech industry is “successfully tackling food and energy security, climate change and resource efficiency, whilst creating jobs, regenerating industries and reviving rural communities.” The evidence does not however support these claims, from increasing competition for land between food and fuel production, to the threat to biodiversity posed by the development of genetically engineered trees designed to make it easier to convert plant cellulose into ethanol fuel. The biotech lobby is pushing for damaging GM and agrofuel projects to qualify for carbon-offsetting credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). For example, in 2009, the CDM Board approved a biodiesel production from dedicated plantations on ‘degraded or degrading land’ – a definition so wide that it covers most agricultural soils and many natural ecosystems, thereby fuelling destruction and deforestation. It is now pushing for “Chemical no-till agriculture” to qualify for credits - the idea that by using herbicide tolerant GM crops, emissions can be reduced by not tilling the soil, and so (temporarily) sequestering CO2. BIO also lobbies to prevent technology transfer to Southern countries, using strict protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on life – namely patents on plant species and seeds. Under the guise of developing “climate-ready” crops, hundreds of sweeping, multi-genome patents have been applied for by agrochemical multinationals like Monsanto, DuPont and BASF, to gain ever more control of the food system by monopolising “ownership” of thousands of plant species.180 Many of BIO’s members, like Syngenta, Bayer CropScience and Dow, are also International Fertilizer Industry Association The International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) is one of the regular agribusiness lobbies at the climate talks. Fertilizers are notoriously climate-unfriendly to produce, so the IFA spares no expense in attempting to show-off the supposed climate benefits of fertilizer use. IFA argues that fertilizers enable higher yields of ‘agroenergy’ crops, and that higher yields prevent the “conversion of additional land to cropping”, i.e. deforestation. However, one of part of Croplife International, a pesticides and (GM) seeds industry association181 that promotes GM crops as “climate-friendly”. Croplife lobbies through front groups like the Alpine Group and the ‘Farmers First’ platform, to appear to work in the interests of both the climate and farmers.182 It lobbies against clear targets for agricultural emissions reductions, promoting a voluntary carbon credit system that would allow credits for offsetting industrial emissions through agriculture! 179. Smith, P., D. Martino, Z. Cai, D. Gwary, H. Janzen, P. Kumar, B. McCarl, S. Ogle, F. O’Mara, C. Rice, B. Scholes, O. Sirotenko, 2007: Agriculture. In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessmentreport/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter8. pdf, accessed October 2013 180. ETC Group, ‘New Report on Gene Giants and “Climate-Ready” Crops’, October 2010, http://www.etcgroup. org/fr/node/5220, accessed October 2013 181. Croplife, ‘Our Members’, http:// www.croplife.org/our_members, accessed October 2013 182. Farmers First website, http:// www.farmersfirst.org/, accessed October 2013 25 the big issues with growing ‘energy crops’ is precisely the land they take away from food production, thereby fostering deforestation to grow the displaced food, and boosting overall emissions – known as Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), now a big topic in the UNFCCC. IFA also promotes so-called Fertilizer Best Management Practices (FBMPs), portrayed as a way of getting farmers to reduce emissions from fertilizer use, and rewarding those farmers with carbon credits; leaving farmers who don’t use any artificial fertilizers – and so create far fewer emissions – unrewarded.183 IFA member Fertilizer Europe has been lobbying in Brussels to ensure the EU ETS results in 183. IFIA, ‘Climate change - Fertilizer use and emissions in agriculture’, http:// www.fertilizer.org/layout/set/print/ HomePage/SUSTAINABILITY/Climatechange/Emissions-from-agriculturaluse.html, accessed October 2013 Agrofuels lobbies 184. Fertilizers Europe website, http:// www.fertilizerseurope.com/index. php?id=97, accessed October 2013 185. The 10% target for renewable road transport fuels in the EU Renewable Energy Directive is, de facto, a biofuels target, as the vast majority of this is expected (based on member states National Renewable Energy Action Plans) to come from biofuels. See, for example, FoEEurope http://www. foeeurope.org/EU-biofuel_cost020212 and IEEP, http://www.ieep. eu/assets/786/Analysis_of_ILUC_ Based_on_the_National_Renewable_ Energy_Action_Plans.pdf, accessed October 2013 186. http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_ do/footprint/agriculture/soy/ responsiblesoy/soy_roundtable/ 187. Angry Mermaid Award, ‘Monsanto and RTRS’, http://www.angrymermaid. org/monsanto.html, accessed October 2013 Agrofuels Despite the damaging impact of agrofuels on local communities and environments in the global South, not to mention the climate, agrofuels lobbies have a strong presence at the climate talks, defending their supposed position as a climate-friendly alternative to fossil fuels. Two prominent agrofuels lobbies are the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) and the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE), which were created as a result of EU biofuels targets and see Europe as their main market and lobbying target .185 Both have fought heavily against measures to reduce the devastating impacts of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) on communities and the climate in order to see an expansion of agrofuels, and both are ensuring their voices are being heard in the ongoing debates inside the UNFCCC FA L S E the “necessary benefits for its members” i.e. that the fertilizer sector isn’t made to reduce emissions and can get public subsidies for increased costs of electricity. Using the tired old argument of carbon leakage, Fertilizer Europe threatens the EU to gain more free permits to pollute, for “international competitiveness’ reasons”.184 UNICA is also part of BonSucro, one of the certification schemes accredited to certify agrofuel crops for the EU market, based on highly flawed ‘sustainability criteria’. Another such greenwashing scheme is the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS), driven by biotech companies like Monsanto, big soy producers and a few corporate-linked NGOs like WWF.186 Its criteria are so weak that most existing soy production qualifies without any improvement in practices, whilst more deforestation for ‘responsible’ soy and even given a seal of approval. At the climate talks RTRS is pushing agrofuels and carbon credits for GM soy production. RTRS and Monsanto’s shameless propaganda-fuelled lobbying led to their winning an Angry Mermaid Award at COP15.187 SOLUTIONS ! The EU and other governments have been pushing agrofuels (also known as biofuels) as a solution to climate change, but the evidence has shown that rather than reducing emissions by replacing the use of fossil fuels, they actually aggravate climate change as well as causing numerous other social, environmental and economic problems. Agrofuels – large scale, industrial monoculture plantations of energy crops, such as soy, palm oil and sugar cane – can have levels of emissions as high as, or even higher than, some fossil fuels, due to the effects of land use change, e.g. chopping down forests to grow crops. Deforestation can be a direct result, i.e. to grow agrofuels, or indirect, by taking land being used for other activities like farming, which pushes the original farmers and land users to find new land through deforestation. The devastating impact on local communities in the global South is another reason why agrofuels are not a solution, losing land and livelihoods as their lands are grabbed by agrofuels multinationals to feed agrofuel consumption in the North. The use of food crops for fuel has also led to increased global food prices (exacerbated by financial speculation), triggering wide-spread hunger as well as civil unrest in places like Egypt. 26 Big polluting industries Many heavy industries are big polluters, either in terms of greenhouse gas emissions or other environmentally damaging outputs, and so have a vested interest in ensuring the climate negotiations don’t damage their profitability. Below we take a look at the chemicals industry, aviation, steel and nuclear, and the lobby groups they’re sending to Warsaw.188 European Chemicals Industry Council (CEFIC) The European Chemicals Industry Council (CEFIC) represents the big players in the European chemicals sector, including Arkema, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, ExxonMobil Chemical, Proctor & Gamble, Rio Tinto, Shell Chemical, Solvay and Unilever.189 CEFIC has been a ferocious lobby against strengthening EU climate laws and increasing emissions reductions targets. It has argued that closing loopholes in the EU ETS “will do nothing except create uncertainty for market participants...[and] push up prices, risking weakening competitiveness”,190 while simultaneously promoting the “development of unconventional energy sources including shale gas”.191 CEFIC is a big fan of the carbon leakage threat,192 and promotes a climate agreement that includes equivalent targets for industrialised countries and emerging economies. This is a demand that effectively blocks an equitable and ambitious agreement by ignoring the historical responsibility of industrialised countries who made their wealth by polluting the atmosphere – a path no longer open to developing countries if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change. CEFIC is also adamant that a climate agreement must not undercut the protection of IPRs, which is skewed heavily in favour of the rich countries and their multinationals.193 Yet CEFIC is attempting to paint itself the climate’s friend, with a PR campaign that emphasises its energy saving products, and claims that the industry contributes to reducing emissions,194 a message repeated by its global counterpart, the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).195 Together, CEFIC and ICCA are hosting a sideevent at COP19, on 14 November, focusing – unsurprisingly - on the role of innovation and technologies in protecting the environment, instead of the urgent and unambiguous need to reduce resource consumption and end reliance on fossil fuels.196 The International Air Transport Association (IATA) The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline industry lobby, boasts members including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas and COP19 partner Emirates. 197 IATA was for a long time very successful at lobbying to keep aviation out of EU climate regulation, spending tens of thousands on advertisements in international newspapers, urging politicians to “stop plans to punish airlines and travellers.” Faced with proposals to close loopholes in the EU ETS, IATA argued it was “inappropriate and unfair to penalize participants by changing the rules in the middle of the game and artificially increasing prices while not giving participants the choice to opt out.”198 In other words, freedom to pollute either through 188. UNFCCC, ‘COP19 Admitted NGOs’, http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo. pl?sort=const.og_name, accessed October 2013 189. CEFIC, ‘List of Corporate Members’, http://www.cefic.org/Documents/ About-Us/Members/ACOM.pdf, accessed October 2013 190. CEFIC, ‘Cefic issues statement on European Parliament ETS plenary vote’, 3 July 2013, http://www.cefic. org/newsroom/2013/Cefic-issuesstatement-on-European-ParliamentETS-plenary-vote/, accessed October 2013 191. CEFIC, ‘Energy policy at the crossroads’, http://www.cefic. org/Documents/PolicyCentre/ Energy-Roadmap-The-BrochureEnergy-policy-at-the-crossroads.pdf, accessed October 2013 192. Ibid. 193. CEFIC, ‘Climate change and IPR’, www.cefic.org/Documents/ PolicyCentre/Cefic-Paper-ClimateChange-and-IPR.DOC, accessed October 2013 194. CEFIC, ‘Carbon Footprint’, http://www.cefic.org/Policy-Centre/ Energy/Carbon-Footprint/, accessed October 2013 195. IATA, ‘Energy and climate change’http://www.icca-chem.org/ en/Home/ICCA-initiatives/Energy-Climate-Change-/ accessed October 2013 196. ICCA website, ‘COP-19 – United Nations Climate Change Conference’, http://www.icca-chem.org/en/Home/ Newsroom/ICCA-events/Upcomingevents/COP-19-United-NationsClimate-Change-Conference/, accessed October 2013 197. IATA, ‘Current Airline Members’, http://www.iata.org/about/members/ Pages/airline-list.aspx?All=true accessed October 2013 198. IATA, ‘IATA views on the structural reform of the European carbon market’, 28 February 2013, http:// www.iata.org/policy/environment/ Documents/euets-reform-of-theeuropean-carbon-market-28feb-2013.pdf accessed October 2013 27 199. Angry Mermaid Award, ‘IATA’, http://www.angrymermaid.org/ iata.html, accessed October 2013 200. World Steel website, ‘Members’, http://www.worldsteel.org/ links/worldsteel-members1.html, accessed October 2013 201. World Steel website, ‘Executive officers and board,’ http:// www.worldsteel.org/about-us/ officers-executive-and-board.html, accessed October 2013 202. World Steel website,, ‘Climate Change’ http://www.worldsteel. org/steel-by-topic/climate-change. html, accessed October 2013 203. See, for example, FERN, ‘What are carbon sinks?’, http://www.fern. org/campaign/carbon-trading/ what-are-carbon-sinks, accessed October 2013 catastrophically cheap carbon prices or a voluntary-only system! IATA has in the past paid lip service to a sectorwide, global market – whilst lobbying in the background to prevent it: its trick is to propose voluntary efforts to reduce the industry’s emissions which it hopes can sidestep top-down binding international regulation. At COP15, IATA’s proposed cuts were criticised by the Angry Mermaid Award, for which it was nominated, as “misleading and ‘meaningless’ pledges on reducing emissions” based on a “blatant manipulation of its ecological impact”.199 For COP19, IATA is up to its old tricks again, positioning itself in October with a new “Carbon Neutral Growth” strategy. This promises an industry wide “carbon offsetting scheme – a global market-based measure (MBM)”, run through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which – and here’s the joke – would open “the way for governments to join the initiative”, i.e. don’t bother with regulation, you can all join our voluntary scheme! The fact that carbon offsetting cannot compensate for emissions cuts at source is, of course, not mentioned (see False solutions: Offsetting with Carbon Sinks box). World Steel Association The World Steel Association represents the global steel industry, with members including ThyssenKrupp, Hyundai Steel Company, China Steel Corporation, Russian Steel Consortium, the European Steel Industry Association (EUROFER – one of the most aggressive lobby groups on EU climate policies) and COP19 partner ArcelorMittal.200 The CEO of ArcelorMittal, Lakshmi Mittal, sits on World Steel’s Executive Committee.201 World Steel claims that “climate change Offsetting with Carbon Sinks FA L S E is the biggest issue for the global steel industry in the 21st century”202 and makes a song and dance about its efforts towards a sustainable life cycle, approach, recycling and energy efficiency measures. SOLUTIONS ! Carbon offsetting via carbon sinks refers to the idea that greenhouse gas emissions can be compensated for by taking other actions that store the equivalent amount – or more – of CO2 in carbon sinks. Carbon sinks store more carbon than they release, such as forests, soils, oceans and the atmosphere. Since higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere alter our climate, and turn our oceans acidic, big polluters have turned their attention to the idea that planting trees (even if they are not native to that region), or reducing expected deforestation, is equivalent to reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels. The idea of reducing expected deforestation implies accepting that deforestation is going to take place, but the rate could be lessened. In some cases, for example in Brazil, such calculations have led to an increase in deforestation, in an attempt to have a worse starting point and therefore earn more credits from future ‘reductions’. This assumption is seriously flawed, because forest sinks only temporarily store carbon. Fossil carbon (oil, coal, gas) is generally static (stored permanently), whereas forests are part of the active carbon pool, which can easily be released through activities such as forest fires, insect outbreaks, decay, logging, land use changes or even the decline of forest ecosystems as a result of climate change. As environmental group FERN explains, “storing your carbon in a tree rather than a fossil fuel deposit is analogous to betting your money on a horse rather than storing it in a bank” and “instead of moving ahead with drastic reductions of energy use and initiating a transition towards low-carbon economies, forests’ ability to (temporarily) sink carbon is being used to justify continued fossil fuel use.”203 Many tree planting offset projects have severe impacts on forests and forest peoples, exacerbating land grabs and curtailing forest peoples’ rights, while in some cases virgin forest are replaced by monoculture plantations, destroying complex ecosystems and depriving local communities of their traditional forest uses. 28 It also demands however, a “significant financial contribution from governments” because “the steel industry cannot, on its own, be expected to fund the long term research and development of new technologies to radically reduce steel’s emissions.”204 World Steel promotes CCS as a way of reducing its sector’s emissions – attempting to sweep its emission’s ‘under the carpet’, at great public cost, unknown feasibility and a climate-threatening time lag (see False Solutions: Carbon Capture and Storage box). World Steel recognises that, according to the IEA, the iron and steel industry accounted for around 6.7% of total global CO2 emissions,205 but nonetheless argues that “steel is at the core of a green economy”.206 It lobbies for a “sectoral approach” to emissions cuts, targets set by industry – which of course, would not be as strong as those needed. And an approach that would apply to the whole of the steel industry rather than to individual countries or regions – thereby ignoring different historical responsibilities and abilities to pay. The World Nuclear Association The World Nuclear Association represents around 180 companies involved in the nuclear industry, including Areva, E.ON, Vattenfall, Atomstroyexport, Mitsubishi, Deutsche Bank and Ernst&Young,207 and is using climate change as a vehicle to win political and financial support. Despite widespread public opposition, particularly in the wake of the unresolved Fukushima disaster, the nuclear industry is currently involved in building over 60 new nuclear reactors across the globe.208 The WNA lobbies for nuclear plants to become eligible for financial support, including through the Clean Development Mechanism, ignoring the fact that nuclear waste also creates long-term risks for humanity and global ecosystems as well as the extraction of uranium being linked to numerous cases of human rights and environmental abuse (see False Solutions: Nuclear Energy box). FA L S E 204.World Steel, ‘Steel’s contribution to a low carbon future’, http://www.worldsteel. org/publications/positionpapers/Steel-s-contributionto-a-low-carbon-future.html, accessed October 2013 205.Ibid. 206. World Steel, ‘Sustainable steel’, http://www.worldsteel. org/steel-by-topic/sustainablesteel.html, accessed October 2013 207. World Nuclear Association, ‘Membership’, http:// www.world-nuclear.org/ WNA/About-the-WNA/ WNA-Membership/#. UmAd6RDvpLM, accessed October 2013 208.World Nuclear Association, ‘Plans For New Reactors Worldwide’, Updated March 2013, http://world-nuclear. org/info/Current-and-FutureGeneration/Plans-For-NewReactors-Worldwide/#. UmAfMxDvpLM, accessed October 2013 209. For more on the real solutions to climate change and the demands of climate justice, see for example, the Network for Climate Justice, http:// climatejusticenetwork.org/ climate-justice/, accessed October 2013 SOLUTIONS ! Real Alternatives, climate justice and paradigm shifts Instead of false solutions promoted by powerful polluters that make the rich richer and the climate warmer, real solutions revolve around leaving fossil fuels in the ground, investing in clean, community-led renewables and energy sovereignty, and reducing the wasteful and inequitable resource consumption by the rich. This requires shifting away from a growth-fixated economic paradigm that fails both the vast majority of people and the planet, which can only happen if we stop listening to vested interests currently profiting from our collective failure to act. Climate justice requires huge financial (and appropriate technological) transfers from the global North to South, rights-based resource conservation and the protection of biodiversity, as well as agro-ecological approaches to food sovereignty, and tackling social and economic inequality.209 29 Conclusion: Good COP? Bad COP! Corporate lobby groups are pushing for false solutions to climate change, such as carbon markets, coal and CCS, shale gas, agrofuels, GM and nuclear, all wrapped-up in nice-sounding phrases like “low carbon”, “clean”, “green economy”, “sustainable growth” or “bioeconomy”. Big business has become the king of spin, disguising its pro-profit and environmentally exploitative agenda, lobbying for so-called “solutions” that will fail to prevent catastrophic climate change and lock us into a system dependent on fossil fuels. Their rhetoric hides the fact that these companies are performing activities, and even have core business models, with severe impacts on the climate, local environments and on people, violating human rights and destroying local communities. But rather than standing up to these powerful and self-serving corporations, the UNFCCC is granting them an ever-more central role in designing the “solution”; when the only real solution is keeping fossil fuels in the ground and making a just transition towards a post-fossil fuel society. As long as these corporations are invited to the table and treated as partners, this will not happen. The dangerous and damaging steps that the Warsaw COP and its organisers, the Polish government, have taken - by embracing big polluters and climate crooks as official partners, bringing business into the pre-COP and teaming up with coal-lobbies to promote catastrophic climate policies – endanger the whole UNFCCC process, and our future. Corporate capture on the scale that is exhibited at COP19 runs the risk of rendering the UN climate negotiations not merely ineffective, but counterproductive to tackling climate change. It is time for the UN and the international community to open its eyes to corporate spin and powerful vested interests, and work towards real alternatives that embody the principles of social, environmental and climate justice. Leave big business polluters and corporate climate crooks out of the negotiating room. 30 BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY Registered Civil Society Delegations to COP19 By Country/City of Origin Source data: http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo.pl?sort=const.og_name World map: copyright Google Maps All Registered Civil Society Delegations to COP19 By Country of Origin Source data: http://maindb.unfccc.int/public/ngo.pl?sort=const.og_name World map: copyright Google Maps corporateeurope.org/blog/warsaw-cop19-climate-blog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making. This corporate capture of EU decision-making leads to policies that exacerbate social injustice and accelerate environmental destruction across the world. Rolling back corporate power and exposing greenwash are crucial in order to truly address global problems including poverty, climate change, social injustice, hunger and environmental degradation. Corporate Europe Observatory works in close alliance with public interest groups and social movements in and outside Europe to develop alternatives to the dominance of corporate power. www.corporateeurope.org The Transnational Institute was founded in 1974. It is an international network of activist-scholars committed to critical analyses of the global problems of today and tomorrow. TNI seeks to provide intellectual support to those movements concerned to steer the world in a democratic, equitable and environmentally sustainable direction. www.tni.org October 2013 Published by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and the Transnational Institute (TNI)