COP30: Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Outnumber Every Country Delegation Except Brazil

More than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists are attending the COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition.

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One in 25 participants at COP30 represents the fossil fuel industry, according to an analysis by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition.

A total of 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to this year’s climate summit in Belém, Brazil. They outnumber all countries’ delegations except Brazil, which has 3,805 delegates in attendance. The group also calculated that lobbyists have received two thirds more passes to COP30 than all the delegates from the 10 most climate vulnerable nations combined.

“It’s common sense that you cannot solve a problem by giving power to those who caused it. Yet three decades and 30 COPs later, more than 1,500 fossil fuel lobbyists are roaming the climate talks as if they belong here. It is infuriating to watch their influence deepen year after year, making a mockery of the process and of the communities suffering its consequences,” said Kick Big Polluters Out member Jax Bongon from IBON International in the Philippines.

Brazilian news outlet Agência Pública reported earlier this week that Brazil, the summit’s host, granted the Batista brothers – the billionaire brothers who own JBS, the world’s largest beef producer – access to the Blue Zone. This is a restricted area of ​​COP30 where diplomatic negotiations take place among the nearly 200 countries that signed the UN Convention on Climate Change. ⁠

In Line With Previous Years

Climate activists have long called COP meetings a “farce” due to the presence of thousands of fossil fuel representatives, with Global Witness’ investigation reigniting debates over the role of fossil fuels in the summit.

Three petrostates – Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt – hosted the last three summits. At each summit, the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists was significant: at least 1,773 at last year’s COP29, at least 2,456 oil and gas lobbyists at COP28 (a record), and more than 630 people at COP27.

Cover photo:  UN Climate Change/Zô Guimarães via Flickr.