One of the more interesting panels I have attended so far was held Tuesday morning (11\/15) on \u201cAddressing Conflicts of Interest in the Implementation of the Paris Agreement.\u201d\u00a0 Having attended COP-19 in Warsaw, I was aware of the concern over participation of fossil fuel industries in the conference, of the booths set up by fossil fuel industries that aimed to persuade passers-by that they were environmentally progressive, that Poland (the host country) was heavily reliant upon coal and not ready to switch, and the fact that UNFCCC officials had a meeting with the coal industry during that conference.\u00a0 It seems the involvement of environmentally dirty industries in the COP has become more pervasive since then.\u00a0 The panel, which included Goodwin Ojo from Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth International, Nigeria; Meena Raman of Third World Network, Lidy Nacpil representing Asian Peoples\u2019 Movement for Debt and Development; Walter Schuldt, state delegate to COP from Ecuador; and Tamar Lawrence-Samuel of Corporate Accountability International, explored ways in which conflicts of interest posed problems for climate change negotiations, and how they should be dealt with.<\/p>\n
Polluters have increasingly come to participate in the COP.\u00a0 Some years, they have come as representatives of their industries (as BINGOs\u2014business and industry non-governmental actors\u2014don\u2019t you have to love these acronyms?) , and other years they will show up wearing badges of some nation (or the EU) as an official negotiator.\u00a0 Whichever hat they wear, they emphasize private sector interests; when they are delegates, they have a voice in the negotiations.\u00a0 Even as BINGOs, they get access that other non-governmental organizations do not have.\u00a0 Other NGOs (including environmental NGOs and research institutions) do not have the same access to official meetings at COP.\u00a0 BINGOs are able to submit documents (as other NGOs are not). And it looks as if, under UNFCCC auspices, banks direct some monies (adaptation\/mitigation, Green Development Fund?) to some of these industries. Tamar Lawrence-Samuel of Corporate Accountability International outlined four ways corporate conflict of interest occurs: 1) direct lobbying by industry, and industry representatives joining official delegations; 2) industry lobby groups with legal status as non-profits who get NGO credentials (World Coal Assn, International Trading Association, etc);\u00a0 3)\u00a0 Holding big side events that UNFCCC high-level folks attend; and 4) Platform(s) for corporations to pledge to take action on the climate (global climate action plan), and thereby greenwashing their actions.<\/p>\n
Walter Schuldt, an official state delegate from Ecuador who was also instrumental in Tuesday\u2019s meeting for consultation with indigenous peoples about the proposed new Platform, pointed out the SBI [Subsidiary Body for Implementation] report at COP22 does not include a conflict of interest statement, despite the efforts of their Latin American group that had support from some African groups.\u00a0 Schuldt, who I was drawn to as one of the rock stars (one of the really good guys) in these meetings, said that a significant part of government climate change expenditures goes through businesses (30%, I believe he said)\u2014yet Corporations have been involved in environmental damages and human rights violations, putting the entire economy of nations in danger when having to press their cases against international corporations (there are examples in his region).<\/p>\n
There are good models for conflict of interest rules out there.\u00a0 Schuldt pointed to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has set up a participatory framework for non-state actors.\u00a0 If a conflict of interest exists for a corporation, that entity has to be considered a private sector actor.\u00a0 The Human Rights Council has also worked to develop a binding agreement on international corporations involved in violations of human rights (the EU participated in this). Tamar Lawrence-Samuel (Corporate Accountability International)\u00a0 also pointed to important international examples of keeping industry at arms\u2019 length in the negotiating process.\u00a0 The Global tobacco treaty shows that world leaders can (and have) stood up to powerful corporations.\u00a0 Tobacco interests did everything they could to weaken the agreement, but (Asian-Pacific and other) nations banded together to stop them.\u00a0 The treaty was unanimously adopted in 2003 (provision 5.3 recognizes the tobacco company\u2019s profound and irreconcilable conflict of interest in health policy).\u00a0 This treaty is working, she said, and it helps speed up domestic laws to provide for public health (anti-tobacco laws).<\/p>\n
Another point made by two speakers was that the legal systems in some of the LDCs are quite weak, and that national courts\u2019 decisions against polluters (e.g., natural gas flaring in Nigeria, declared illegal in 2005) are often unenforced.\u00a0 They would like some UNFCCC help with the enforcement problem.<\/p>\n
Various speakers pointed out that international safeguards and regulations on corporations will not be enough.\u00a0 Our governments can invoke our own right to deal with corporate investors within our countries.\u00a0 International law and regulation for transnational corporations important, of course\u2014and they should be held accountable.\u00a0 It is important to be very careful how \u201cnationally determined contributions\u201d are getting defined to include interests of corporate actors (is coal-produced megawatt power excluded in the 70% reduction in emissions Philippines promised?).<\/p>\n
Corporate social responsibility, self-depicted, was called greenwashing by several speakers.\u00a0 Godwin Ojo from Nigeria underscored the failure of voluntary mechanisms: corporations pollute and then build a hospital.\u00a0 Ojo (joined by others) used the term Ecoside to describe such actions.\u00a0 There need to be binding mechanisms, Ojo contended.\u00a0 Delegate Schuldt (Ecuador) pointed out that the achievement of sustainability has not yet been defined for non-developed country funding by UNFCCC, and that definition needs to have teeth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the more interesting panels I have attended so far was held Tuesday morning (11\/15) on \u201cAddressing Conflicts of Interest in the Implementation of the Paris Agreement.\u201d\u00a0 Having attended COP-19 in Warsaw, I was aware of the concern over participation of fossil fuel industries in the conference, of the booths set up by fossil … Continue reading Reflections on Corporate Participation and Conflicts of Interest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/cop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}