Fossil fuel bosses get ‘red carpet’ at Cop29 despite concerns over influence

This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The host country of this year’s UN climate summit, Azerbaijan, has rolled out “red carpet” treatment to fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists, the Guardian can reveal.

At least 132 oil and gas company senior executives and staff were invited to the Cop29 summit, and had special badges denoting they were guests of the presidency.

That was equivalent to red-carpet treatment at a UN climate summit, Cop experts told the Guardian. Holders of the special host country badges include the head of Saudi oil company Aramco and the chief executive of BP.

The revelations came as some of the world’s most senior voices on the climate raised concerns over the influence of the global fossil fuel industry and petrostates at the UN talks, which reached their midway point on Friday night. Countries are gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, to establish ways of raising the cash that developing countries need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of the climate crisis.

Al Gore, a former vice-president of the US, called for new safeguards that would bar countries without strong climate action plans from hosting the annual summits, and stop the influence of fossil fuel companies.

“The UN secretary general ought to have a role in picking where these Cops are to be based,” he said. “Three years in a row it’s been a petrostate [as host of the talks]. Obviously it needs to be reformed.”

Delegates should also be barred unless they could show their companies met certain standards, he added.

He said: “The criteria ought to be: do they have a real credible net zero commitment on the country that they’re from? If not, no. Do they have a plan to phase down the production of oil and gas? Are they spending an adequate share of their windfall profits on the transition to clean energy? Will they end their anti-climate lobbying? Will they end their green washing?”

Companies failing to meet these criteria should be excluded. Gore’s calls follow a letter calling for reform of Cops – which stands for “conference of the parties” under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), parent treaty to the Paris agreement – that was published early on Friday. Signatories included a former UN climate chief, a former UN secretary general and a former UN climate envoy.

Others have defended the UNFCCC process, though acknowledging it to be unwieldy. Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa thinktank, pointed out that for many small developing countries it was the only forum in which they could confront the big economies that are the authors of the climate crisis.

“The Cop process may not be perfect, but it has moved the world forward significantly over the last decade,” he said. “[Any reform must be] done in a way that strengthens the process, not weakens it. This forum is the only place where vulnerable nations have a seat at the table. This is a global challenge that needs global solutions.”

Laurence Tubiana, a former French diplomat who helped craft the Paris agreement and is now chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, said on X: “Multilateralism is the foundation of the climate process. The Paris agreement happened because every country had a voice. Reforms must strengthen, not sideline, the consensus-building that builds trust.”

Azerbaijan put itself forward as potential host of this year’s summit a year ago at the Cop28 summit in the United Arab Emirates, another large producer of oil and gas, after Russia vetoed several other former eastern bloc countries from hosting. Azerbaijan’s oil and gas industry began in the mid-19th century, and the country’s economy is built on the fossil fuels, which make up more than 90% of its exports. President Ilham Aliyev, speaking at the summit earlier this week, called them “a gift of God”.

But the host country has been performing well as an “honest broker” at the talks in their first week, according to negotiators who spoke to the Guardian. This year’s talks focus heavily on the provision of climate finance to poor countries, rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Progress on that has been slow.

The “transition away from fossil fuels” that countries committed to last year has also been a source of contention, as some countries initially sought to sideline the resolution at this year’s meeting.

The holders of host country badges, according to an analysis of UN data seen by the Guardian, include Amin Nasser, the boss of the Saudi oil company Aramco, and nine others from his company. Saudi Arabia has long been accused of obstructing progress at Cops.

The single biggest beneficiary of the VIP treatment was another Saudi power company, ACWA, which has coal, gas and renewable assets. Its chief executive, Marco Arcelli, was accompanied by 24 of his staff.

BP’s chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, was also granted a host country pass, along with seven others from the company. BP has a long history in Azerbaijan and remains a key player in the petrostate’s oil and gas operations. Exxonmobil’s head, Darren Woods, and three staff also received the special invitations.

Many campaigners are angry at the presence of fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists at Cops. Dawda Cham, from Help-Gambia, an environmental NGO, said: “The fossil fuel industry has long manipulated climate negotiations to protect its interests while our planet burns. It’s time to sever these ties and ensure that the voices of the global south are amplified, not silenced. We must kick big polluters out of our climate conversations and make them pay.”