A nation aiming to be an environmental leader may have fallen short at the world's flagship climate conference after partnering with sponsors with ties to dirty energy companies.
As detailed by DeSmog, the United Kingdom's pavilion at the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, was co-sponsored by industrial software firm AVEVA, which has worked with some of the most polluting companies around.
The conference — known in short as COP29 and occurring from Nov. 11 to 22 this year — is a series of formal meetings in which nearly 200 governments negotiate how to move forward in limiting warming global temperatures so as to avoid catastrophic consequences, such as food shortages and further displacement and deaths due to more intense extreme weather.
Last year's conference concluded with controversy after critics argued the governments should have formulated a more decisive plan to transition away from dirty fuels. The subsequent appointment of Azerbaijan minister of ecology and natural resources Mukhtar Babayev as COP29 president also failed to inspire confidence because of his past connections to a state oil company.
The UK's sponsor announcement just before the 2024 event drew similar criticism. Prior to COP29, the government suggested qualified sponsors had to be "making real contributions to the fight against climate change" and have "strong climate credentials."
However, as DeSmog noted, more than 600 oil and gas companies are using AVEVA's technology, with the firm announcing in December 2023 that it had welcomed these groups to an event in San Francisco. For its part, AVEVA says on its website that its software helps companies "operate more efficiently, consume less energy, and reduce waste."
While that may be true, an even closer look reveals that oil and gas companies are using AVEVA's tech to extract even more dirty fuels, with "some of the world's largest and highest-emitting fossil fuel companies" among its clients, as DeSmog explained.
Other sponsors of the UK pavilion include the National Grid (which operates a major European liquified natural gas terminal) and DP World, a logistics company owned by the Dubai government in the United Arab Emirates, which obtains around 40% of its income from oil.
Considering that dirty fuel pollution is the primary cause of Earth's overheating, Zack Polanski, deputy leader of the UK's Green Party, was disturbed by the pavilion sponsorships, pointing to the United Nations' recent accusation that oil and gas companies were "running 'a massive misinformation and disinformation campaign' to slow down the adoption of renewable energy."
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Major media organizations have also received scrutiny for accepting money from dirty fuel sponsors, with critics arguing the truthfulness of the reporting could be compromised.
"We are facing a climate emergency, and we need a firewall between policymakers and the oil and gas lobby to prevent their malign influence from dictating our efforts to tackle climate change," Polanski said in a statement to DeSmog.
"Each of these companies, in one way or another, has vested interests in the longevity of the fossil fuel industry," Fossil Free Parliament campaigner Carys Boughton added. "It is therefore deeply concerning that the UK government considers them to have 'strong climate credentials.'"
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