The Climate Disinformation Machine at Work at COP29

Beyond the 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists currently in Baku, COP29 is attended by over a hundred members of climate disinformation organizations across all levels.

Over the course of the past two weeks, representatives from nearly 200 countries gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the annual United Nation’s annual climate conference. The purpose of COP29 was to negotiate the next steps in addressing the climate crisis, with a special focus on reaching an agreement on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance. 

This year’s event had more than 65,000 registered attendees, making it the second largest COP on record. Yet, key world leaders, including President Joe Biden, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and the president of the European Commission, did not make an appearance. 

However, 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the conference. The number, while smaller than last year’s—there were over 2.000 at COP28–is larger than the sum of delegations from the ten most climate vulnerable nations, who have a combined 1,033 delegates. If they were its own delegation, fossil fuel lobbyists would only be outnumbered by Azerbaijan (2,229), Brazil (1,914) and Türkiye (1,862).  

Fossil fuel lobbyists, however, are not the only attendees committed to hindering climate action. 

Important Context investigated the climate disinformation organizations present at COP29. Based on the UNFCCC’s Provisional list of registered participants, we were able to identify the presence of at least 17 organizations that have worked to delay and divert attention from necessary actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. Combined, they have over 130 delegates, who hold badges across all levels at the summit. 

At the top of the list, with 48 representatives is the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). Founded in 1999, the Swiss-based trade association says it is dedicated to “achiev[ing] climate objectives with minimal economic harm.” Its members include some of the world's largest fossil fuel and energy distribution companies. BP is one of its founding members. IETA focuses primarily on influencing global emissions trading and pricing policies—it has wielded significant influence over carbon market mechanisms for years, including in the Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocols. At COP29, the organization has its own pavilion, sponsored by Chevron, in the Blue Zone, where the formal conference and the negotiations take place. 

IETA’s delegates, however, are not exclusively registered under the association’s name. As often happens with lobbyists at COPs, some of them are under unexpected delegations, making it harder to map their participation. Indeed, IETA is the entity nominating 43 of its delegates, registered under the category of non-governmental organizations, meaning they have observer status at the conference. 

However, there are other five delegates related to IETA with different credentials. One managing director was registered as a guest from Ukraine’s party overflow—a category that represents additional participants a given country can register who are not part of the official delegation, meaning they are granted access to the Blue Zone but do not take part in negotiations. Two other IETA members appear as “partner/sponsorship” of Singapore's party overflow. One conference manager and one conference and operations manager appear with different NGO’s as their nominating entities—the first is an affiliated member of the International Chamber of Commerce and the second is a guest of Winrock International. 

With 22 delegates, the second largest delegation is from Teneo, a New York-based public relations company that signed a $5 million contract with Azerbaijan in May, and has since been promoting the country as a “climate champion.” Teneo describes itself as a CEO advisory firm that provides its clients with strategy and communications advice, management consultancy, financial, risk, and people advice. Besides a number of fossil fuel companies, Teneo’s client list includes other polluting sectors like the steel, chemical, food, and transport industries.

Twenty of the company’s delegates have a “paid relationship/contract” with Azerbaijan’s official party, which is also their nominating entity. One of them appears as a host country guest, and another as a guest of New Zealand’s party overflow. 

McKinsey & Company is probably the organization with the most wide-spread delegation. Headquartered in New York City, the global management consulting firm publicly takes climate change seriously. The company has previously claimed to “[inform] the climate-change debate by publishing the first global greenhouse-gas cost curve to rigorously compare the costs and abatement potential of hundreds of possible actions to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.”

However, over the past 50 years, McKinsey & Company has advised at least 43 of the world’s 100 biggest corporate polluters, including BP, Exxon Mobil, Gazprom and Saudi Aramco.

At COP29, McKinsey & Company’s 17 delegates have the highest variety of credentials. They appear as guests or partner/sponsorship for the party overflow of countries like Singapore, Türkiye, Ukraine, and Brazil. With NGOs as nominating entities, a senior partner appears as partner/sponsorship of the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry while another partner appears as a guest of Sustainable Energy for All. McKinsey & Company’s delegates are also registered under the categories of host country guest and UN Secretariat’s units and bodies overflow. 

Also registered across different categories are APCO’s five delegates. Described as “one of the world’s most powerful PR firms,” APCO has offices in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Its clients include “large multinational companies, trade associations, governments, NGOs and educational institutions.” APCO was behind the launch of Friends of Science, a group of well known “science skeptics” and helped form The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, who casts doubt over the relationship between CO2 emissions and climate change. 

APCO’s delegates appear as having a non-disclosed relationship with the UAE’s party overflow, as partner/sponsorship of the UK’s party overflow, as guest of NGO Global Philanthropy Foundation, and as partner/sponsorship of UN Secretariat’s units and bodies overflow. 

Also present at the event is infamous U.S. organization Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which SourceWatch describes as the conservative answer progressive organizations lobbying for environmental issues. CFACT describes its mission as “relentlessly infusing the environmental debate with a balanced perspective on environmental stewardship.” 

In the past, the organization has received funds from ExxonMobil and the petrochemical billionaire Koch family. It is part of the climate counter-movement and was highlighted in a 2015 academic paper called “Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change.” 

Representing CFACT are co-founder and executive director Craig Rucker, Marc Morano, the executive director and chief correspondent of ClimateDepot.com, a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which is dedicated to questioning human responsibility for climate change and senior fellow Peter Murphy. 

Other entities with delegations registered under the category of “Non-governmental Organizations” include the American Petroleum Institute with two delegates, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers with one delegate, Edison Electric Institute with two delegates, and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America with ten delegates. 

A delegate from the U.S. Grains Council appears as a guest from the Organization of American States under the category of “Intergovernmental Organizations.” Meanwhile, as party overflow, Pathways Alliance has two guests of Canada, the conservative George Mason University has a delegate with an undisclosed relationship with Republic of Korea, fossil-fuel-friendly PR giant FleishmanHillard has a guest of Brazil, and different organizations related to the Dentsu Network have seven guests of Japan. 

As was to be expected, media organizations are also among the climate disinformation entities present at COP29. Reuters Plus, Reuters’s in-house advertising studio whose client list includes Aramco, Shell and BP, has two delegates attending the summit. Spiked, a UK-based online magazine that frequently publishes anti-environmental and climate science denial stories has one delegate acting as a photographer and videographer. And GB News, a UK-based TV and radio outlet which, since its foundation in 2021, has often given a platform to climate science denial groups under the guise of not shying “away from controversial issues,” has two members in the UK’s party overflow and five media delegates. 

Climate denialists from the U.S. 118th Congress are also represented in the country’s party overflow. Congressman Morgan Griffith, who has received nearly $600,000.00 from fossil fuel contributions is himself registered to attend the conference. While not personally attending, Reps. Tim Walberg, Buddy Carter, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer—who received $481,646, $284,620.00, and $98,539.00 respectively from fossil fuel contributions, have representatives at the event.

Even before it began, COP29 was plagued by controversy. Secretary recordings of the event’s CEO, Elnur Soltanov, discussing “investment opportunities” for the country’s state oil company were leaked. Azerbaijan has also given special guest badges to at least 132 oil and gas executives, which critics say is the equivalent to a “red-carpet” treatment at the convention. 

Azerbaijan is not alone. One of the sponsors of the UK’s pavilion, software company AVEVA, has had over 600 oil and gas clients, including Shell, ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron. As one of the country’s sponsors, AVEVA is among the UK’s “official COP29 partners,” meaning they get to host events featuring their own spokespeople. 

Meanwhile, countries that represent almost 70% of the world’s population are demanding more accountability at the climate summit, and influential climate policy experts are calling for a reform of COPs that prevents nations that are against the phasing out of fossil fuels from hosting the event. On Tuesday (19/11), the G20 launched the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, aimed at addressing disinformation campaigns that are delaying and derailing climate action. Those pushes come in the wake of a 2022 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, for the first time, acknowledged the negative impacts of climate disinformation in advancing climate policy.