COP 19 Climate Capture:
Stop the corporate takeover and expansion of carbon markets now!
COP 19 Climate Capture:
Stop the corporate takeover and expansion of carbon markets now!
For almost 20 years, multilateral climate policies have served to create
profitable financial schemes that maintain fossil fuel dependent systems that are responsible
for the climate crisis. November 11-22 in Warsaw, Poland, the 19th Conference of the
Parties (COP19) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be
no exception. The EU’s agenda for the COP19 will be both to scale-up carbon trading
mechanisms and find other ways of sustaining an industrial and financial system dependent
on coal, oil and gas, which is facing a crisis of multiple dimensions.
EU’s agenda for COP19: more carbon markets
In an attempt to increase the reach of carbon markets, the EU will pledge its continued
support to a set of failed policies that have been rejected by more than 140 organizations
and social movements from around the world.i The EU, Norway, Australia, the USA, and a
host of corporate allies aim to establish more environmental markets under the UNFCCC to
supplement the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which lies in shambles.ii The New
Market Mechanism (NMM) would expand the scope of offset schemes like the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM). In addition, discussions on the Framework for Various
Approaches (FVA) would involve an agreement to approve international trading from
various existing national, regional and local carbon markets for compliance with the
commitments under the Convention.
The 2012 UN decisions agreed on guiding elements for the NMM, which raise a number of
concerns such as the expansion of carbon markets to include forest and other land-based
emissions, such as the problematic REDD+ mechanism (Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and forest Degradation)iii. The structure of a possible NMM remains
undecided. However, the EU is promoting a NMM that covers broad sectors of Southern
countries’ economiesiv. This would multiply the severe impacts that the CDM has already
had on affected communities, the environment and the climate.
Further, the FVA would allow carbon pollution rights from various national, regional and
local Emission Trading Schemes to be traded under the Convention. Pollution permits
created by schemes with very different rules would become tradable on a wider scale in a
move toward a “global carbon market”. As a result, the EU pursues an agenda for
increasing markets that have not only failed to provide a solution to the climate crisis, but
further benefit industries responsible for continuing climate change.
Climate culprits capture the Convention
COP19 not only risks adding to the EU ETS disaster, it also scales up corporate capture of
the climate negotiations by providing a chair inside the central negotiating block. As the
Minister of the Environment of Poland, Marcin Korolec, in charge of organising the UN
talks announced, “[f]or the first time in 19 years, since the climate talks are being held,
representatives of global business will be a part of it.”v This capitulation to corporate-power
furthers a dangerous trend of openly placing corporations at the centre of the decisionmaking
process and guarantees further corporate-led policies that will benefit polluters
instead of forcing them to take effective action.
To make things worse, the companies singled out are those with some of the most
damaging track records.vi Some examples are ArcelorMittal, the steel giant which has
massively profited from carbon markets while causing damage to vulnerable
communities;vii Alstom, which plans to build the biggest coal power plant in Poland; PGE,
Poland’s biggest energy company, with investments in coal, shale gas and nuclear and; the
oil company LOTOS S.A, which is involved in shale gas and led an astroturf group
promoting fracking;viii and car giants such as BMW, which have been actively lobbying
against CO2 emission reductions for cars.ix
Coal interests strong at COP19
The coal industry, one of the dirtiest energy sources contributing to the climate crisis, will
have a strong presence at COP19. The Polish Ministry of Economy and the World Coal
Association (with members such as Rio Tinto, Katowice and BHP Billiton) have launched
a Communiqué calling on the UN and development banks to set a pathway towards
increased use of coal and coal technology.x Apart from calling on developmental banks to
support Southern countries in accessing new coal technologies, they are organising a “Coal
and Climate Summit” during the talks.xi
COP19 is shaping up as a culminating moment in the corporate capture of the UN talks.
With governments partnering up with some of the biggest culprits responsible for the
climate crisis, COP19 will increase polluters’ ability to profit at the expense of the climate.
Carbon markets have demonstrated an absolute inability to start reducing greenhouse gases
at source, or promote a just transition away from fossil fuels, both necessary to reduce the
impacts of climate change.
We, the undersigned organizations, denounce governments, the UN and their financial
allies for yielding to corporate power and their lobby groups instead of standing up to them
and enabling a just transition to a post-fossil fuel society. It is time to scrap the ETS and
other attempts to commodify nature, time to leave fossil fuels and minerals in the ground,
and time to start a real transition towards just and people-driven alternatives.
List of signatories
- Aliança RECOs – Redes de Cooperação Comunitária Sem Fronteiras (Brazil),
- Carbon Trade Watch,
- Centro De Referência Do Movimento Da Cidadania Pelas Águas Florestas E Montanhas Iguassu Iterei (Brazil),
- Corner House (UK),
- Corporate Europe Observatory,
- Ecologistas en Acción (Spain),
- FERN,
- Iterei- Refúgio Particular De Animais Nativos (Brazil),
- Movimento Mulheres pela P@Z! (Brazil),
- re:Common (Italy),
- Terræ Organização da Sociedade Civil (Brazil),
- Transnational Institute (TNI),
i Time to Scrap the ETS declaration: http://scrap-the-euets.makenoise.org/english/
ii EU ETS myth busting: Why it can’t be reformed and shouldn’t be replicated,
www.fern.org/EUETSmythbusting; EU Emissions Trading System: failing at the third attempt
http://corporateeurope.org/news/eu-ets-failing-third-attempt; Carbon Trading – how it works and why it fails,
www.carbontradewatch.org/publications/carbon-trading-how-it-works-and-why-it-fails.html; Trading carbon
- how it works and why it is controversial, www.fern.org/tradingcarbon; Energy Security For Whom? For
What? www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/energy-security-whom-what; Green is the Color of Money: The
EU ETS Failure as a Model for the “green economy” www.carbontradewatch.org/publications/green-is-thecolor-
of-money-the-eu-ets-faliure-as-a-model-for-the-green-economy.html
iii For further information on REDD+ see: http://noredd.makenoise.org/
iv A key decision under discussion includes whether to create a NMM based on project-based
approaches, like the CDM, or sector-based. Bolivia on the other hand, has called for a moratorium on the
establishment of any new markets under the Convention, saying that carbon markets support the constitution
of a new global right – the right to pollute – and contradict environmental integrity and the basic science of
climate change. See: www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/fern-comment/nmmpaper_internet-1.pdf
v Dirty Business in Warsaw: http://corporateeurope.org/it/node/1530
vi The corporate partners of COP19 are: ArcelorMittal Poland SA, ALSTOM Power Pty Ltd, BMW
Group Poland, Emirates, EUROPRESEE Poland Ltd., General Motors Poland Ltd., Grupa LOTOS SA,
International Paper-Kwidzyn . z oo, Kaspersky Lab Poland, LeasePlan Fleet Management (Poland), PGE
Polish Energy Group, LOT Polish Airlines (as of mid October LOT Polish Airlines has been removed from
the list of partners in some of the posts of the Polish government’s official COP19 website )
vii
www.carbonmarketdata.com/cmd/publications/EU%20ETS%202012%20Company%20Rankings%2
0-%204%20June%202013.pdf
viii http://www.greens-efa.eu/astroturfing-in-the-ep-8588.html
ix http://www.transportenvironment.org/news/%E2%80%98bad-blood%E2%80%99-over-cars-co2
x www.worldcoal.org/extract/wca-launches-the-warsaw-communique-call-to-action-2-2698/
xi http://scc.com.pl/konferencje/en/cct/
Iterei Iguassu