Moves by governments to regulate carbon emissions and efforts to secure a new international climate change treaty are being successfully thwarted by the sheer number of lobbyists and amount of funding being brought to bear by heavy greenhouse emitting companies, a study by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) claims.
The study examined lobbying efforts and campaign contributions in the United States, European Union, Japan, China, India, Australia, Brazil and Canada. The chances of a meaningful climate change agreement being struck in Copenhagen are being retarded by “a far-reaching, multinational backlash by fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters aimed at slowing progress on control of greenhouse gas emissions”, the investigation concluded.
In the United States, for example, the study found more than 2800 climate lobbyists, equivalent to five for every member of Congress, plying their trade in Washington DC. The number has increased fivefold in the last six years. Laws to cap carbon emissions through a national emissions trading scheme were a campaign promise by Barack Obama. After almost a year of legislative development, cap-and-trade laws have made slow progress. A bill was passed narrowly in the House of Representatives in June and it is heavy going for its equivalent in the Senate where final approval remains very much in doubt.
The ICIJ says that helping to slow the legislative process is the success US coal and power companies are having in their opposition campaign – based on claims of widespread job losses, power blackouts and lower living standards.
Lobbyists working to inhibit regulation of carbon emissions also now number in the hundreds in the EU, Australia and Canada, the report found. In Australia, it’s a similar story to the US. The CPRS emissions trading bill is stalled in the Senate after the government was pressured to significantly increase the range of compensatory measures to emitting industries in order to keep the bill alive. The Sydney Morning Herald, which contributed to the study, reports the 20 emitters that have won the most government assistance have engaged 28 lobby firms employing over 100 people.
While lobbyists also represent those on the other side of the debate, such as renewable energy companies, environmental NGOs and carbon market interests, the ICIJ contends that their voices are being drowned out by the greater numbers of better-funded lobbyists employed by the big emitters. Industry lobbying is also well-developed at the international level in UN negotiations, where experienced lobbyists are permanently stationed to push the emitters’ claims; mainly that extending the emission reduction obligations of the Kyoto Protocol will create an uneven playing field making industries in developed countries uncompetitive.
The two-year UN negotiation process since the 2007 Bali roadmap has barely moved on the big stalling points holding back a new treaty, due to climax at the Copenhagen conference in a month’s time. At the heart of the stalemate are new emission targets for developed countries, financing for developing countries to tackle emissions and adapt to climate change, and what curbs on the growth of emissions fast-industrialising developing countries like China and India will accept.
But the report argues that this stand-off between developing and developed countries is mis-characterised. Vested interests in heavy-emitting sectors on both sides – be it fossil-fuel energy or deforestation – are doing the same thing; putting great pressure on their governments not to commit to meaningful cuts in emissions or risk great economic losses.
In developing countries, lobbyists are said to be effective in opposing low-carbon reforms, in particular China’s moves to hasten development of renewable energy and Brazil’s pledges to curb Amazon deforestation.
The ICIJ says that the approach of lobbyists has evolved with the reality that emissions regulation is largely now inevitable. Instead of opposing such laws outright, the strategy has switched to slowing down and weakening those reforms as much as possible.
The overview and key findings of the investigation are available on the web. More detail is being released over coming days, November 6 to 11:
See: The Global Climate Change Lobby report
Source:carbonpositive.net
No comments:
Post a Comment