For Immediate Release
For More Information Contact:
reachout@kickbigpollutersout.org
June 12, 2026
MEDIA ADVISORY: Kick Big Polluters Out and UNFCCC Rights-based constituencies condemn fossil fuel enablers at UN climate talks and demand an end to Big Polluter interference
Bonn, Germany— From June 8-18, world governments are gathered in Bonn, Germany for the intersessional climate negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As the first week winds to a close, much still needs to happen for these talks to advance any progress towards implementing a just transition, climate and adaptation finance, and climate justice. Time’s up for any more delays and distractions. Yet this is exactly what we are witnessing in these halls.
Big Polluter’s influence continues to weaken and stymy critical climate action that the UNFCCC must deliver in a moment where more has never been at stake. At COP30, there were more than 1500 delegates with direct fossil fuel ties. Big Polluters are sponsoring and even presiding over the climate talks. But it’s not just fossil fuel lobbyists that are freely roaming the halls of the UNFCCC year after year. It’s also the bankers that pump hundreds of billions of dollars into.
New research released today by Kick Big Polluters Out reveals that at least twenty of the world’s largest banks attended COP30 in Belém despite financing US$409 billion in fossil fuels in 2024. This accounts for nearly half of the world’s total fossil fuel financing by big banks. Almost half of this financing went to oil and gas expansion. Many of these banks are also directly enabling genocide, war, and human atrocities around the world.
Governments in Bonn must not fail to curb Big Polluter’s undue influence and must not fail to advance the equitable action urgently needed to save lives and protect the planet. No profit is worth the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, Global South communities, Afrodescendants, people of color, women, youth, workers, and others all around the world.
Join members of Kick Big Polluters Out and representatives from UNFCCC rights-based constituencies to hear more about the fossil fuel enablers blocking climate action, and what can be done here in Bonn to pave the way for a system that centers people, not polluters and profit.
When: Friday June 12, 2026 11:00-11:30 CEST (UTC +2)
Where: Nairobi 4 Press Conference room and webcast here.
Speakers:
- Janet Milongo, Climate Action Network
- Beth Doherty, UK Youth Climate Coalition, YOUNGO
- Babitha PS, Women and Gender Constituency
- Aakaluk Adrienne Blatchford, Indigenous Environmental Network-Turtle Island, member of DCJ
- Celine Isimbi, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy
- Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Demand Climate Justice (coordinator of KBPO)
Kick Big Polluters Out is a coalition of more than 450 organizations across the globe united in demanding an end to the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine as well as with all those who face systemic injustice and fossil-fueled violence around the world. Find more on the coalition and its demands here.