FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LONDON 15TH September 15, 2025
Contacts: reachout@kickbigpollutersout.org, media@corporateaccountability.org
UN climate regime responds to civil society pressure to address Big Polluter interference in climate action
It’s been more than two years since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took its long overdue first steps to address industry interference in international climate policymaking by requiring all participants to disclose industry ties. Today– as a result of sustained campaigning by campaign groups and civil society constituencies representing millions of people around the world– the UNFCCC has taken another step towards addressing the elephant in the room. Kick Big Polluters Out members and UNFCCC rights-based constituencies– including trade union NGOs (TUNGOs), Women and Gender Constituency, Demand Climate Justice, Climate Action Network, and children and youth constituency (YOUNGO)– have been united in demanding that next steps be taken to end the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action. These steps are more necessary than ever against a backdrop of climate breakdown and record fossil fuel emissions.
Record numbers of fossil fuel lobbyists and other Big Polluters have been flooding the climate talks year after year– influencing and undermining the strength and urgency of climate action to protect their profits at the expense of people and the planet, and even using the talks to attempt to strike oil and gas deals.
Today, COP30 confirmation opens, when delegates can now formalize their participation in the COP30 climate talks happening in November in Belém, Brazil. Alongside this, the UNFCCC is now implementing greater disclosure of who is being allowed to participate in the shaping and guiding of the global response to climate change. Specifically, in addition to continuing to publicly disclose their affiliations (which all participants have been expected to do since COP28), non-government participants from COP30 onward are expected to:
- Publicly disclose who is directly funding their participation at the UNFCCC; and
- Publicly confirm in writing that their individual objectives are in full alignment with the UNFCCC, Paris Agreement, and Kyoto Protocol.
These news measures are further detailed in the COP30 Observer Handbook that has been released today. Importantly, these ties will be publicized in the list of participants, and the failure to disclose either of these will also be made public for the world to see.
“Trade unions want climate negotiations that deliver Just Transition policies for workers and their families,” said Eric Manzi, ITUC Deputy General Secretary. “Balanced and representative access to the negotiations is crucial. We want strong boundaries at the UNFCCC to counter corporate lobbyists who undermine action to protect the lives and livelihoods of workers. The new disclosure rules are a step in the right direction.”
Members of Kick Big Polluters Out welcome another much needed step towards ending Big Polluters’ stranglehold over climate action, while underscoring that the UNFCCC must continue to take seriously the gravity of this issue and urgently take further action to comprehensively protect climate action from polluting interests. According to Rachitaa Gupta of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), “This is a win led by the people. It is a long time coming and we welcome it, but it is nowhere close to what justice demands. Global South movements have long exposed Big Polluters' use of UNFCCC to greenwash their crimes, push false solutions, and treat COP like a trade show to further their greed for fossil fuels. Yet every year, thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists get to write and influence climate policy that safeguards their profits and causes catastrophic destruction in our communities. Until the UNFCCC has a conflict of interest policy and an accountability framework in place, the legitimacy of these talks will remain deeply in question. And we will not stop fighting for it because this is our and our planet's future and not a playground for profiteers.”
It is not enough to be transparent about who is in the room. This means implementing an Accountability Framework that fully protects climate action from polluter interference, ending the ability of Big Polluters to bankroll climate action through corporate sponsorships, and resetting the system so it works for people and the planet, not polluters.
“Our communities experience the devastating impacts of the impunity and greed of Big Polluters day in and day out,” said Kwami Kpondzo, Executive Director, Centre pour la Justice Enviroonementale-Togo. “Then, at the UNFCCC, we witness them being treated like VIPs and being handed the pen to write the rules of climate action that are false actions on the ground. It is no wonder this process has yet to spur a strong, comprehensive, and just global response to the climate crisis. Finally, the UNFCCC is taking a step towards shedding light on this issue. Yet it must not stop at bringing the problem to light. It must now address and weed out the problem, so that Big Polluters are no longer allowed to write the rules of climate action. Polluters Out! People in!”
Kick Big Polluters Out is a coalition of more than 450 organisations across the globe united in demanding an end to the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action. Find more on the coalition and its demands here.
Additional quotes from KBPO members and UNFCCC constituencies:
"Indigenous Peoples from every region of Mother Earth, including the territories of Uncontacted and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples, from the Amazon to the Arctic, to the Pacific, have firsthand experienced the practices of fossil fuel industry committing genocide and terracide against our communities for too long. To see the lobbyists and representatives of these fossil fuel polluters in the UNFCCC conferences has been alarming and difficult to explain to our communities back home to trust the UNFCCC to develop real climate solutions to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Transparency is a first step but we look forward to a UNFCCC accountability framework to be developed to hold Big Polluters accountable and keep them Out!"
Tom BK Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
“For so long, civil society has demanded that the corporations that created the crisis and benefit from the devastation of the planet, its ecosystems, and communities be held accountable. Today’s decision by the UNFCCC Secretary is a small step in that direction, proving that people's power can overthrow rigged and entrenched big polluters corporate influence. Kicking them out and making them pay is next.”
Nathalie Rengifo Alvarez, Que Paguen Los Contaminadores América Latina
“We saw a large number of people representing polluters at COP. We Tell You That We Will Succeed and survive without polluters, with less damage to farmers, indigenous communities, and our World will be safer.”
Saeed Baloch, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum
“From deals behind closed doors to weakening multilateral agreements, the fossil fuel industry have been using their influence to rig the game at COP for too long.These changes to COP registration are a positive move that will make it clear who is gambling with our collective future. Ending the influence of Big Polluters at the UNFCCC is key to restoring trust in the multilateral process and ensuring a rapid phase out of fossil fuels. With a safe, liveable future for young people at stake, there is no time to lose.”
Katie Williams, of UK Youth Climate Coalition
“This is a welcome and hard-won step forward. For too long, Big Polluters have been allowed to hide in the shadows while undermining climate action. Now their ties will be on full display. But disclosure alone won’t stop them from lobbying or striking deals - it simply proves the rules can be changed. That’s the breakthrough. The next step must be clear: Big Polluters must be kept out of the room to fully protect the talks and deliver real climate action.”
Tasneem Essop, Executive Director, Climate Action Network International
“For many decades, physicians watched with alarm how Big Tobacco coerced governments to allow ongoing use of their dangerous products, harming our patients' health. At COP, we have witnessed the fossil fuel industry steal from that playbook. For 29 years, fossil fuel and petrostate lobbyists have steered negotiations in their favour. This announcement will start loosening the fossil fuel industry's chokehold on global climate action, so that governments can make better decisions for their citizens, the planet, and future generations."
Dr. Joe Vipond, Past-President, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Board Member, Global Climate and Health Alliance
“While only a small tweak to the registration system, this is a massive step forward in exposing who is really paying participants to attend COP. Fossil fuel lobbyists have used every trick in the book to sneak their way in unnoticed, from partnering with universities to impersonating NGOs, but now there’ll be nowhere left to hide. Transparency is a crucial first step, but once we know who they are, we need to protect the talks from the same Big Polluters intent on holding them back so they can protect their bottom line.”
Pascoe Sabido, Corporate Europe Observatory
“This marks a crucial first step in a longer struggle to reclaim power over our own lives, considering how the increasing impacts of the climate crisis fall hardest on those communities least responsible for causing it. To ensure a just and equitable transition, fossil fuel companies—the primary drivers of this crisis— have to face real accountability and be prevented from exerting influence over crucial decision-making spaces, such as the UN climate negotiations. Climate policies must seek the common good and not be guided by corporate power!”
Joanna Cabello, Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO)
“This is a welcome and long overdue step towards greater transparency and accountability in global climate negotiations. For too long, opaque influence by powerful polluting interests has undermined trust and progress. Requiring participants to disclose financial ties and align with the goals of the Paris Agreement is essential to restoring integrity in the process. But transparency alone is not enough. It is urgent to design an Accountability Framework to prevent conflicts of interest. For the time being, all national delegations must carefully consider who they include in their teams and ensure the negotiations prioritise public interest over industry profits.”
Brice Böhmer, Climate and Environment Lead, Transparency International
"It’s high time the United Nations took these commonsense steps toward exposing the flood of fossil fuel influence at the climate talks. A handful of big fossil fuel corporations are hellbent on blocking the transition to clean, affordable renewable energy. Big polluters shouldn’t be allowed to freely roam the talks like so many foxes in the henhouse. Now that advocates have won these important transparency measures, it’s time for the U.N. to kick big polluters out of the conference altogether.”
Jean Su, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program
Civil society has forced the UN to shine a light on big polluters, by requiring climate talk participants to disclose their industry ties. But curbing corporate capture of climate policy requires more than transparency. Once fossil fuel interests are exposed, the next step is clear: kick them out. Allowing the companies fueling the crisis to write the rules is not just killing the COP’s credibility. It’s killing our chances to stop escalating climate harm. With even the COP30 President calling for climate governance reform, the time is now to show the fossil fuel industry the door.
Lien Vandamme, Center for International Environmental Law
“No Big Oil executive can credibly claim their objectives are aligned with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change while continuing to drill and cause destruction to our planet and communities. Every country has already agreed to transition away from fossil fuels-yet fossil fuel representatives still show up at climate conferences. Journalists should be asking them a simple question: what are you doing here?”
Myriam Douo, Global Industry Campaigner, Oil Change International
“This is another step forwards in the journey towards removing fossil lobbyists from the climate talks. It is truly dystopian that the cheerleaders for climate chaos are permitted to walk these halls and to influence the very space with responsibility for solving the climate crisis. Ultimately we must see them excluded permanently from the UNFCCC.”
Sara Shaw, Climate Justice & Energy Program Coordinator, Friends of the Earth International
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