Energy sector lobbies kidnap Sharm el-Sheikh

However, according to many of the NGOs involved, there was never as much presence of lobbyists from the energy industry as in that Egyptian city at a UN meeting dedicated to the fight against global warming.

It was the first time that oil and gas companies participated in the official program and they benefited from it!

In the words of Rachel Rose Jackson of “Corporate Accountability,” an NGO dedicated to denouncing the abuses of transnational corporations, it looked like “a trade fair for the energy industry.”

At least 636 lobbyists from the hydrocarbon sector participated; this was 25 percent more than those attending the Glasgow conference in those days.

Energy sector lobbyists outnumbered the official representatives of the ten most directly affected developing countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh or Mozambique.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer and exporter, took advantage of the event in the city of Egypt to promote its “circular carbon economy.”

However, ecologists denounce any attempt to introduce hydrogen without adequate distinction between fossil origin and “green”, alongside carbon capture and other technologies that would allow CO2 to continue to be released into the atmosphere. ”.

It is estimated that about 95 percent of what is currently produced in the world is of the first type and therefore pollutes the environment.

It is paradoxical to say the least, that the beverage company Coca-Cola, the main symbol of North American capitalism and the world’s largest plastic producer, sponsored the meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The American company admitted that in 2019 it uses up to three million tons of plastic per year for its packaging, which is also the biggest pollutant in the oceans.

But what about the fact that many of the delegates present at the conference traveled to Egypt by private planes?

The Sharm el-Sheikh conference cannot hide the intense public relations campaign carried out by the energy sector after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Since this war began and the West decided to boycott Russian oil and gas, plans have been announced to build 26 new terminals in the EU for liquefied gas, whose extraction and transport by sea is even more polluting.

The European Union also signed agreements with Egypt and Israel aimed at increasing natural gas extraction in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In May the European Commission included natural gas as a sustainable energy source along with nuclear power, and in September the UK granted new licenses to operate offshore oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

Additionally, in Sharm el-Sheikh, various African governments have presented gas projects that will primarily benefit European industry, not the communities of these countries.