Fossil fuels lobby
[1] Because of their wealth and the importance of energy, transport and chemical industries to local, national and international economies, these lobbies have the capacity and money to attempt to have outsized influence on governmental policy.
[3] The American Petroleum Institute is a powerful industry lobbyist for Big Oil with significant influence in Washington, D.C.[4][5][6] In Australia, Australian Energy Producers, formerly known as the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), has significant influence in Canberra and helps to maintain favorable policy settings for Oil and Gas.
[9] The lobby is known for exploiting international crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic,[10] or the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine,[11][12] to try to roll back existing regulations or justify new fossil fuel development.
According to the organization, these same "reactionary energy lobby groups tried to boycott this Charter with the help from oil- and coal-producing nations and succeeded to keep the energy transition out of the Rio Conference on Environment & Development (Earth Summit) in 1992, to continue this game in all Climate Conferences in Berlin, Kyoto, The Hague and Marrakech, where the USA boycotted the Kyoto protocol and still ignores the Charter.
"[17] It is estimated that during the 2010s the five biggest oil and gas companies, and their industry groups, spent at least €251 million lobbying the European Union over climate policies.
"[25] The energy lobby has been criticized by environmentalists for using its influence to try to block or dilute legislation regarding global climate change.
[33] The largest oil and gas companies that are sometime collectively referred to as Big Oil, and their industry lobbyist arm, the American Petroleum Institute (API), have spent large amounts of money every year on lobbying and political campaigns, and employ hundreds of lobbyists, to obstruct and delay government action to address climate change.
[40][6] Big Oil companies often adopt "sustainability principles" that are at odds with the policy agenda their lobbyists advocate, which often entails sowing doubt about the reality and impacts of climate change and forestalling government efforts to address them.
According to a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, as voting by a member of Congress turned more anti-environment, as measured by his/her voting record as scored by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the fossil fuel industry contributions that this member of Congress received increased.
[45] In June 2005, documents emerged that revealed that the Bush administration had consulted Exxon regarding its stance on the Kyoto Protocol.
Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's 'active involvement' in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable.
Over the last 10 years this list has included Brenda Kenny, who served 10 years with the National Energy Board, Paul Cheliak, a former economist for Natural Resources Canada, and Bruce Carson, a convicted thief who served as the top policy analyst under prime minister Stephen Harper.
In 2015, lobbyists for TransCanada, the owner of the Keystone XL pipeline project, spent $500,000 in a single legislative session lobbying Nebraska state senators.
[57] The five biggest oil and gas companies spent at least 251 million euros lobbying the European Union over climate policies since 2010.
[60] Shell gas company began lobbying the United Kingdom government as early as 2011 to undermine European renewable energy targets, according to The Guardian.
Shell argued instead for gas expansion in Europe, because they believed it would save 500 billion euros in a transition to a low carbon energy system.
[61] In October 2021 a coal-fired power station was said by opposition MP Ali Öztunç to be still operating without filters due to company lobbying.
