Transparency International: Climate Summit or Industry Trade Fair?

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https://www.transparency.org/en/news/climate-summit-or-industry-trade-fair

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2025/nov/13/cop30-live-call...

 

https://cop.influencemap.org/

 


Half of Cop30 delegates obscured details of affiliations, warns Transparency International


More than half of all delegation members at Cop30 have withheld or obscured details of their affiliations, potentially concealing conflicts of interest and undermining trust in the Cop process, warns Transparency International.

According to the campaign group’s examination of the UNFCCC’s official list of registered participants, 54% of participants in national delegations either did not disclose the type of affiliation they have or selected a vague category such as “Guest” or “Other”.

Several national delegations – including Russia, Tanzania, South Africa, and Mexico – did not disclose the affiliation of any of their delegates holding a Party badge, highlighting a worrying lack of transparency even at the country level.

And multiple high polluters are included as guests in the Presidency’s ‘Host Country Delegation’.

“Transparency is the cornerstone of trust in global climate negotiations,” said Brice Böhmer, climate and environment lead at Transparency International.Yet, at Cop30, thousands of delegates still do not share enough information, most from within national delegations. If Cop30 is indeed the Cop of truth, the lresidency and the UNFCCC Secretariat should now commit to reviewing and strengthening participant disclosure rules ahead of future summits, ensuring integrity and accountability at every level.

More than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, according to research shared with the Guardian. But that number excludes executives and other company representatives on official country delegations participating directly in the confidential negotiations, and those attending as guests of governments, known as overflow delegates.

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