Excerpt:
Speaking on the sidelines of the talks in Baku, Gore said the United Nations secretary general should be able to participate in the selection process for cities and COP presidents. The current process “meant that Russia vetoed everyone except Azerbaijan. And of course, they’re a petrostate also,” said Gore, who is chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit.
Gore’s criticism echoed a letter Friday by a group of leading climate activists and scientists, including former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who warned that the COP process was “no longer fit for purpose”. They urged smaller, more frequent meetings, strict criteria for host countries and rules to ensure companies showed clear climate commitments before being allowed to send lobbyists to the talks.
“I think that there should be a test for who is qualified to be a delegate to these COPs. Are they coming to try to find a solution or are they coming in order to block a solution?” Gore said.
Oil and gas industry representatives should be scrutinized to see if they are committed to phasing out fossil fuels, and if they are “truth tellers” or “have a record of lying about the climate crisis”, he said.
His comments came as a coalition of NGOs, “Kick the Big Polluters Out”, said it calculated that more than 1,700 people linked to fossil fuel interests are in attendance at COP29. “Why should representatives of the biggest polluters in the world have more delegates than the largest national delegation, more delegates than the 10 most-affected countries in the world?” Gore said. “I think it’s absurd. And I do think that the whole process needs to be reformed.” COP29 attendees are also worried about the future of US climate efforts as Trump has vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement again. But Gore downplayed concerns, saying his return to the White House would not “meaningfully slow” the clean energy “revolution”.
