Thursday, November 04, 2021

The Power of Lobbying

 ExxonMobil and Chevron as well as American Petroleum Institute are the world’s most obstructive organisations when it comes to governments setting climate policies, according to research by lobbying experts at the thinktank InfluenceMap. 

 It concluded that companies were manipulating governments to take “incredibly dangerous paths” in their approach to climate action, using  the “prolific and highly sophisticated” lobbying ploys.

Oil giants have mounted “intense resistance” to Joe Biden’s green agenda, according to the report, as the US president’s administration attempted to shift the country away from fossil fuels. The report also said corporate lobbying tactics in part explained why regulators in some countries such as Australia have struggled to build support for more ambitious climate policy in the lead-up to Cop26 and were increasingly viewed as “a road block in global negotiations”.

Ed Collins, a director at InfluenceMap, said “The corporate playbook for holding back climate policy has come a long way from science denialism but it is every bit as damaging. What we are seeing is not limited to efforts to undermine regulations directly. It also involves prolific and highly sophisticated narrative capture techniques, leading governments down incredibly dangerous paths.”

US oil giants top list of lobby offenders holding back climate action | ExxonMobil | The Guardian

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