imagesUNFCCC’s COP19 in Warsaw, Poland is the most corrupt climate meeting yet. This is saying a lot. As I recorded when attending COP17 in Durban, previous COPs have see wholesale backtracking from the Kyoto Accord, the only international agreement mandating reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. But COP19 sets a new record for corporate influence.

Perhaps most egregiously, the Warsaw Climate Summit is scheduled in tandem with the World Coal Association’s Coal and Climate Summit. Coal, of course, is the most polluting form of fossil fuel. All burning of coal should cease immediately if greenhouse gas emissions are to be mitigated.

This overlap between the Climate Summit and the Coal Summit is no accident. The confluence was actually organized by the Polish government, which obtains around 80% of its power from coal.

In addition, as Pascoe Sabido of the European Corporate Observatory explains in today’s episode of Democracy Now, COP19 was explicitly sponsored by a bevvy of polluting corporate behemoths, from auto manufacturer BMW to Emirates Airlines.

These corporate-funded meetings will never be a venue for climate justice. Makes me wanna holler!

Bad news.

Visionary!

Important guide to corporate hijack of COP19

Big Oil is getting around the resistance to the Tar Sands pipeline by shipping more and more oil and gas by rail. Here are some of the results.

imagesThe 19th session of the conference of parties to the UNFCCC, the primary venue for dealing with climate change on an international level, is about to begin meeting in Warsaw, Poland. As the delegates fly in, it’s worth looking back at the results of the last round of negotiations, in Doha.

Following the conclusion of COP18 in Doha, a group of climate justice activists released reports stating that the “Doha deal will result in unprecedented ecological and social collapse.”

Is there any chance that COP19 will produce different results? The chance for change seems slight. Instead, we’re likely to see more green washing and more green capitalism.

Small island nations are bearing the brunt of criminal inaction by the leaders of rich nations like the US at UN climate conferences.