It's Intimate! It's Invitation-Only! It's Big Oil's Sideline Meeting At The UN Next Week!

[hatrack]

Oil and gas executives are holding an exclusive invitation-only forum with environmentalists and government representatives on the sidelines of the UN climate summit, in what critics have condemned as an attempt to influence negotiations in favour of fossil fuel companies. Senior executives from leading oil companies including BP, Shell and Chevron will be at the event in New York on 22 September, which they describe as a “closed high-level discussion” with key stakeholders.

Meanwhile, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, will be bringing world leaders, academics, government representatives and environmentalists together for a climate action summit in the city on 23 September. The UN says the summit is an attempt to motivate countries, companies, cities and civil society to achieve the objectives of the Paris climate agreement.

The invitation sent to some summit guests from Bob Dudley, group chief executive of BP and chair of the industry-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), and Jérôme Schmitt, chair of the OGCI steering committee, described the 22 September meeting as an intimate gathering. Dudley and Schmitt wrote in the invitation: “This will be an opportunity to speak personally with the CEOs and share your thoughts on OGCI’s progress and commitments over the last year.” The men said the meeting would involve “our most important stakeholders from across industry, academia, government and non-profits for this closed high level discussion”.

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Its members include Exxon Mobil – which joined last year – Chevron, BP, Shell, Total and several other leading fossil fuel companies. Taylor Billings, of the global campaign group Corporate Accountability, said the meeting and interaction with the summit were “nothing more than an opportunity for some of the world’s biggest polluters to greenwash”. She said: “By holding this event just steps from the UN summit, the OGCI is attempting to appear as part of the solution and gain further influence over policymaking. “Until governments and the UN realise that trying to put the fire out with the arsonists in the room will not work, we risk letting another year go by without adequate action on climate change or supplanting real solutions with fossil-fuel-industry-driven schemes.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/18/fossil-fuel-invite-only-forum-un-climate-summit?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWTJOaU56SmhZbU13TmpWbCIsInQiOiJHMHNTTEVscFNUUkdLcVo4eFwvQmdoeW1jMjdldHRsMWUxUEQzQm80eWdvTnEyU2dMVGRQYk1kdmtSUm9cL2FVMGwwR3dGZ3FublVWa1U4Uk8yN2ZVVVBuSkdMcWtqTnp1cDNKVk9XZDZjcjNCaUFFMlwvc002ek1CMDd3czlNaENaSSJ9

[Farmer-Rick]

1. They are the horse buggy corporations trying to keep from disappearing.

This is just another example of how capitalism prevents progress.

The filthy rich capitalists who made, and still make, huge amounts of stolen wealth off of selling certain products, still want to sell the products and grow their pile of capital. When those products become obsolete, deadly or useless they use that huge pile of capital to prevent change; to stop the better product from being sold; to prevent marketplace changes that would allow that better product to be distributed; influence politicians to stop the production of the better product.

The horse buggy corporations did this when cars were starting to be produced. Some corporations morphed into production of the better product but only after they have fought tooth and nail to stop it.

Just another destructive feature of capitalism.