No Changes Since Paris Agreement, say Corporate Europe Observatory

The Corporate Europe Observatory has conducted a study examining six month’s of lobby meetings involving Miguel Arias Cañete, the Climate & Energy Commissioner and Maroš Šefčovič, Vice President for Energy Union or their cabinets. The new research shows fossil fuel industry lobbyists still have insider access to the European Commission, despite the Paris Agreement climate change goals being agreed last December.

The study shows it’s been “business as usual” for Cañete, Šefčovič and their cabinets for the last six months. Out of the 163 meetings with lobbyists, 71% were with industry, 17% with NGOs, 8% with think tanks and research institutions and just 5% were with trade unions.

Pascoe Sabido, Researcher and Campaigner Corporate Europe Observatory, said: “It’s six months since the EU signed the Paris Agreement, yet our research shows Big Energy enjoying the same levels of privileged access to top climate commissioners as before. If the EU wants the world to believe it’s serious about tackling climate change, it needs to end its cosy relationship with the same industries responsible for causing it.”

While Commissioner Cañete has had 164 meetings with representatives of fossil fuels industries in the year and a half since taking up the job in November 2014, his office has registered just 20 meetings with renewables and energy efficiency industry representatives.

The study also revealed that Spanish companies accounted for one third of the 69 meetings Cañete and his advisors held with oil and gas industry lobbyists since then, showing that the Commissioner is still very much in bed with his old associates.

You can read the study by clicking here.