Message From the Editor

COP28, the UN climate conference, kicks off in Dubai this week with our journalists on the ground. Over 70,000 delegates have arrived in the UAE for the 12 day summit, with world leaders attempting to forge an agreement on how to restrict global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a rapidly diminishing window.

Just before the start, Sam Bright and Phoebe Cook revealed that the UK’s events at the summit will be hosted by a Daily Mail events firm that specializes in organizing exhibitions for the oil and gas industry. The contract was awarded to dmg events, which is owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), without being advertised.

Also before the conference began, Rachel Sherrington dove into big meat’s communications plan to get a pro-meat message heard by policymakers. New files relate how the world’s largest meat company, JBS, is planning to come out in “full force” at the summit, along with other big industry hitters such as the Global Dairy Platform and the North American Meat Institute.

A new article by Stella Levantesi also explored the loophole language used by big oil to distract from climate action. Beneath the conflict of interests and the lobbying, lies a minefield of strategic language, misleading messaging and false narratives.

“The ultimate objective is to legitimize the large-scale reliance and deployment of abatement technologies like CCS as an alternative to a full and complete phase out of fossil fuels.” says Romain Ioualalen, global policy campaign manager, Oil Change International.

Matthew Green covers excerpts from an interview with Vanessa Nakate by Kosha Joubert, talking about issues of burnout, anxiety, and sustaining the climate movement. They discuss Nakate’s journey as a climate activist; the need for greater institutional support for climate advocates from the Global South; the meaning of a “just transition”; the power of forgiveness; and the importance of building systems to sustain young activists over the long-term, and help them to avoid burnout.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: [email protected]. Want to know what our UK team is up to? Sign up for our UK newsletter.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. Investigative journalism like this is made possible by readers like you. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?

Join us at the C+ Pocket Project Climate Consciousness Summit 2023 from 1-10 December 2023. DeSmog UK Editor Hazel Heay and journalist Matthew Green will be featured as one of their “COP28 - Voices from the Ground”. Come as we grow a trauma-informed approach to healing our climate and initiate the inner and outer transformation needed for true climate action to emerge.

Big Meat Unveils Battle Plans for COP28

— By Rachel Sherrington (12 min. read) —

Major meat companies and industry lobby groups are planning a large presence at COP28, equipped with a communications plan to get a pro-meat message heard by policymakers throughout the summit, DeSmog can reveal.

Documents seen by DeSmog and the Guardian show that the meat industry is poised to “tell its story and tell it well” in the lead up and during the Dubai conference, which comes on the heels of the world’s hottest ever year.

‘We Need to Address the Issues of Burnout, Anxiety, and Sustaining the Movement’

— By Matthew Green (9 min. read) —

Since starting a solitary strike against climate inaction in Kampala in January, 2019, aged 22, Uganda’s Vanessa Nakate has emerged as one of the world’s most celebrated youth climate justice activists. Now a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, she will be attending the COP28 U.N. climate talks, which open in the United Arab Emirates today, to demand world leaders act with the ambition the crisis demands.

In January 2020, a media company cropped Nakate out of a photo featuring her friend Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, and three other young white women climate advocates, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Nakate’s response that the news outlet “didn’t just erase a photo, you erased a continent” focused global attention on the obstacles preventing climate advocates from marginalized communities participating in international gatherings.

Fossil Fuel Friendly Daily Mail Firm Handed £500k Government Contract to Run UK COP28 Events

— By Sam Bright and Phoebe Cook (5 min. read) —

The UK’s events at this year’s COP28 summit will be hosted by a Daily Mail events firm that specializes in organizing exhibitions for the oil and gas industry, DeSmog can reveal.

Government records show that dmg events, which is owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), will be paid £545,000 for “commissioning and delivering pavilion and office space for the UK’s COP28 delegation taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)”.

At COP28, the Road to Climate Action Is Paved with Big Oil Loophole Language

— Stella Levantesi (8 min. read) —

The European Union has clearly laid out its position: Climate neutrality, the Council of the EU stated last month, will require “a global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels and a peak in their consumption in this decade.” Then, in its second letter to parties, the president of COP28, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, underscored the need to “work towards a future energy system that is free of unabated fossil fuels by mid-century.” 

From having the CEO of an oil company preside over global climate negotiations, to getting a consulting firm to push the interests of its Big Oil and gas clients, it doesn’t look like a great start for the conference, set to begin on November 30th in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. And with another recent analysis showing that fossil fuel lobbyists attended UN climate negotiations at least 7,200 times in the last 20 years, experts and campaigners are worried fossil fuel influence will, once again, obstruct climate action. 

From the Climate Disinformation Database: The North American Meat Institute

The North American Meat Institute is an industry group representing U.S. meat and poultry processing and packing companies, as well as their suppliers. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the North American Meat Institute was formed in 2015 following the merging of the American Meat Institute and the North American Meat Association. NAMI works to “build relationships across the food system” and is “ethically committed to do what’s right for people, animals, and the environment,” according to its website. In 2016, NAMI successfully lobbied for new official U.S. dietary guidelines not to encourage Americans to consider the environmental impact of the food they eat or to recommend that red meat consumption should be reduced. On a page on NAMI’s website titled “Climate Change and Animal Agriculture: The Facts,” the organization states that the answer to the question, “To what degree does human activity on Earth lead to climate change?” is “unknown.”

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database.