Visitors sit inside the World Conference Center Bonn during the Climate Change Conference in Bonn, western Germany, on June 13, 2023. (AFP)

Lobbyists for fossil fuels will be required to identify themselves as such when registering for the UN COP28 climate summit, increasing the accountability of carbon-intensive and polluting companies at the yearly meetings.

Campaigners who have grown increasingly alarmed by the presence of oil and gas lobbyists at climate talks hailed the UN's decision to compel anybody registering for the summit to reveal their affiliation as a victory for transparency.

Scott Kirby, a campaigner from Youngo, which represents youth campaigners at the UN climate talks, said as quoted by The Guardian, “When young people see the number of fossil fuel lobbyists present at UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences, it makes us question the ability this process has to solve the biggest challenge threatening our futures. This is why we welcome the step to increase the transparency of observer interests in the talks.”

Many campaigners claim the switch to make possible conflicts of interest more obvious should be only a first move toward ruling out fossil fuel companies from negotiations or at least from key parts of them.

The change is happening as countries finished off nearly two weeks of negotiations in Bonn, where representatives worked to set the stage for COP28, which begins on November 30.

It is worth noting that the UAE will host the UN-brokered climate talks from Nov. 30 through to Dec. 12 despite furious backlash from climate activists and civil society groups for hiring appointing the Abu Dhabi oil chief as president of the COP28 climate summit.

Al Jaber participated in the Bonn talks for two days last week and had a short public address. He said, “The phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable. The speed at which this happens depends on how quickly we can phase up zero-carbon alternatives while ensuring energy security, accessibility, and affordability.”

Despite a concerted effort by several rich and developing countries to have it on the formal agenda at COP28, he did not guarantee that a phase-out of fossil fuels would be on it. The UAE COP28 President has maintained that decisions on the agenda must come from all of the nations involved at the meetings.

The participants at the Bonn talks reportedly failed to get a breakthrough despite hopes to erase minor technical issues so heads of government could come to COP28 and reach bold political decisions.

Even the preliminary discussions' agenda could not be agreed upon by the officials. A stalemate between wealthy nations that desired the focus to be on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and poor countries who are irate that promised financial help has not materialized has delayed the approval of an official framework for the Bonn negotiations for the majority of the last two weeks.

The issue of which nation will host COP29, the summit that will take place the following year, remained open in Bonn. The eastern group, which consists of former Eastern Bloc nations in Europe and Central Asia, is now in the lead. The group has been torn apart by the conflict in Ukraine, and there are rivalries and enmities among the nations of Eastern Europe.

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