Oil lobby’s reach into EU politics – The five biggest oil and gas companies – BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Total – and their industry groups have spent at least €251m (£217m) lobbying the EU over climate policies since 2010. Researchers say the figure represents the tip of the iceberg, as in some years companies made no declarations of spending in the voluntary EU transparency register. Pascoe Sabido, researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, said the oil and gas lobby had “delayed, weakened and sabotaged EU action on the climate emergency thanks to their hefty lobby spending. A cool quarter of a billion over the last decade buys a lot of access and influence in Brussels.”
The report says the lobbying has succeeded in watering down EU climate legislation. Lobbying, it says, peaks at times when legislation is being drawn up. The oil and gas companies, and their industry groups had high spending in 2014 during the discussions over the EU’s 2030 climate targets, when they spent €34.3m on lobbying the EU institutions.
The report says the climate targets were weakened as a result; they included no binding energy savings target and included a “woefully inadequate” renewable energy target.
The Guardian recently revealed how the car industry and big oil companies are the most negative influencers on climate policy of all the top 250 biggest investor-owned industry and their trading associations.
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