From COP to corporate

To answer that, we must look beyond the negotiation halls. The UN climate process does not operate in isolation. It functions within an economic system that consistently prioritises profit over people and the planet. Fossil fuels remain deeply embedded in the heart of global economic and financial systems. Yet, attempting to meet the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C demands a rapid and just phase out of coal, oil and gas, a task that has never been more urgent as recent studies(opens in new window) warn that we persistently overshoot this limit.

Corporate capture protecting profits

The fossil fuel industry’s economic lock-in stems largely from corporations and their executives holding pervasive structural power(opens in new window) over public policy, multilateral institutions, and international trade regimes. This has consistently diluted, delayed, or derailed(opens in new window) effective climate action since the early 70s(opens in new window) . 

The 1992 UN Earth Summit Conference, which established the UN climate negotiations framework, was led by Maurice Strong, a fossil fuel entrepreneur and advisor to the World Bank, who, together with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, changed the status of corporations inside these negotiations from lobbyists to “partners”. This set-up(opens in new window) allowed corporations, which were also summit sponsors, to shape the foundational documents of the climate negotiations, framing the crisis in business-friendly terms to protect business-as-usual.

As a result, big polluters have been granted unmitigated access to negotiating tables, influencing and weakening(opens in new window) any possibility for effective climate policy. Inside the UN halls, corporate power is structural. Big polluters openly sponsor(opens in new window) COPs, fossil fuel executives have been placed(opens in new window) inside COP presidency teams, and in the latest letter from the COP30 President to the international community, corporations are positioned(opens in new window) centre stage.

As the climate crisis intensifies and dangerously impacts countless communities and populations, the UN climate process must urgently restore trust in multilateralism through bold, just climate action. Climate change is not a natural disaster. It is embedded in histories of colonialism and extractivism and is the result of practices and policies maintained by a small number of actors, primarily for their own interests. Because of this, we can – and must – fundamentally change course.     

What should be on the agenda, but isn’t: fossil fuel phase-out and real just transition

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus, phasing out of fossil fuels remains one of the most contested issues at the climate talks. Only in 2023, at COP28, did the final text include weak language to “transition away from fossil fuels(opens in new window) ”. Yet, the following year marked a setback. In 2024, swarms(opens in new window) of fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to the negotiations, and discussions of transitioning away from fossil fuels were largely sidestepped in favour of climate finance. 

While climate finance is vital, the outcome was disastrous. Pledges fell far short of the $ 1.3 trillion per year needed(opens in new window) by 2035 for countries in the Global South. The result? No meaningful commitment on finance or fossil fuel phase out, and thus a profound failure. 

A meaningful fossil fuel phase-out would require a drastic reduction(opens in new window) in energy production and consumption, particularly in the Global North. More deeply, a phase-out would entail addressing how the unequal and (neo)colonial structures of the global economy have locked many countries(opens in new window) , especially in the Global South, into fossil fuel extraction and export, reinforcing a division of labour shaped by centuries of exploitation. 

A genuine phase-out demands both responsible disengagement and divestment from fossil fuel production sites, most of which are located in the Global South, and the payment of the different forms of historical reparations, including compensation for loss and damage. At the same time, climate policy must incentivise a just transition that protects workers and communities while dismantling, rather than reproducing, existing inequalities. Achieving this would require restructuring international trade and financial rules so that countries can pursue bold policies free from external pressures, while redirecting harmful subsidies and financial flows toward equitable alternatives.

This necessary transformation strikes at the heart of the profit-seeking economic model. Predictably, big polluters and aligned governments deploy every possible tactic to block such change. UN climate negotiations have thus largely reduced the discussions to narrow technicalities and market-based “solutions”, leaving the deeper causes of the climate crisis untouched. This trend has been amplified(opens in new window) in the current geopolitical context and the rise of far-right, climate-denying governments.

What dominates the agenda, but shouldn’t: corporate-driven false solutions and narratives

In addition to ignoring the need to phase out fossil fuels, COP agendas have prioritised discussion of corporate-driven “solutions” such as carbon offsets and carbon removals. These market-based instruments protect a business model that is based on over-expanding production and consumption. 

Carbon offsets allow polluters to continue emitting as long as they purchase credits generated by projects established mostly in the Global South. These projects often harm communities and fail to deliver(opens in new window) real emissions reductions. The same flawed logic underpins technological carbon removals, such as the unproven(opens in new window) carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which is draining(opens in new window) billions in public funds while prolonging fossil fuel extraction.    

In 2024, COP misleadingly presented carbon markets as a tool to “mobilise” private capital for climate action. This claim hides the lack of transparency in the financial flows of the offset industry, with most funds ending up among industry players and not with communities. In the same line, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) will be launched(opens in new window) at COP30 under the claim of unlocking funding to protect forests. Yet, the amount of funding the TFFF promises is small and extremely uncertain compared to the profits that financial actors from the Global North could make from the plan. The scheme seems(opens in new window) designed to transfer wealth from South to North.

Meanwhile, the promoted corporate-led energy “transition” ignores excessive energy and resource use in the Global North and drives destructive mineral extraction in the Global South, worsening climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Producing ever-larger electric vehicles(opens in new window) for private use epitomises this logic: prioritising individual car ownership over less resource-intensive mobility. Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, over half of the demand for these minerals has gone to individual electric vehicles(opens in new window) .

From carbon markets to private electric vehicles, the corporate-led narrative of “decarbonisation”, “transition”, and “net zero” sustains the same polluting, extractivist economic model that is in complete contrast to what the science says about this crisis.

Beyond symptoms: addressing systemic roots

The recurring false solutions try to make us believe that “technologies can save the world”, “climate change isn’t that bad”, or “the private sector is part of the solution”. Such storytelling distracts from the core question: who shapes climate policy and who benefits? 

Banning corporations from the negotiating tables is essential. During the interim UN climate session in June 2025, over 200 organisations issued a joint call(opens in new window) to reform the UN climate process. Establishing a strong accountability framework(opens in new window) to curb corporate interference is the bare minimum. What matters most is how the table is shaped, who sets the agenda, who holds decision-making power…and who doesn’t.

This is crucial as corporations and most governments remain geared toward short-term shareholder gains, constraining financial flows, including wages, taxes, and real climate action. With these actors leading the discussions, climate policy has become a tool for further corporate exploitation. It is no coincidence that the same institutions behind neoliberal structural adjustments in the Global South, like the World Bank, have pushed for introducing(opens in new window) carbon markets in those countries. 

A real transformation requires substantial funding for coping with the impacts of such a course change. Funds are imperative to facilitate adaptation, mitigation, and reparations, especially for communities in the Global South. This is not an impossible demand. Public money exists, but it is hidden in tax loopholes, opaque financial structures, and subsidies for harmful industries. What is missing is political will and a commitment to not follow the corporate profit agenda. In order to reclaim wealth to address this crisis, governments need to close offshore tax havens, cancel unfair debt burdens, and reallocate subsidies away from extraction and toward justice-centred transitions. Without this, claims of insufficient public funds for effective climate action ring hollow.

In his latest letter(opens in new window) to the international community, the COP30 President called “on all business leaders to join the world in Belém”, framing climate action as “the defining business opportunity of our time.” This contrasts with previous appeals(opens in new window) to strengthen multilateralism and the UN climate convention. Meanwhile, Brazil has proposed integrating(opens in new window) existing carbon markets to make carbon a globalised commodity and establishing carbon removals as central(opens in new window) to COP30. These moves will deepen corporate dominance. 

Towards real, just climate action

To counter excessive corporate power, struggles must also be waged outside the negotiation halls, in solidarity with frontline communities, and with collective mobilisations to challenge corporate capture. For this, unity across movements and geographies needs to be strengthened. From climate justice to trade, finance, and human rights, we must come together to confront the profit-driven agenda, especially amid a far-right resurgence that threatens justice, wellbeing, and transformation itself.

Strengthening multilateralism is important, but it cannot be the sole arena for advancing the change of course. Real climate justice will not come from a single forum. It requires recognising and listening to those who have defended and guarded nature for generations, creating pressure both inside and outside official negotiations, while insisting, unequivocally,  that people and the planet come before corporate profit.