‘Ridiculous’ lobbying: Gazprom and Russian oligarchs already talk to Ukrainians at Kherson climate summit – Russians would flee in panic

For the past week, dozens of heads of state and government have been discussing the next steps in the fight against the climate crisis at the world climate conference in Egypt. At the beginning of the summit, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke to politicians: “Millions of people around the world have their eyes on us.”

The conference is huge and will last until next week. Samih Schukri, President of the World Climate Summit (COP27), called on the more than 45,000 participants from 200 countries to find common ground for all climate protection measures. That shouldn’t be so easy when you look at the guest list.

Among them are dozens of Russian oligarchs and other entrepreneurs associated with the fossil fuel industry. They were sent by the Russian state, making them part of the official delegation, according to a report by Britain’s “Guardian” and the climate blog “DeSmog”.

Ukrainian is upset

There are a few names on the list that are also known in German-speaking countries. For example, Oleg Deripaska (co-owner of several coal companies) or the billionaire oligarch Andrei Melnitschenko, who was registered in St. Moritz before the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine as a foreigner who had to be taxed on a lump-sum basis. Both gentlemen were sanctioned in the EU area and by Switzerland. Six other members of the Russian delegation also had ties to oil and gas giant Gazprom.

Their presence is not only criticized for its climate-damaging business activities, they are also poorly received due to Russian aggression. According to Oleksiy Ryabchyn, member of the Ukrainian delegation: «It is ridiculous that Russian oligarchs are sneaking through the aisles of the world climate conference. If these oligarchs are not able to end this bloody war, then they are not allowed to participate here.”

Amazon and Co. do climate PR

On Saturday, it did not look like a major step in the fight against the climate crisis would succeed anyway. The environmental group Greenpeace accused several wealthy countries of holding back progress in financing climate-related damage. Large companies also took advantage of the attention of the World Climate Summit to put themselves in the spotlight. In a joint call with some 200 other companies and organizations, companies such as Amazon, Nestlé, Microsoft and Ikea called for compliance with the 1.5 degree target.

While these big companies themselves have been criticized for their carbon footprint, they emphasized that “every tenth degree counts”. Therefore, every effort should be made to mitigate the impact, costs and suffering that each exceedance entails, it said.

Switzerland was represented at the opening of the World Climate Summit by Swiss President Ignazio Cassis. Energy and Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga is expected to appear next week.

(punch)