Dr Rachel Barry, Research Fellow, spoke last week at a cross party meeting at the European Parliament, convened by the Fossil Free Politics, a campaign spearheaded by Friends of the Earth Europe, Corporate Europe Observatory and Food and Water Europe, focused on how fossil fuel industry influence can be effectively regulated in climate and energy policymaking.
The meeting brought together MEPs, civil society representatives and policy experts to examine the growing impact of fossil fuel lobbying at a critical moment for EU climate action. Dr Barry’s contribution focused not just on identifying the problem of industry influence, but on the practical question of how policymakers can respond.
Drawing on lessons from tobacco control, Dr Barry highlighted striking parallels between the tactics historically used by the tobacco industry and those now deployed by the fossil fuel sector. These include promoting doubt about the harms of their products through highly publicised disinformation campaigns, funding and conducting science that produces industry favourable outcomes and positioning themselves as legitimate partners and part of the solution to the problems they cause.
Dr Barry spoke of her current work examining how policymakers understand and address conflicts of interest in climate governance in the UK context, identifying several key challenges to advancing transparency and accountability measures, including:
- limited awareness and understanding of what actually constitutes a COI;
- a clear divide in how this issue is approached, with some policymakers and civil society organisations arguing that fossil fuel companies should not be involved in decisions that directly affect their sales and profits while many decision-makers, particularly those in positions of power, continue to view these companies as legitimate partners and key to the transition to a low-carbon future.
Dr Barry emphasised that this lack of consensus and understanding serves as a key barrier to the adoption of concrete safeguards to protect climate and energy policymaking, including clear conflict of interest rules and limits on fossil fuel industry access to decision making spaces.
She also emphasised the importance of a public interest framing. Regulating fossil fuel influence is not about punishing an industry, but about protecting democratic decision making, public health and climate policy from capture by powerful companies that have been working for decades to block and weaken efforts to address the global climate emergency.
Reflecting on the meeting Dr Barry said “There is still significant work to be done to raise awareness and build understanding of the risks that conflicts of interest pose to climate policymaking in the public interest. This event, hosted by Fossil Free Politics, forms part of a broader effort to bring this issue to the EU Parliament and to advance discussions on potential ways forward. These include limiting fossil fuel industry access to decision-makers, rejecting voluntary partnerships with industry, and excluding industry representatives, including those acting on its behalf, from advisory bodies responsible for climate policy decisions. Crucially, these are not radical proposals, but practical responses to the existing imbalance of power, resources, and access shaping climate policy decisions."