PLEA Network

16 November 2016, DESMOG, John Kerry Tells Marrakech Climate Talks Coal Investment Is “Suicide” As U.S. Delegation Ducks Fossil Fuel Influence Questions. Today at the latest round of United Nations climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco, the nonprofit Corporate Accountability International (CAI) was finally able to deliver a petition to the U.S. delegation calling for the removal of corporate interests and the fossil fuel industry from the international climate negotiations process. The petition included a demand for the U.S. to stop opposing a conflict of interest policy that would look to limit the influence fossil fuels groups could have on the talks. Later that day, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized the continued use of fossil fuels — with a careful caveat about carbon capture and storage technology — saying at this point, the world cannot “write a big fat check enabling the widespread development of the dirtiest source of fuel in an outdated way. It just doesn’t make sense. That’s suicide.” The CIA petition is calling out organizations such as the World Coal Association, International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), and BusinessEurope, which represent major oil, gas, and coal companies from across the world and which are given “observer” status at the UN climate summit. What does that mean? For starters, this allows them to sit in on the closed-door meetings where UN delegates hammer out the details of addressing the issues caused by emissions coming from many of these same companies. However, yesterday when CAI first attempted to deliver the petition representing more than 625,000 people, mostly Americans, the U.S. delegation refused to officially receive or acknowledge the petition. “We certainly caught them off guard,” Jesse Bragg, Media Director for CAI, told DeSmog. “They brought us into the press office to keep us away from the public view, and it was very clear that they didn’t have a protocol to deal with this.” It wasn’t until nearly seven hours later that Emily White, of the U.S. State Department, told CAI she would accept the petition the following day. Read More here