My subconscious must have known that last month was the 25th anniversary of the release of Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee because I suddenly and inexplicably became obsessed. I watched Let’s Plays and speedruns of the game. When I finished, I went immediately to the game’s sequel, Abe’s Exodduswatching even more longplays and speedruns and scouring the Playstation and Xbox game stores for a port.
‘It’s Abhorrent’: Activists Condemn Rise in Fossil Fuel Reps at COP27 Climate Talks
This story is part of Choosing Eartha series that chronicles the impact of climate change and explores what’s being done about the problem.
As world leaders gather in Egypt this week to engage with scientists, nongovernmental organizations, activists and other experts to decide how best to wean society off its fossil fuel dependency, there is one set of guests at the party who are not entirely welcome.
Of the 44,000-plus people registered to attend this year’s COP27 climate summit, at least 636 are representatives of fossil fuel companies, according to research released by Global Witness on Thursday. That figure, which was calculated by Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory together with Global Witness, represents an increase of over 25% compared to the 503 fossil fuel reps at COP26 last year in Glasgow, Scotland.
To put that into context, the fossil fuel contingent is bigger than any national delegation at this year’s conference other than the UAE, which has 1,070 delegates (70 of whom are fossil fuel lobbyists). In total, 29 countries have chosen to include fossil fuel reps as part of their delegations, with Russia bringing 33. The numbers were calculated using information provided by delegates and included on the list of registrations published by the UNFCCC.
Scientists have attributed greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels to be the cause of the climate crisis, leading to extreme weather events that are causing death and destruction across the world. Due to its documented history of climate change