Ceremony to ask the ancestors to protect the community. economic justice – resisting neoliberalisim © TNI how corporations rule Part 4: Anglo American’s dirty energy lobby and its false climate solutions november 2014 | report T N I How corporations rule Anglo American’s dirty energy lobby and its false climate solutions As part of one of the greenwashing projects, a new hill How corporations rule has been created using sand and Part 4: Anglo American’s dirty energy lobby and its false climate solutions materials from the mine. november | 2014 I N T International © T N I Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) is a Friends of the Earth International is the world’s Transnational Institute (TNI) of Policy Studies research and campaign group working to expose largest grassroots environmental network with 75 envisions a world of peace, equity and democracy and challenge the privileged access and member groups and over two million members on a sustainable planet brought about and influence enjoyed by corporations and their and supporters around the world. sustained by an informed and engaged citizenry. lobby groups in policy making, particularly at Our vision is of a peaceful and sustainable world It carries out radical informed analysis on critical the EU and UN level. Corporate Europe based on societies living in harmony with global issues, builds alliances with social Observatory works in close alliance with public nature. We envision a society of interdependent movements and develops proposals for a more interest groups and social movements in and people living in dignity, wholeness and sustainable, just and democratic world. outside Europe to develop alternatives to the fulfilment in which equity and human and dominance of corporate power. The Transnational Institute (TNI) was peoples’ rights are realised. This will be a society established in 1974 as an international network built upon peoples’ sovereignty and of activist researchers (“scholar activists”) Available for download at participation. It will be founded on social, www.foei.org committed to critical analyses of the global economic, gender and environmental justice and problems of today and tomorrow. It aims to Authors Lúcia Ortiz, Pascoe Sabido, Rachel be free from all forms of domination and provide intellectual support to movements Tansey, Lyda Fernanda Forero, Danilo Urrea exploitation, such as neoliberalism, corporate struggling for a more democratic, equitable globalization, neo-colonialism and militarism. and Sara Shaw. and environmentally sustainable world. Friends of the Earth International has groups in Editor Katharine Ainger. Over almost 40 years, TNI has gained an Africa Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Mauritius, international reputation for: Contributions from Denis Burke Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda. Asia - • carrying out well researched and radical and Dipti Bhatnagar. Pacific Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, critiques – sometimes against the grain Photos by TNI Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Palestine, Papua - of current pressing global problems New Guinea, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, • anticipating and producing informed work on Design [email protected], Timor-Leste. Europe Austria, Belgium (Wallonia & key issues long before they become mainstream Brussels), Belgium (Flanders), Bosnia and www.onehemisphere.se concerns, for example, our work on food and Herzegovina (associate member), Bulgaria, hunger, third world debt, transnational © 2014 Friends of the Earth International, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, corporations, trade, and carbon trading Amsterdam. Creative Commons Attribution- England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Estonia, NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, • Supporting and enhancing social movements’ Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, work for economic and social justice worldwide Macedonia (former Yugoslav Republic of), Malta, • naming outstanding TNI fellows from many Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, countries and backgrounds whose scholarship, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine. Latin analysis and research have inspired and America and Caribbean Argentina, Brazil, Chile, This publication has been produced with the educated generations of activists and whose Colombia, Costa Rica, Curaçao (Antilles), El assistance of the European Union. The contents of writings continue to provoke debate this publication are the sole responsibility of Friends Salvador, Grenada (West Indies), Guatemala, Haiti, of the Earth International and can in no way be Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay. Canada, • building alternatives that are both just and taken to reflect the views of the European Union. Russia (associate member) and United States. pragmatic , for example developing alternative approaches to international drugs policy and providing support for the practical detailed work of public water services reform This report is part of a series of case studies • influencing policy makers thanks to its research since 2011, 1 in which Friends of the Earth and its direct links and engagement with mass Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) and partners have been movements, particularly those most affected by International exposing the diverse ways that corporations current global economic and social policies exert pressure over national level and • remaining non-sectarian and able to bridge multilateral political decision-making. P.O. Box 19199 different political tendencies, thereby helping 1000 GD Amsterdam build coalitions of social movements that span The Netherlands regions and continents Tel: 31 20 622 1369 footnote Fax: 31 20 639 2181 1 For previous briefings see: http://www.foei.org/resources/publications/publications-by- [email protected] subject/economic-justice-resisting-neoliberalism-publications/ and http://www.foei.org/resources/publications/publications-by-subject/economic-justice- www.foei.org resisting-neoliberalism-publications/reclaim-the-un-from-corporate-capture/ How corporations rule Anglo American’s dirty energy lobby and its false climate solutions Contents Introduction 4 Box 1 How do corporations get their way? 4 Box 2 Anglo American 5 Box 3 Financialisation of nature 5 one The impacts of Anglo American’s dirty energy projects on the ground: El Cerrejón coal mine 6 Figure 1 El Cerrejón coal mine 6 Environmental and social conflicts 7 Box 4 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategies 7 Figure 2 Profits and destination of coal exports from the El Cerrejón coal mine 8 Box 5 Free Trade Agreements and mining in Colombia 9 e Political actors in resistance 9 l y u two Anglo American’s web of influence 10 b r b Box 6 False solutions 10 o l Privileged access to governments and the UNFCCC 11 s y Anglo American weaving a complex lobby web 12 g Figure 3 Anglo American weaving a complex lobby web to get what it wants 12 n r e n o three Tackling the corporate power of dirty energy companies 13 e i s y t t No privileged access for corporations 13 n r Box 7 Reclaiming the UN: additional measures to protect all UN institutions i o i a from corporate capture 13 d t r Lobby transparency & holding corporations accountable 14 s u ’ l No corporate welfare – end public subsidies for dirty energy 14 n o o a s c i e Conclusion 15 r p t e a r m m i l A o c o c l e g s l n a 4 f A 1 0 w : 2 s | t 4 i r e o t b d r m e n v a o a H P n FoEI | 3 How corporations rule Anglo American’s dirty energy lobby and its false climate solutions Introduction How corporations rule Anglo American’s dirty energy lobby and its false climate solutions Greenhouse gas emissions are now the highest in human history and climate change is having widespread impact on BOX 1 : How do corporations get their way? human life and natural systems. 2 But when governments meet Some of the diverse ways that corporations ensure their at the United Nations COP 20 (Conference of Parties) climate own interests are prioritised over the rights of people and talks in Lima under the United Nations Framework Convention the planet: on Climate Change (UNFCCC) they will be subject to intense lobbying by some of the biggest industrial polluters. The stakes • Aggressive lobbying through a plethora could not be higher, as countries then head to the pivotal 2015 of business associations; UNFCCC meeting in Paris, but the corporate capture of policy- • Lobbying to scrap binding regulations at national and making means there is an ongoing failure to address the root international level, to be replaced with self-regulated causes of climate change. voluntary corporate standards; 3 Instead of governments and international public institutions like • Direct funding of political parties; the United Nations reigning in corporations that harm people and the environment they are, themselves, more and more controlled • Revolving doors, ie the movement of key personnel by those corporations (see box 1: how do corporations get their from public administration into the private sector way? ). In this publication Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), and vice versa; Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), and the Transnational • Strong presence in countries’ official delegations at Institute (TNI) expose how corporations are undermining crucial UNFCCC negotiations and in all the so-called civil society climate policies, and promoting false solutions (see box 6 on page major groups, which includes the business sector. 10) that will allow them to profit from the