«If we are to be serious about meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement, we must tackle conflicts of interest in climate policy-making now», reported Greens/EFA Group in a report on revolving doors between the public sector and the fossil fuel industry in Europe, which concludes that «there is a widespread problem when it comes to the potential for conflicts of interest to dominate climate policy-making».
Taking thirteen European countries as case studies, the report, launched this week during Climate Change Conference in Bonn, finds indeed that the lines between the regulated and regulators are «continuously and consistently blurred and that there are inadequate legislative provisions in place to prevent conflicts of interest from contaminating the policy-making process». Of the countries studied, Austria, Hungary, Sweden and Denmark do not regulate the issue of revolving doors, so there are no restrictions on moving between the public and private sector. Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom do have some provisions on revolving doors, although these vary significantly in scope and effectiveness.
However, despite the existence of legislation, the study still finds «88 cases of revolving doors between the public sector and the energy industry, showing that gaps in the legislation remain, enforcement mechanisms are weak or inexistent, and/or that the rules can be easily flouted. Most of the cases involve Ministers and Secretaries of State, advisors, cabinet officials and other high-level civil servants. There are also instances of former Prime Ministers and regulators».
To avoid any risk that public policy-making is beholden to private interests, the Greens/EFA Group therefore urgently calls for the following:
a clear definition of what constitute conflicts of interest at the UNFCCC level
the introduction of a conflicts of interest policy for policy-makers on how to engage with different kinds of stakeholders at the UNFCCC
robust conflicts of interest policies to be implemented at all decision-making levels, regional, national, EU, and UNFCCC.
a minimum cooling-off period of 3 years between positions in the public and private sectors.
Photo : Dirty energy out campaign / Greens/EFA Group