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At the COP26 climate summit (October 2021), fossil fuel sponsors were banned for the first time.
Culture Unstained participated heavily in the campaign to ban major oil companies from sponsoring, or being involved officially, at the COP26 climate summit. Emails and documents made public by Culture Unstained via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that summit organisers concluded that oil giant BP ‘does not fit our success criteria’ for an official COP26 role, while other civil servants highlighted that it’s ‘unclear’ whether the firm’s climate commitments ‘stack up’. A significant win for the movement, as this marks a major blow for oil firms such as BP, Shell and Equinor that continue to misleadingly claim that they are on a climate-friendly path.
UN High Level Champion for COP26 Nigel Topping commented that ‘Existing commitments from the oil industry are insufficient and don’t align with global climate goals. It [COP] cannot offer a platform to entities that do not meet this level of commitment.’
