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On May 27, Laurent Fabius, France’s minister of foreign affairs and international development, and COP 21 president, had unveiled the names of the 20 largest sponsors of the Paris climate conference to be held later this year. The list includes French energy companies Engie and EDF, BNP Paribas bank, insurance firm Axa, Renault Nissan, Air France and luxury goods manufacturer LVMH.
Apart from “direct contributions to the organization of COP 21, the companies are particularly concerned about the fight against climate disruption”, read a French government news report.
Activists and NGOs have reacted with outrage to the announcement. According to a report published by The Guardian, Oxfam France criticised the announcement as greenwash and hypocrisy, saying that the summit would now “be financed by French champions of pollution”.
“But senior French sources insist that while they would have preferred funding from renewable energy companies, they had been impelled to take a ‘pragmatic choice’,” says the report.
The climate meet, named COP 21 for the 21st Conference of Parties, will see the participation of 195 countries and the European Union under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for discussing ways to limit global warming to less than 2°C.