Endesa is the largest electric utility provider in Spain and the country’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas polluter, emitting some 60 million tons of carbon each year. It’s also a sponsor of the United Nations’ international climate conference (known as COP25) that began in Spain on Monday.
The company paid $2.2 million to be a diamond sponsor of the conference, though they’ll receive some of that money back in tax incentives, according to a report from El Periodico. In exchange for their funding, Endesa received an exhibition space in the conference’s stakeholder area.
On the day the conference began, the company also bought front-page ads in several major Spanish newspapers advertising their participation in the conference. Patrick Galey, a science and environment correspondent for AFP, called the ads Orwellian.
Having a fossil fuel company sponsor climate talks…is a pretty obvious conflict of interest, he told Earther in a Twitter direct message. In 2019, when the world is already dealing with climate-related disasters, when millions are displaced by floods, storms, and drought, the optics of it are poor.
The 25,000 representatives from 200 countries at COP25 are tasked with creating plans to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and comply with the Paris Climate Accord. The stakes for the conference couldn’t be higherjust last week, the United Nations released a damning report showing that global emissions have risen by about 1.5 percent every year for the past decade. As a result, the authors say nations will have to halve their 2018 levels of carbon emissions by 2030 by cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6 percent every year for the next decade to keep the globe from warming 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Though all nations will have to take action, the scientists call on members of the G20 to take the lead, because they contribute some 78 percent of all emissions. The G20 is meant to represent the world’s 20 top economies, and though Spain is not technically a member, it’s currently 14th on that list and is one of Europe’s worst emitters. From 1990 to 2017, the European Union reduced its carbon emissions by 23.5 percent, but Spain’s emissions grew by 17.9 percent.
Endesa has said it is committed to addressing the urgent threat of climate change. The company wrote in a carbon footprint report that the is fully aware that the energy companies play a key role in this challenge.
But Jesse Bragg, media director for Corporate Accountability, said that’s greenwashing, and it’s no surprise that a company like Endesa would spend so much money for a place at COP25.
Endesa is Spain’s largest utility company, and its parent company, Enel, has a massive carbon footprint, he told Earther, citing the company’s own numbers. In 2018 they burned over 11 million tons of coal, 2.1 tons of oil, 1.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas.”