The oil lobbyist who tried to sink the first big climate deal

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1:44The big annual climate conference known as COP is happening in Brazil right now. And what you might not know about these talks is that everybody has to agree to everything. They run on complete consensus, which frankly does not seem that simple when I think of how my family can't even agree on what to eat for dinner. But what happens if someone around the table doesn't want there to be an agreement at all? Someone who's at the table precisely to be a spoiler. That's what happened right at the beginning of these climate meetings back in the 90s. And it set the tone for the summits that followed.

2:20It's why you might roll your eyes when you hear about a climate summit these days and assume that nothing will be agreed. From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in London. And I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. And today on The Global Story, how an American oil lobbyist invented the playbook that would be used at these talks for decades to come.

2:49Our colleague Jordan Dunbar hosts this BBC podcast called The Climate Question. And that is the BBC's global climate change programme. We're a weekly programme that goes around the world looking at all of the people trying to deal with climate change on the front lines wherever they are. We wanted to speak to you because in Brazil right now, There's the COP30 Climate Summit. Now, COP stands for the rather unglamorous Conference of the Parties. Yeah. And it's the decision-making body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, also not very glamorous. There have been big cops and little cops and cops that have passed by without noticing and ones that have kind of thunderous resonance all through the world.

3:33What's going on with this year's COP? Well, I would say COPs, while some people will think of them as just a United Nations negotiating meeting, you know, you get to see on TV the plenary hall, which is where you've got the guy with the gavel and all the different countries. But actually, these are huge. So in Dubai, so Conference of the Party 28, you had 80 ,000 people from all over the world. I was at COP 27, which was in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. I went there expecting, like most people, that it would be a negotiation. And obviously, you're going to have scientists, you have delegations from countries.

4:06What I experienced was much more like a festival. So COP30 in Brazil is a different one because the ones that you've heard about in the past were all about creating the rulebook, like the framework. So we have decided on the scientific evidence that, yes, human-derived climate change is a problem, right? We are now at the stage in Brazil where it's less about, okay, how are we going to do this? It's now, when are you going to do it? What are you going to do? When you've been to COP, what's the thing that surprised you most about it? How much else is going on that you don't really see on the sides?

4:43Because this is the one place if you're in energy or climate action, you've got to be here, right? This is where everyone else is. You're there to network, to swap ideas. And one of the big criticisms that people have about the COP process, and there is a lot, is that it is moved away from the negotiation, right? And businesses got highly involved. And one of the biggest criticisms of the types of businesses there is the oil and gas lobby. So fossil fuel lobbyists and businesses. And according to campaign group Kick Big Polluters Out, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber every country's delegation apart from Brazil at this year's COP.

5:21So they're saying 1 ,600 fossil fuel lobbyists are there this year. But on that list, you could quibble with who's classified as a fossil fuel lobbyist because it has two people apparently from Netflix, for example. But nonetheless, that is a wide criticism that there are a lot of business interests and fossil fuel interests actually at the COP, which people find odd because it's meant to be a climate change negotiation. What is the intention of oil lobbyists at these meetings? Why would fossil fuel lobbyists be here? So within the UNFCC, so the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that kind of oversees all of this, right, their events, their negotiations, while it is set up to deal with climate change, it also says, and I paraphrase, but essentially dealing with climate change while not limiting countries' economic developments.

6:12So that means in each country, quite a different thing. If you're a big Western country, you know, and you're developed, then you're looking at doing something quite different when it comes to mitigation, we call it, so reducing your emissions than you will if you're a developing country who still want to use their fossil fuel assets to develop. They feel like development is a bigger priority than climate change. So that's the argument of why fossil fuel lobbyists have been allowed to go. Jordan, I want to follow up on that. You referenced 30 COPs. This is COP30 because we've now seen 30 years of these meetings.

6:48The first one took place, I believe, in Berlin, and it led to the Kyoto Protocol being agreed upon, which kicked this whole thing off. My understanding is you've been looking at one of the first lobbyists who operated at these meetings, and I am fascinated. So tell us more. So, Asma, we had the Rio Earth Summit. That was in 1992, which is where people got together and said, you know what, this is a problem. we should create some sort of mechanism to deal with it. And then we get to Berlin. So that's considered COP1, where this all starts. And scientists then, they had the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, which is like the gold standards.

7:25These are global scientists around the world. And they agreed that human-derived climate change was a problem. So then the next one was in Geneva in 1996. And it was all about emissions reductions, okay? So getting countries to actually agree, not just to say, yeah, it's a problem, but like how much are you going to reduce your emissions in the industrialized world? So we get to Japan 1997, COP 3. The biggest bone of contention going into Kyoto was emissions reduction. So actually putting targets on it. So saying the UK are going to reduce by 7%. The US is going to go by 10%. Should China have any emissions reductions?

8:09because at this point they are still very much a developing country. But, you know, they're industrializing so quickly. So that was the real thing was, are the industrialized countries going to sign up to actual targets? So I actually went to see a play all about the Kyoto Protocol, as it's known. So the narrator, surprisingly, was this legendary oil lobbyist or industry lobbyist, Don Perlman.

8:38Don Pearlman:Every day now, scientists try to tell us how to live our lives. Every day, they try to tell us that the oil that powers our lives is a threat to life itself. Don Perlman, some people believe, established the playbook of the fossil fuel lobby that still exists to this day. So having seen the play, I decided to look into the real story, the truth of Don Perlman and the oil lobbyists and what it can tell us about COPS today. He is an incredible character. He goes to Harvard to study economics. He then gets a law degree from Yale. So very clever guy. He'd worked in the Reagan administration in the 80s.

9:30So he had been in the Department of Energy, the Department the interior as well. So he's an inside man. But by the time it gets to Kyoto, he's now becoming best known in climate circles because he works for a law firm called Patton Walsh, and they represent OPEC and different oil companies. OPEC being the, yeah, the world's biggest state oil producers. You know, it's said that no one knew these thousand page documents and the technicalities better than him. He was across everything. He went to all the meetings leading up to Kyoto before the main negotiations. He was at the meeting of the IPCC.

10:08So the scientists that were there, they say he was using country delegates or using different countries to try and water down the science and make people doubt the science. Because the whole point of these UN negotiations is to reach consensus. And that's why the play is incredible because you get to see that playing out with the different countries, they alleged that he was there to sow doubt. That very human thing of using psychology to say, well, what are they doing? What's this country doing? Oh, why isn't China doing more? And you're going to do, are you going to take that? Like really sowing dissent.

10:43You know, the negotiations happening in the side room saying, well, they've said this and they might agree to this, but this won't happen. Well, can you walk us through exactly how Don Perlman did this during the proceedings? You're saying that all these various countries from around the world get together. They're trying to agree to some sort of climate agreement. How did he try to derail this process? So we dug through the BBC's archive and we found Don Perlman himself turns up in a BBC documentary. It's called Battle for the Planet from 1997. If you want to obstruct progress or slow down negotiation, there's no better environment than the United Nations.

11:25We caught up with Don Perlman in Geneva. From where? From BBC Television. I was just wondering, could I briefly just have an interview with you? I'd be perfectly happy to do it, but for the fact that I'm in the process of trying to find somebody that I've got to meet. However, Mr Perlman eventually declined to be interviewed. So in the documentary, there's a representative from the Association of Small Island States, That was a block of low-lying islands made up across the world. This guy, James Cameron. I think it's fair to say he was not Don Perlman's biggest fan. He is rude, offensive. He uses foul language.

12:07He bellows and screams and rants and accuses. And all this from the cover of law practice. It's extraordinary. So if you imagine the treaty is going to be this long legal document, and semantics are so important to this, because at Kyoto, it was going to be legally binding, so it'd be real consequences. And for the first time, they were going to put numbers on the emissions reductions, and that was the most difficult thing for countries. Because we're in 1997, so it's still very industrialized societies, even in the West, like lots of coal power. You've still got steel being made. So there's real economic effects from this.

12:50And so what lobbyists would try and do, including Don, is change the wording. But they're not allowed in the negotiating chamber. They can't get in there. And so he would use a nation like Kowit, which is a petro state. And negotiators say that he would send handwritten notes because he didn't have phones or pagers. the only way to communicate was literally handwritten notes, saying things like delete paragraph four, change that word, move this across, looking for technicalities, procedural errors, anything that's going to slow things down or weaken the final agreement so you might be able to keep using fossil fuels longer or it's not clear how much you have to get rid of them.

13:34Well, who is he acting on behalf of when he's doing this? Who's actually invited him to this crucial COP meeting in Kyoto in 1997. So he was part of an NGO, so that's how he and other industries would actually be there. A non-governmental organization. Non-governmental organizations. One was called the Global Climate Coalition, another called the Climate Council. Those NGOs allow you to get access then to where the negotiations are, because now you're a non-governmental organization who can be invited by countries and get onto the list and be allowed in. Okay, so Mr. Perlman is not allowed in the main plenary room, as you describe it, but he can liaise with countries that act on his behalf or in concert with him.

14:21Is that right? Yeah, for the plenary, it's all about these notes going in. And so it's this dance, this dance of countries changing language, punctuation marks. It seems stupid, but it's actually incredibly important. So in the play, there's this brilliant bit where they illustrate it. where they're trying to urge countries to move away from fossil fuels. This sentence, countries are urged to take immediate actions to control the risks of climate change. Surely we can all agree on this. No, no, no, it's a strong. What does that even mean? Countries are urged. I'm sorry, it is urgent. I feel urged.

14:56I don't feel urged. Do you feel urged? I don't feel urged at all. Invited. You think about those two words, what's stronger? Urge or encourage? Urged is a red line for us. There's so much meaning behind them. Yeah, I mean, if you urged me to take some time off work, you'd be saying to me, take time off work, Tristan, you need a break. Whereas if you encouraged me, you're kind of leaving it up to me. Exactly.

15:17Don Pearlman:Countries are urged to take actions to control the risks of climate change. So the wording is so important. And those are the different bits that countries can change to make it stronger or weaker in the final agreement. And we saw in COP26 in Glasgow, India changing the words for coal from phase out, which is gone to me, to phase down. How long does that take? What does that mean? Are you still allowed to use some? So Jordan, I just want to make sure I understand how this actually played out in real time. You're describing a guy, a lobbyist, a person you say who isn't really clearly identified as being with the oil industry, hanging out on the outskirts of this conference.

16:00He can't actually be on the floor. So he's swapping notes with different countries to get them to change minor phrases, minor wording in this all. And is that how it all played out? So there was this big article in German magazine Der Spiegel where he's called the high priest of the carbon club. And after that point, he is known that he's there. But that doesn't stop him. And so what is Don Perlman's actual role in the end at this crucial climate summit? How does he water down the agreement? So there's that scene we talked about in the play, which is talking about encouraging or urging. It's watering down the language and also making different countries worry about how it would be accepted at home.

16:54So for the US, there was massive domestic pressure on them not to put in emissions targets. There had been adverts running leading up to Kyoto talking about how, if they reduced the emissions and they agreed to it, the price of everything was going to go up.

17:10Don Pearlman:What do you know about the United Nations proposed climate treaty? Isn't that about global warming? It would force the US to cut energy use by over 20 percent. Gasoline prices could go up by 50 cents a gallon. You know, the price of energy and fuel, this was a bad thing for Americans. Meanwhile, countries like China, India and Mexico are exempt. We pay the price and they're exempt. It's not global and it won't work. So he's there reminding the US negotiators. He's also there working with petro-states to say, oh, if you agree to this, what's going to happen to you? Working across different delegations.

17:48And remember, we're trying to get consensus here. You have to get nearly 200 countries to agree. It therefore is very easy to derail it because it only takes one country or one block to slow things down or change things. But the Kyoto Treaty finally gets agreed. So they work late into the night. The interpreters have gone home because their contracts are over. They've run out of food. They eventually get consensus. And the chairman says, yes, we agree. The Kyoto Protocol is agreed. It's not until 2001 that George Bush Jr. officially pulls America out. So they don't ratify it. For the protocol to come fully into force, the pact needed to be ratified by countries accounting for at least 55 % of 1990 carbon dioxide emissions.

18:41Obviously, when America didn't ratify that, that makes that much harder. Australia also didn't. It was then Russia that's persuaded by the EU to ratify it. And Russia accounted for 17 % of 1990 emissions because you imagine a really, really, really industrial country back then. And so thanks to them, the Kyoto Protocol eventually did get ratified, but without the US. Is he the reason that the United States didn't ratify the Kyoto Treaty? I think it's difficult to lay it all on one person. Certainly even people from the Green Lobby, you know, describe him as unbelievably tenacious, unbelievably strategic.

19:26So even his adversaries had respect for him. Really, for the US, it was domestic pressure at home, right? That means that they don't ratify it.

19:44Slowing it down, splitting hairs, really making it unbelievably complicated. You're grinding everybody down. and certainly that happened and Don Perlman was part of that.

20:01I don't know if you could completely blame him for that because remember this is the first time that we've ever put emissions reductions targets. This is a historic thing, whether he was there or not. It was always going to be really, really difficult.

20:28Don Pearlman:150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America wherever you get your podcasts.

20:57Do you have a sense, after your reporting and research, on what Don Perlman's real motivations were? It's quite difficult, and that's why he's such an interesting character, because it's not straightforward. Don Perlman passed away in 2005. And when you look at the descriptions of him, I think the idea of this supranational organization changing the lives of Americans and losing American jobs was just an asthma to him, right? And I think he was ideologically driven rather than, say, just for money. I think he genuinely believed in what he was doing. You mentioned that eventually Kyoto was ratified with the assistance of Russia.

21:47So over the last 30 years, then, how would you characterize what's happened in terms of global climate action since that treaty was ratified? I mean, I think Kyoto creates this framework and puts us on the path to where we are now. we eventually get to Paris, COP21 in 2015, and that's the first time nearly 200 countries around the world come together and say, we are going to try and keep temperatures down under 2 degrees, as close to 1.5 degrees as possible. So we have had lots of success on these agreements, right, that couldn't have happened if we hadn't gone through this difficult path. Well, I was in Paris in 2015 when that agreement was made.

22:33I was covering the summit and there was this, it felt like this hugely symbolic moment. There was Laurent Fabius, who was the president of the COP, who hit the gavel on the desk.

22:46And everyone burst out crying. There were, you know, massive tears all around the plenary room. Could you explain to us, are we likely to get the same kind of reaction at the end of this COP or are some COPs more emotional and significant than others? Well, I think because this COP is not about those massive agreements you've seen in the past, like Paris, it's much more about, right, we've been given this framework, what are we going to do about it? The big thing that the countries that really want action are trying to do is create a pathway away from fossil fuels. So in Dubai, COP28, we agreed to transition away from fossil fuels how do we do that?

23:29We've agreed to do it, but how do we do that? Are we going to get some sort of agreement where people say a timetable or a schedule or how much different people are going to do it? So that's one thing that people are looking out for. But this COP is also, it's known as a stock tick. And that's where you kind of mark the world's homework, which is like different countries have NDCs, Nationally Determined Contributions, where they say, right, we're going to cut this by this. We're going to do this. And its ability to get together and go, oh, oh, well, you've not actually done that. You said you would do that.