Kick Big Ethics Violators Out of the COP 30 Climate Conference
The Firebreak Files an Ethics Complaint with the UNFCCC Against a Group of NGOs
The following is a letter I submitted today to the UNFCCC COP 30 Climate Conference organizers to complain about the ethical violations of a block of NGOs attending the conference and acting as members of the Kick Big Polluters Out Coalition. The UNFCCC rules clearly state that whenever NGOs misbehave (lie, spread falsehood, attack, insult or show disrespect to delegates from other stakeholder groups…), a complaint should be sent to SpeakUp@unfccc.int citing the violation of the UNFCCC Code of Conduct. Under this ethical code, the UN is obliged to remove the offending organization and ban them from further events.
Brussels, Belgium, 7 November 2025
Observer Organization Liaison Unit UNFCCC secretariat
Platz der Vereinten Nationen,
53113 Bonn, Germany
SpeakUp@unfccc.int
Dear Sir, Madame,
I would like to formally lodge a complaint of ethics violations by a group of 450 NGOs attacking other participants and stakeholders at the COP 30 Climate Conference in Belém, Brazil. These NGOs, many attending the COP 30, hide under the banner of Kick Big Polluters Out, but their actions are nothing more than harassment and disrespectfully spreading falsehoods and unfair images. Today they published a press release outlining their intentions for COP 30 (which clearly violate the UNFCCC Code of Conduct on many accounts).
According to the UNFCCC “Guidelines for the participation of representatives of non-governmental organizations at meetings of the bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, the following violations need to be taken into consideration by the organizing body:
B. Etiquette and safety
2. No participant shall harass or threaten any other participant.
The very strategy of the campaign, evident in the title, is to “Kick Big Polluters Out”. Industry representatives are being told by a loud group of well-funded activists they are not welcome at UN multistakeholder events, and when someone speaks on their behalf, many in the crowd scream insulting messages or make them feel unsafe while attending what should be an open UN-hosted dialogue.
Worse, the Kick Big Polluters Out campaign signatories are trying to misrepresent participants from industry.
First, on the numbers, they claim in this press release that over 5350 COP delegates are coming from industry (multiplied over the last five years for dramatic effect), trying to amplify a total despite the obvious fact that this number is far below 2% of the total delegates if we consider the 56,000 participants at COP 29 as a baseline (and many participants have been counted five times). They do not mention that there are exponentially far more UNFCCC COP participants from NGOs, CSOs, indigenous populations and development groups, all lobbying freely and without harassment.
Second, many of the industry representatives are coming from renewable energy companies, clean-tech researchers and solution providers (see analysis below from 2022) These groups are intentionally distorting the facts and trying to mislead public perceptions of how the UNFCCC process is set up, trying to portray it as industry captured. This is a well-orchestrated falsehood that the COP 30 organizers should stand up to.
3. Interfering with the movement of participants at any time or location within the venues is not permitted.
In past COP conferences, activists from NGOs involved in this Kick Big Polluters Out campaign (see list of representative NGOs) have tried to disrupt and block events or sessions at the COP hosted or sponsored by companies from the energy sector. Many of these companies are energy utilities seeking solutions to increase renewables in the energy mix, others are presenting their innovations to reduce carbon emissions. The NGOs interfering with these events are trying to deny other messages from being heard in the debate. Not only are the Kick Big Polluters Out affiliated NGO activists being disrespectful, they are also not democratic or open-minded. By allowing them to disrupt the dialogue process, is the UNFCCC condoning such unethical practices?
D. Information materials
5. Non-governmental observers shall refrain from using the UNFCCC venues for unauthorized demonstrations, and when distributing written materials shall respect other participants’ social, cultural, religious or other opinions and refrain from personal attacks.
Take for example a quote from today’s Kick Big Polluters Out press release: “… year after year the same climate criminals burning down the planet parade around the talks pretending to be part of the solution”. This is a quote from Pascoe Sabido, from Corporate Europe Observatory, one of the main NGOs driving the Kick Big Polluters Out campaign. Calling other stakeholders with a legitimate right to participate in the climate dialogue process terms like: “criminals” who “burn the planet” and “parade around the talks” is not respectful at all.
Sabido, in this press release, goes even further and is disrespectful to the UNFCCC: “It’s a blatant demonstration of just how ineffective the current tweaks to the rules are.” We should note that Sabido’s NGO, Corporate Europe Observatory, is not transparent about who is actually funding their campaigns with over half of their funding for EU anti-trade campaigns coming from non-transparent US organizations using dark donor-advised foundation funding to hide the special interests they represent. See analysis here.
The portrayal of employees from fossil fuel industries is misleading and insulting. The image they use of a representative from this important stakeholder group in the UN’s climate dialogue is as a rich greedy lobbyist stuffing cash in his pocket while polluting the planet. This is triggering and insulting (see image below that serves as the cover of their press release). Their goal is to destroy the reputation of this interest group so as to deny their ability to speak credibly on important innovative solutions to deal with carbon emissions while still providing affordable energy for the developing world. These personal attacks are disrespectful and the UNFCCC should stand up and defend their Code of Conduct and apply sanctions on the members and signatories of this dishonest campaign: Kick Big Polluters Out.
The UNFCCC maintains the following position: “The Executive Secretary has the authority to take any action necessary to maintain this security, including denying access to the venues.” I trust that any representatives and signatories of the Kick Big Polluters Out group shall be dealt with in keeping with the standards of your Participant Code of Conduct Guidelines.
Kind regards
David Zaruk, PhD
Editor, The Firebreak
www.thefirebreak.org
See original letter:
