Fossil fuels lobby
The fossil fuels lobby includes paid representatives of corporations involved in the fossil fuel industry, as well as related industries like chemicals, plastics, aviation and other transportation. Because of their wealth and the importance of energy, transport and chemical industries to local, national and international economies, these lobbies have the capacity and money to attempt to have outsized influence on governmental policy. In particular, the lobbies promote climate change denial and obstruct policy related to environmental protection, environmental health and climate action.
For example, after climate change became a public topic, the fossil fuel lobby began a massive public relations campaign to undermine public understanding of climate change and block meaningful policy action. Since then, the fossil fuel industry has actively denied and cast doubt on climate science, confused the public and politicians, and prevented climate and clean energy policies through disinformation, lobbying, and propaganda and continues to do so, for example by falsely claiming there is no climate consensus among scientists.
Lobbies are active in most fossil-fuel intensive economies with democratic governance, with reporting on the lobbies most prominent in Canada, Australia, the United States and Europe; however, the lobbies are present in many parts of the world. Big Oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Chevron Corporation, and ConocoPhillips are among the largest corporations associated with the fossil fuels lobby. The American Petroleum Institute is a powerful industry lobbyist for Big Oil with significant influence in Washington, D.C. In Australia, Australian Energy Producers, formerly known as the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, has significant influence in Canberra and helps to maintain favorable policy settings for Oil and Gas.
The presence of major fossil fuel companies and national oil companies at global forums for decision making, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Paris Climate Agreement negotiations, and United Nations Climate Change conferences has been criticised. The lobby is known for exploiting international crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, to try to roll back existing regulations or justify new fossil fuel development. Lobbyists try to retain fossil fuel subsidies.
Influence
The energy lobby has a history of conflict with international interests and democratic global governance. According to the International Sustainable Energy Organization for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency the second World Climate Conference "was sabotaged by the USA and oil lobbies" whereupon UNISEO proceeded to set up a Global Energy Charter "which protects life, health, climate and the biosphere from emissions." According to the organization, these same "reactionary energy lobby groups tried to boycott this Charter with the help from oil- and coal-producing nations and succeeded to keep the energy transition out of the Rio Conference on Environment & Development in 1992, to continue this game in all Climate Conferences in Berlin, Kyoto, The Hague and Marrakesh, where the USA boycotted the Kyoto protocol and still ignores the Charter." It is estimated that during the 2010s the five biggest oil and gas companies, and their industry groups, spent at least €251 million lobbying the European Union over climate policies. Lobbying was also influential in Canada and Australia during the 2010s.During the 14th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development Bulletin, "One minister is said to have challenged the North's renewable energy lobby with the words: why not 'light up' the dark zones of the world by 'extinguishing some of the candles' in yours?"
According to the UNFCCC, 636 fossil fuel lobbyists attended COP27.
Publicly, fossil-fuel corporations say that they support the Paris Agreement aiming to limit global warming below 2 °C in 2100. Internal reports of BP and Shell show that they have made contingency business models plans for warming of more than 3 °C of global warming in 2050.
Environmental impact of companies
As of 2015, many of the most influential members of the energy lobby have been among the top polluters in the United States, with Conoco, Exxon, and General Electric ranking in the top six. According to the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March 2002 by former attorneys at the Environmental Protection Agency, "companies like ExxonMobil and Sunoco keep reporting record profits while increasing emissions or more cancer causing chemicals from their refineries." The energy lobby has been criticized by environmentalists for using its influence to try to block or dilute legislation regarding global climate change.Climate denialism
Many issues that are settled in the scientific community, such as human responsibility for climate change, remain the subject of politically or economically motivated attempts to downplay, dismiss or deny them—an ideological phenomenon academics and scientists call climate change denial. Climate scientists, especially in the United States, have reported government and oil-industry pressure to censor or suppress their work and hide scientific data, with directives not to discuss the subject publicly. The fossil fuels lobby has been identified as overtly or covertly supporting efforts to undermine or discredit the scientific consensus on climate change.Industrial, political and ideological interests organize activity to undermine public trust in climate science.
Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates, ultraconservative think tanks, and ultraconservative alternative media, often in the U.S. More than 90% of papers that are skeptical of climate change originate from right-wing think tanks. Climate change denial is undermining efforts to act on or adapt to climate change, and exerts a powerful influence on the politics of climate change.
In the 1970s, oil companies published research that broadly concurred with the scientific community's view on climate change. Since then, for several decades, oil companies have been organizing a widespread and systematic climate change denial campaign to seed public disinformation, a strategy that has been compared to the tobacco industry's organized denial of the hazards of tobacco smoking. Some of the campaigns are even carried out by the same people who previously spread the tobacco industry's denialist propaganda.
Australia
In 2023 the Australian Energy Council lobbied against adding an environmental component to the National Electricity Objective. Reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism were lobbied against by Australian Energy Producers and the Minerals Council of Australia.China
The coal lobby was said to be powerful in China in 2025. While the country is taking steps towards implementing green energy, coal as an energy source and industry still holds a stronghold within the nation due to historical and symbolic ties with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. One notable group, the China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec Group, advocated the Chinese Communist Party to continue the extraction of unconventional oil and gas through various projects and policy proposals. In 2024, the state-operated coal lobby advocated for an ease of restrictions on oil exports, carbon capturing technologies, and methane emission abatement.United States
In the 2000 elections, over $34 million was contributed, with 78% of that money going to Republicans. In 2004, oil and gas companies contributed over $25 million to political campaigns, donating 80% of that money to Republicans. In the 2006 election cycle, oil and gas companies contributed over $19 million to political campaigns. 82% of that money went to Republican candidates, while the remaining 18% went to Democrats. Electric utilities also heavily favor Republicans; their contributions have recently ranged between $15 and 20 million. From 2003 to 2006, the energy lobby also contributed $58.3 million to state-level campaigns. By comparison, alternative energy interests contributed around half a million dollars in the same time period.During the United States elections in 2012 which includes the presidential election there was much spending by the lobbies.
Since 2008, the fossil fuel industry has spent over $100 million every year to influence the US government.
Governmental influence in the United States
The largest oil and gas companies that are sometime collectively referred to as Big Oil, and their industry lobbyist arm, the American Petroleum Institute, have spent large amounts of money every year on lobbying and political campaigns, and employ hundreds of lobbyists, to obstruct and delay government action to address climate change.The fossil fuel lobby has considerable clout in Washington, D.C., and in other political centers, and have scored key political appointments in the administrations of U.S. President George W. Bush and President Donald Trump. President George W. Bush, like his father President George H. W. Bush, was a former oil industry senior executive, and President Trump has had various cabinet officials throughout both of his administrations, his first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was the CEO of one of largest of the Big Oil companies, ExxonMobil, and his most recent Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, was the CEO of Liberty Energy, advocates against climate change efforts and is vocal for fracking development. Fossil fuel industry interests spend many times as much on advancing their agenda in the halls of power than do ordinary citizens and environmental activists, with the former spending $2 billion in the years 2000–2016 on climate change lobbying in the United States. Big Oil companies often adopt "sustainability principles" that are at odds with the policy agenda their lobbyists advocate, which often entails sowing doubt about the reality and impacts of climate change and forestalling government efforts to address them. API launched a public relations disinformation campaign with the aim of creating doubt in the public mind so that "climate change becomes a non-issue."
The fossil fuel industry spends large amounts of money on American political campaigns, with about 2/3 of its political contributions over the past several decades fueling Republican politicians, and outspending many fold political contributions for renewable energy. Fossil fuel industry political contributions reward politicians who vote against environmental protections. According to a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, as voting by a member of Congress turned more anti-environment, as measured by his/her voting record as scored by the League of Conservation Voters, the fossil fuel industry contributions that this member of Congress received increased. On average, a 10% decrease in the LCV score was correlated with an increase of $1,700 in campaign contributions from the industry for the campaign following the congressional term.