Organizers of this year’s UN climate talks in the UAE have hired a controversial former Downing Street aide to Boris Johnson, prompting concern among some environmentalists.
Lobbyist David Canzini, who advised the former British prime minister in his final months in office, is working for COP28 on communications ahead of December’s climate summit in Dubai, according to several people briefed on the matter.
While at No. 10, Canzini opposed a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and pushed Johnson to take a less positive stance on onshore wind farms.
Canzini is working COP28 along with other staff members seconded from CT Group, the lobbying firm set up by Australian political strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, according to people familiar with the matter. CT advises industries including the oil and gas sector.
A right-wing strategist who was involved With the Conservative Party ruling the UK for decades, Canzini was brought to Downing Street in February 2022 as Johnson’s deputy chief of staff five months before the then prime minister was ousted following the ‘partygate’ scandal.
He is a long-term ally of Croby, who helped Johnson win two London mayoral elections and advised a number of Conservative prime ministers. Canzini worked for CT Group before working on issue 10.
COP28 did not specifically comment on Canzini’s appointment, but said it had “contracted CT Group to provide communications advice,” which included a group of three embedded in its communications team.
A UAE COP28 spokesman added that its senior team included people with significant experience in renewable energy and climate policy, including a former director-general of IRENA, the international renewable energy agency.
CT Group does not publish its client list. However, the lobbying register for New South Wales in Australia, which has mandatory disclosure rules, shows that it works for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and BHP, which has mineral and petroleum assets.
Earlier this year, the UAE came under fire from climate activists after it named Sultan al-Jaber, head of the state-backed oil producer Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, as COP28 president-designate .
Since his appointment, Jaber – who has also been at the forefront of the UAE’s early moves towards renewable energy – has stressed the importance of engaging the oil and gas industry in discussions on how to tackle global warming. COP28 team organizing oil and gas industry alliance as flagship initiative at summit, Financial Times reported during the weekend.
Canzini’s appointment has heightened the concerns of some environmentalists. Alice Harrison, fossil fuel campaign leader at Global Witness, said the COP28 decision to hire Canzini seemed “very much in line with a summit that already looks set to become a polluter’s paradise.”
Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based climate and energy think tank, said Canzini’s appointment poses “a real danger to global efforts to tackle climate change and the credibility of the summit.” ”.
This year’s COP will present a so-called global stocktake, as countries evaluate their progress in meeting emissions cuts aimed at limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
It is unclear whether Canzini’s COP28 work was done directly through CT Group or through his communications agency called Canzini Direction, which he founded in December, according to reports House of Enterprises.
Canzini and CT Group did not respond to requests for comment.
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