15 November 2025 – Today at COP30, Indonesia receives the Fossil of the Day for bringing fossil-fuel lobbyists into its delegation – and even into its intervention in the Article 6.4 carbon-market negotiations – where Indonesia copied lobbyists’ talking points, sometimes verbatim, and presented them as its own. This is the most blatant example yet of corporate capture by a developing country at COP30.
For years, developed countries have opened their doors to fossil-fuel lobbyists, embedding them inside their official delegations and giving them access to shape outcomes from within. But today, Indonesia receives the Fossil of the Day for becoming the worst example so far of a developing country copying that playbook – with 46 lobbyists in its delegation (according to new Kick Big Polluters Out research released on Friday), one of the biggest groups for a developing country, and using Article 6.4 negotiating time to read out their positions.
During the Article 6.4 session on the Supervisory Body’s annual report, Indonesia’s intervention consisted of the same talking points as a lobbyist letter calling for weaker permanence rules, softer treatment of reversals, and looser safeguards for high-risk nature-based offsets – rules that we are counting on to keep aligned with the 1.5°C pathway.
These calls directly contradict the science and undermine environmental integrity at the very moment when the 6.4 mechanism is supposed to protect it. The letter, put forward by Conservation International (which itself develops and sells carbon credits), is co-signed by groups, many of which have direct or indirect material interests in carbon markets – precisely the players who stand to gain from diluted rules. This includes IETA, the industry association whose board includes several oil and gas majors, and which has 58 fossil fuel lobbyists in its delegation.
Indonesia is also promoting carbon markets outside the negotiation room, using its Pavilion as a marketplace to sell credits intended to offset ongoing fossil fuel emissions – at a conference meant to phase those emissions out.
All this unfolds against the wider backdrop revealed by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition:
1,600 fossil-fuel lobbyists have been granted access to COP30 – one in every 25 people in Belém, the highest share ever recorded.
Fossil lobbyists outnumber the delegates of many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries by staggering ratios – in some cases 40 or 50 to 1.
Many Global North governments continue to embed fossil-fuel representatives directly within their official badges – a playbook they have relied on for decades.
Developed countries may have written this script, but Indonesia has delivered its most brazen sequel: using UN negotiation space to amplify fossil fuel industry demands. At a COP meant to strengthen ambition and a just transition, Indonesia instead tried to weaken the rules that hold the Paris Agreement together.
In a year where polluter presence is higher than ever, and where corporate capture threatens every outcome on the table, Indonesia stands out for handing the microphone directly to the very interests driving the crisis while its own people are experiencing severe climate impacts.
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Notes to Editors
Fossil of the Day happens every day at 6pm in the COP30 Blue Zone, Zone D, Action Area 1. (This is near the delegation offices and before you get to Meeting Room 1.)
The Fossil of the Day awards (which now include Ray of the Day and the Solidarity for Justice Award) were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their ‘best’ to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.
Contact: Attila Kulcsar, CAN International, akulcsar@climatenetwork.org, +44 7472 124872