Climate activists are surprised by Coca-Cola's support for the COP27 climate conference
This year's talks will take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and the country's government announced the event last week. However, there has been a rise in objections since then from environmental activists, who point out that Coca-Cola is one of the world's leading plastic polluters.
“It is baffling that Coca-Cola – the world's largest plastic polluter in every global 'Break Free From Plastic' brand audit, including in Kenya and Uganda – will be sponsoring this year's UNFCCC COP in Egypt,” says Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar.
In 2021, a 'Break Free From Plastic' audit collected 330,493 pieces of plastic waste from locations around the world, ranging from parks and city streets to beaches. 58% of these items had a consumer brand clearly visible, and for the fourth year in a row, Coca-Cola emerged as the “world's top polluter” among those brands.
John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director, explains that “Coca-Cola produces 120 billion throwaway plastic bottles a year, and 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, which worsens both the plastic crisis and the climate crisis,” says J. Hocevar. He adds that the company has yet to acknowledge that this is a problem or explain how it plans to achieve its climate goals without ending its “addiction to plastic”. “This partnership undermines the very goal of the event the company is seeking to sponsor.”
Why is Coca-Cola sponsoring COP27?
Coca-Cola claims that it shares the goal of eliminating waste in the ocean and welcomes efforts to raise awareness of the issue.
“We are ready to contribute and have set ambitious goals for our business, starting with helping to collect and recycle every bottle or can we sell by 2030 – regardless of where it comes from,” a company spokesperson told Euronews Green. Coca-Cola points to its efforts, including the signing of joint statements calling on UN member states to adopt a global treaty to address plastic waste through a comprehensive circular economy approach. The company also claims that just two weeks ago it helped establish the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty. “Our support for COP27 aligns with our science-based target to reduce absolute carbon emissions by 25% by 2030 and our ambition to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
Packaging accounts for approximately 30% of Coca-Cola’s carbon emissions, and the company claims that reducing the volume of waste is closely linked to these commitments.
Campaigners call for an end to all corporate sponsorship
Last year’s COP26 in Glasgow had several corporate sponsors, including consumer goods giant Unilever, UK supermarket Sainsbury's and technology company Microsoft. The total value of these deals is thought to have been around £250 million (€286 million).
However, the decision to have Coca-Cola as a sponsor for this year’s talks in Sharm El-Sheikh has some campaigners questioning why such deals are made at all. A petition calling for an end to all corporate sponsorship of COP talks, including by Coca-Cola, has so far received approximately 10,000 signatures.
It accuses the company of spending millions of dollars to “greenwash” its brand, “making us believe that they (Coca-Cola) are solving the problem”.
COP26 delegate Georgia Elliott-Smith, who started the petition, writes that these conferences are intended to be meetings of world leaders to hold urgent talks on halting climate change, “not a multi-million dollar party thrown by corporate polluters and their lobbyists.” She notes that the UNFCCC must end corporate sponsorship today, “starting with the exclusion of Coca-Cola as a COP27 sponsor”.
Euronews Green has contacted the UNFCCC for comment on the sponsorship deals, but no response has yet been received.
Shutterstock photograph used