The government of Azerbaijan seeks help for COP29. In recent weeks, proposals to collaborate with the government of Baku in managing the 29th UN climate conference, to be held in November in Azerbaijan's capital have increased. According to Politico, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and accounting firm Deloitte have applied for a supporting role in the climate negotiations. In the bid to support the negotiation, the group is allegedly joined also by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, through his The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), founded by the Labour politician in 2016,

The presence of consulting firms and think tanks in host countries' organizing teams to support the management of the UN climate conference are by no means a novelty. BCG, McKinsey, and TBI provided staff who held senior positions in UAE’s governmental organization that managed last year's COP28 talks in Dubai. In the past, companies such as McKinsey and EY have been present regularly at UN conferences as observers or involved by States to offer support to negotiations.

The expertise offered by consultancy firms’ professionals can certainly offer support to governments that lack specific expertise in implementing international agreements or managing negotiations (although capacity building is generously supported by the United Nations and international cooperation agencies). However, this support can be at times at least controversial.

For example, Tony Blair has a long history of support for fossil fuel projects, especially in Central Asia (in 2014 he became an advisor to the consortium for the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline - TAP, to bring Azeri gas to Italy), and a green-wash with wind turbines on TBI website is not enough to clarify where he currently stands for. The same can be said for all the consultancy firms that made billions of euros through contracts with the oil&gas sector, deals that are perfectly legal but can raise concerns when the same consultancy firms become agents and advisers to governments should serve the interests of citizens, not private companies.

These éminences grises can offer services and visibility also thanks to capital hoarded in the era of coal, oil and gas, and now they have to face their own contradictions. "We should be concerned about the conflicts of interest of these companies," said to Politico Rosie Collington, coauthor with Mariana Mazzucato of The Big Con. How the consulting Industry Weakens our Business, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies, a book that analyze the controversial nature of consulting firms.

For consulting firms, providing services – often for free ‒ to COP host countries can be a way to promote their expertise in the emerging green economy. But also a way to uphold the interests of oil&gas clients. It then becomes difficult for journalists to properly assess whether these companies can separate public interests from those of private companies, whatever those companies may be, including those in the green economy. TBI itself said in a statement, "We helped set a strategic and political vision to support COP28, entirely pro bono, because we want to help promote meaningful change. We did not ask for or received any compensation for our support." But we do not know exactly what interests they may have pursued, also given Blair's own past relationship with the oil company BP. Global consulting firms that have too many relationships with the international energy sector can hardly be well suited to help governments (and in some cases companies) achieve green transition goals, especially within global negotiations such as COPs.

There is no shortage of precedent. According to multiple sources and leaked documents picked up by the international press last year McKinsey & Company, the world's leading management consulting firm, allegedly used its position as a key adviser to the UN COP28 climate talks to push the interests of its large oil and gas clients, undermining efforts to end the use of fossil fuels that cause global warming. The scenario proposed by McKinsey would have supported a narrative for the energy transition that saw oil use cut only in half by 2050, and investment in the sector substantially grown.

Ultimately, we will see what will happen in Baku and what role TBI and consulting firms will take in the negotiations. And whether they will be willing to take on the possible failure of the negotiations. However, as Collington and Mazzucato's book reminds us, failures are dumped on the states, which increasingly lose the expertise to manage the transition or the negotiations, while at the same time increasingly strengthen corporations whose only interest is profit maximization.

This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano

Image: Renè Bohmer, Unsplash