News about Cox' conflicts of interest

Brazil launched its PR offensive for sugarcane ethanol at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen on day two (Tuesday 8 December) with a “dialogue” session on the “contribution of biofuels to climate change mitigation”.

The European Commission has rejected Corporate Europe Observatory’s request to see the “Declaration of activities of Pat Cox in view of applying to the function of Special Adviser to the Commission”, stating in its letter (21st September) that it was prevented from doing so because of “personal data protection”.

A recent draft Commission proposal to change the legislation governing genetically modified (GM) foods and feeds has revealed that the Commission is giving in to a long-standing combined demand from the biotech, food and animal feed industry to break down the so-called ‘zero-tolerance policy’ regarding contamination with non-authorised GM food and feed.

The winner of the Angry Mermaid Award 2009, announced by award-winning writer and journalist Naomi Klein at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen today is the biotech giant Monsanto with 37% of the total vote [1].

Oil giant Shell took second place (18%) in the Award for lobbying to sabotage effective action on climate change, followed by the American Petroleum Institute (14%).

Ten thousand people voted in the Angry Mermaid Award, named after the iconic Copenhagen mermaid who is angry about corporate lobbying on climate change.

Ahead of the EU in Crisis conference on 5-6 May in Brussels, Corporate Europe Observatory has invited several authors and commentators to contribute essays on some of the themes of the conference, to inspire debate and comment. In the coming weeks, these essays will be published below. The essays represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of CEO but we hope that you will find them interesting and thought-provoking. Don't forget to the register for the conference if you have not already done so!