With my poster I want to analyse how fossil fuel lobbying contributes to a weaking of climate mitigation and how stricter regulations on lobbying can be a successful mitigation strategy.
There have been multiple studies focusing on how lobbying influences climate policies and how certain regulations affect this (Errichiello et al. 2025, Graham et al. 2026, Zimmer et al. 2023). However, the research is limited when it comes to applying this on the context of the German gas lobby.
I would like to take Germany as a case study, where the gas lobby has spent decades promoting the narrative of natural gas as a clean bridging technology (LobbyControl e.V. 2023, p. 8). This served to legitimise fossil fuel business models and to slow down the expansion of renewable energies. Institutions such as the state-owned German Energy Agency (DENA) often acted as a lobbying channel by organising industry-dominated dialogue processes (e.g. the ‘Dialogprozess Gas 2030), in which environmental organisations were largely underrepresented (LobbyControl e.V. 2023, p. 73 – 74). This process can be defined as “strategic selectivity” (Graham et al. 2025, p. 1) and ensures that certain stakeholders are granted privileged access to centres of power (Graham et al. 2025, p. 1).
I want to ask the research question: Could stricter regulations on lobbying be an effective climate mitigation measure, when applied to the German gas lobby and how could they be implemented?
An example of research on the topic is a study on the Waxman-Markey Bill in the US which showed that intensive lobbying reduced the likelihood of climate change legislation being passed by around 13 percentage points (Leippold et al. 2024, p. 2). An example for a dynamic which is supporting the implementation of stricter regulations on lobbying is growing pressure from civil society and the media (Friedrich 2023, p. 452). Hindering dynamics could be financial imbalances. Fossil fuel companies often spend significantly more money on lobbying than renewable energy companies (Errichiello et al. 2025, pp. 1 – 2). This financial dominance leads to an asymmetry in the provision of information, whereby politicians are reliant on the expertise of specialists, yet often receive information that is selective or distorted (Graham et al. 2026, p. 91).
Following the research done on lobbying, strategies to lessen the aforementioned imbalance could be:
- Legislative and executive footprint: Disclosure of all contacts that led to a draft bill (Zimmer 2023, p. 36)
- Cooling-off periods: Stricter rules for politicians moving into the private sector (Transparency international 2014, p. 25)
For my poster I want to further research how these strategies have worked in other cases so far and how their implementation to the German system could be possible.
References
Errichiello, G., Falcone, P. & L. Popoyan (2025): Navigating climate policy: The influence of lobbying trends and narratives in Europe. In: Environmental Science & Policy 163, S. 103974. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103974.
Friedrich, S. (2023): Starke und schwache Interessen: Asymmetrien der Interessenvermittlung. In: Polk, A. & K. Mause (Hrsg): Handbuch Lobbyismus, p. 435 – 456).
Graham, N., Chen, D., Sapinski, J. P. & W. K. Carroll (2026): Canada’s climate lobby: networks of fossil dominance and social-ecological advocacy. In: Climatic Change 179 (5). DOI: 10.1007/s10584-026-04183-8.
Leippold, M., Sautner, Z. & T. Yu (2024): Corporate Climate Lobbying. In: Swiss Finance Institute. Research Paper Series. N° 24-14.
LobbyControl e.V. (2023a): Die Pipelines in die Politik. Die Macht der Gaslobby in Deutschland.
LobbyControl e.V. (2023b): Wie die Gaslobby das Heizungsgesetz entkernt hat. Die Debatte über das Heizungsgesetz tobt schon seit Monaten. Ein Blick auf Lobbyinteressen und Akteure. https://www.lobbycontrol.de/lobbyismus-und-klima/wie-die-gaslobby-das-heizungsgesetz-entkernt-hat-109931/ (last accessed: 24.05.2026).
Transparency International Deutschland e.V (2014): Lobbying in Deutschland.
Zimmer, A. (2023): Lobbyismus aus politikwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. In: Polk, A. & K. Mause (Hrsg): Handbuch Lobbyismus, p. 21 – 40.