Big tobacco's influence on the food you eat and the air you breathe: Industry attempts to shape the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change

By inserting themselves into non-tobacco-related international treaty negotiations, tobacco companies are influencing our health through the food we eat and the air we breathe in order to create a regulatory environment favorable to their industry. We used publicly available tobacco industry documents to investigate how, during the 1980s and 1990s, tobacco companies sought to influence the contents of the Biosafety Protocol of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC).

The CBD and FCCC potentially address tobacco production and manufacturing. The Biosafety protocol of the CBD proposed to regulate the shipment of products containing genetically modified organisms between countries. Tobacco companies were experimenting with genetically modified tobacco at this time. The Montreal Protocol of the FCCC phased out chlorofluorocarbons, which were used in the cigarette manufacturing process. The Kyoto Protocol bans other greenhouse gasses like those produced by the tobacco-growing process (including deforestation for agricultural land and flue-curing tobacco). Tobacco companies used third parties, like conservative think tanks and the Grocery Manufacturers Association of America, and food subsidiaries, Kraft and Nabisco, to influence treaty debates. In some cases, the companies were able penetrated the treaty-negotiation process through employees placed on committees which evaluated scientific evidence for treaty negotiators.

Tobacco companies are active participants in the international regulatory arena. It is crucial for public health officials and advocates to understand which non-tobacco related international treaties overlap with tobacco control concerns in order protect these treaties from tobacco industry influence.