Climate-change activists are calling on the United Nations to revoke the credentials of global-warming skeptics at the ongoing Paris Climate Conference, or COP21.

The climate-change group SumOfUs submitted a formal complaint Monday to U.N. conference organizers “asking for notorious climate denying groups to be denied accreditation to the Paris climate talks,” according to a press release.

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs, singled out members of three U.S. free-market groups — the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Heartland Institute — saying they “have no place at these climate talks.”

“The biggest companies are trying to greenwash their lobbying activities while still supporting the industry groups and think tanks that do their dirty work for them,” Ms. Stinebrickner-Kauffman said. “It’s not appropriate for organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute to be part of the climate talks when their very existence is intended to derail these efforts.”

She asked conference organizers to “consider revoking the accreditation of the following parties, all of which can be directly connected to an extensively documented and prolonged campaign at odds with the goals of COP21.”

The letter listed nine representatives of the advocacy groups, including James Lakely, Heartland Institute spokesman, whose group held Monday an event in Paris called “A Day of Examining the Data,” featuring a video keynote address from Sen. Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican.

“I am not surprised at the attempt to revoke the credentials of anyone who doesn’t believe in man caused global warming,” said Mr. Lakely in an email. “But locking us out of official UN activities will still not suppress the truth about what’s really happening to our climate. Humans are not causing a climate crisis.”

Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who was also listed in the complaint, said in an email that the climate-change movement’s recent efforts “prove they know they can’t persuade the public if there are voices to challenge the media cheerleading.”

The COP21 talks, which include 190 nations, are aimed at achieving a “legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.”

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