Message From the Editor
Another month, another global temperature record broken. Who could have predicted this rise in heatwaves and other extreme weather from burning fossil fuels? Oh yeah, Exxon and other major polluters, decades ago.
Just like they worked to downplay the connection between burning fossil fuels and the warming planet, oil and gas companies also took steps to deny the link between extreme weather and climate change. But Big Oil is facing a reckoning as governments like Oregon’s Multnomah County (home to Portland) file lawsuits over damages from extreme weather events such as the 2021 heat dome that killed nearly 70 people.
Now, newly published industry documents reveal just how far oil companies and their trade associations went in order to obscure the scientific link between climate change and extreme weather. Read the documents and get the full story.
Do you know who’s been helping promote and protect the fossil fuel industry throughout it all? The world’s biggest ad and PR companies, of course. They might not be household names — yet — but Omnicom Group, WPP, Interpublic Group (IPG), Publicis Groupe, Dentsu, and Havas represent the six largest communications firms. And a new DeSmog investigation reveals that half of the board members at these companies have ties to polluting industries.
In just the past two years, these ad and PR powerhouses have held at least 163 contracts with fossil fuel firms, putting a shine on the perpetrators of the climate crisis even as they publicly pledge to slash the carbon emissions of their own operations.
“It makes me very ashamed to be in this industry,” said a WPP employee, who asked not to be named for fear of professional repercussions. “There are people in it who do genuinely want to use their skills and knowledge for positive change — lots actually — but unfortunately none of us hold positions of power and there’s only so much we can do.” Read more.
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Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director
P.S. Climate denial and delay are burning the limited time we have left to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. Readers like you support DeSmog’s journalism and research exposing greenwashing and false solutions. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?
Image credit: Tess Abbot
Dozens of Ad & PR Industry Directors Have Ties to Heavily Polluting Industries
— By TJ Jordan and Rachel Sherrington (11 min) —
Half of the board members at the world’s six largest advertising and public relations companies have ties to polluting industries, DeSmog can reveal.
Of the 64 total board members at Omnicom Group, WPP, Interpublic Group (IPG), Publicis Groupe, Dentsu and Havas, 32 have significant experience in carbon-heavy sectors such as fossil fuels, fossil fuel financing, plastics, utilities, and aviation. Twenty-two are still serving in roles at such companies.
Big Oil Clouded the Science on Extreme Weather. Now It Faces a Reckoning.
— By Emily Sanders, ExxonKnews (9 min. read) —
When Bucks County, Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit last week against major oil and gas companies for climate damages, Commissioner Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia pointed to “unprecedented weather events here in Bucks County that have repeatedly put residents and first responders in harm’s way, damaged public and private property and placed undue strain on our infrastructure.” The county argues oil companies’ “campaigns to deceive and mislead the public about the damaging nature of their fossil fuel products” delayed climate action for decades, robbing communities of precious time to mitigate the climate-driven disasters they now face.
One of those disasters occurred last year, when a rainstorm in Bucks County caused deadly flash flooding that swallowed vehicles and killed 7 people, including two children. Scientists said the deluge and its aftermath — not the county’s first “100-year flood” in recent years — are a harbinger of the intense and dangerous rainstorms that a warming climate is making more likely.
IEA Think Tank Contributes to Climate Science Denial Documentary
— By Sam Bright (6 min. read) —
A senior figure at the influential Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank contributed to a new documentary that spread numerous myths about climate change.
Stephen Davies, an academic who has worked in educational outreach roles at the IEA since 2010, appeared several times in Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth – a new film directed by climate science denier Martin Durkin.
Pathways Alliance Co-founder Donated to Pierre Poilievre Campaign, Records Show
— By Geoff Dembicki (4 min. read) —
For the past year and a half an industry group called the Pathways Alliance has been running national ads claiming oil sands producers are climate leaders “on the road to net zero.”
But federal records newly reviewed by DeSmog reveal that the group’s co-founder has personally donated to the Conservative Party of Canada, whose leader Pierre Poilievre is campaigning to abolish the country’s most prominent climate policy, a nationwide tax on carbon emissions, saying it brings “misery and suffering on the Canadian people.”
Vast Majority of Global CO2 Emissions Tied to Just 57 Entities
— By Joe Fassler (4 min. read) —
Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, a small number of fossil fuel entities — just 57 corporate and state producers — have been responsible for 80 percent of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. And a majority of those actors have only expanded production in the intervening years.
That’s according to a new report released today by InfluenceMap detailing its Carbon Majors project, an influential database of fossil fuel production data. The database analyzes the individual carbon emissions of 122 “carbon majors” — publicly owned corporations, nation states, and state-owned entities — that, together, are responsible for more than 70 percent of fossil fuel and cement emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
From the Ad & PR Database: Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group is a global network of marketing, public relations, and advertising agencies. It has longtime fossil fuel clients, including ExxonMobil, Halliburton, and Eni. As of 2023, Omnicom Group was working towards reducing its Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions 46.2 percent by 2030 against its 2019 baseline, according to its website. In March 2022, one of its subsidiaries, DDB Canada, filed documents with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Foreign Agent Registration Act indicating that it had begun a public relations campaign to “[i]nfluence American public opinion with respect to the Canadian oil and gas industry” on behalf of the Canadian Energy Centre (CEC). DDB Canada created a more than $2 million print ad campaign, which ran in major U.S. news outlets, promoting Canada’s oil and gas industry as a “global leader in environment, social and governance (ESG) standards.”
Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database, Ad & PR Database, and Koch Network Database.
