Whose Streets? Our Streets: Curbing Fossil Fuel Industry Disinformation

In a world where climate emergencies are being declared daily, why do so many of our city streets and public transport networks have misleading ads for the very industries driving the crisis?

Our conversation with two C40 experts reveals how the fossil fuel industry mirrors old tobacco industry tactics using sophisticated techniques to "greenwash" their image and frame essential health protections as attacks on free speech. Tune in to learn how cities reclaiming the narratives in our transit systems and urban squares is a vital step toward fending off industry attacks and securing a safer, more sustainable future for all.

Featured guests:

Mariana Batista, C40 Senior Manager, Public Transport

Charlie Worthington, C40 Project Officer, High Carbon Advertising Bans

Links:

The War Against Tobacco: 50 Years and Counting - National Library of Medicine

How the Fossil Fuel Industry Polluted the Information Landscape - Center for Climate Change Communication

Air pollution from fossil fuels kills 5 million people a year - The Guardian

In The Hague, ban on Big Oil ads survives legal challenge - Courthouse News

Profitable Growth Without Fossil Fuels - Clean Creatives

Frequently Asked Questions - A World Without Fossil Fuel Ads

Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change - UNESCO

Cities Climate Transition Framework - C40 Knowledge Hub

Clearing the way: A toolkit for positive, fossil-free city advertising - C40 Knowledge Hub

How cities can restrict carbon-intensive advertising - C40 Knowledge Hub

If you want to learn more about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, please visit our website at https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/

Listen to the Cities 1.5 five-part miniseries “Going Steady with Herman Daly: How to Unbreak the Economy (and the Planet)" here: https://lnk.to/HDMiniSeries

Cities 1.5 is produced by the University of Toronto Press and the C40 Centre, and is supported by C40 Cities. Sign up to the Centre newsletter: https://thecentre.substack.com/

Writing and executive production by Peggy Whitfield.

Narrative and communications support by Chiara Morfeo.

Produced by Jess Schmidt: https://jessdoespodcasting.com/

Edited by Morgane Chambrin: https://www.morganechambrin.com/

Music by Lorna Gilfedder: https://origamipodcastservices.com/

Transcript

[theme music]

David 00:01

I’m David Miller and you’re listening to Cities 1.5, a podcast exploring how cities are leading global change through local climate action. [music ends]

Camel Cigarettes Advertisement 00:15

You know, if you were to follow a busy doctor as he makes his daily round of calls, you’d find yourself having a mighty busy time keeping up with him. Time out for many men of medicine usually means just long enough to enjoy a cigarette. And because they know what a pleasure it is to smoke a mild, good-tasting cigarette, they’re particular about the brand they choose.

In a repeated national survey, doctors in all branches of medicine, doctors in all parts of the country were asked, “What cigarette do you smoke, doctor?” Once again, the brand named most was Camel. Yes, according to this repeated nationwide survey, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. Why not change to Camels for the next 30 days and see what a difference it makes in your smoking enjoyment? See how Camels agree with your throat. See how mild and good-tasting a cigarette can be.

David 01:13

[whimsical music] It’s absolutely shocking to hear this tobacco advertisement from the late 1940s, isn’t it? [chuckles] But for decades, companies marketed tobacco as a sure thing. But as the scientific consensus about the harms of smoking solidified, public opinion shifted, regulations followed, and gradually cigarette advertising was phased out and banned. Although today you can still find cigarette ads in many countries around the world, the tobacco industry wrote the advertising playbook on how to make something harmful very, very appealing. Today, many are seeing strong parallels between the tobacco advertising of yesteryear and the fossil fuel advertising of today. Fossil fuel promotions line bus shelters, appear in public squares and often sponsor cultural events. The ads promote coal, oil and gas products, and try to greenwash the industry. Their messages can blur the scientific consensus on the climate crisis, contributing to a wider ecosystem of disinformation at precisely the moment clarity is most needed and their inclusion in public spaces raises a moral question. When science tells us that the burning of fossil fuels causes over 5 million deaths a year, is it ethical to promote the companies who advocate for the use of fossil fuels far into the future? [music ends]

[fast rhythmic music] Historically, cities have allowed companies to advertise in public spaces so they can raise essential revenue. But in Europe, a growing number of cities are moving to restrict fossil fuel advertising in public spaces. Some cities are exploring phasing out advertising in other areas which damage the climate, with a few phasing out corporate advertising in public spaces altogether. But the fossil fuel industry never goes down without a fight. We are seeing the emergence of narratives which frame the restriction of advertising for harmful products as an attack on consumer choice, and as an infringement of free speech. Research suggests many of these narratives are being created and amplified by fossil fuel companies, industry associations, and the public relations networks that support them. Very often, the exact same public relations companies that worked for Big Tobacco. It’s a debate that echoes those earlier battles when advertising restrictions were once fought over government interference. A similar narrative to the argument against bans today. This is a live issue, which all city residents are invited to participate in through discussion, debate, and campaigning to ensure our cities work for all of us. Because the transition to a safer future may depend not only on the energy we use, but also on the futures we choose to promote. [music ends]

[melodic music] In this week’s episode, we’ll be hearing from two C40 experts, Charlie Worthington and Mariana Batista, to explore how cities are making informed choices about fossil fuel advertising. These are choices which echo the opinions of city residents and support long-term municipal, planetary, and public health goals. [music ends]

Mariana Batista 05:12

[phone rings] [whooshing] So, my name is Mariana Batista. I’m based in São Bernardo do Campo in the metropolitan area of São Paulo, Brazil, and I’m the manager for the public transport network at C40.

Charlie Worthington 05:27

I am Charlie Worthington, project officer for high-carbon advertising bans. I’m calling from Oxford in the UK. [handset clicks]

David 05:36

Starting with Charlie, we’ll get to Mariana in a second, could you just introduce yourself and tell us about your work at C40, including how it fits into the wider movement to address disinformation and outright falsehoods coming from the fossil fuel industry?

Charlie Worthington 05:54

Yeah, of course. So, my work is within the fossil fuel phase-out submission at C40, supporting cities to do everything they can to reduce use of fossil fuels within cities, but also to tackle those financial connections and all kinds of influence of the fossil fuel industry, including disinformation across the world. Our work on disinformation is a really big focus at the moment, a really big focus following COP30 on information integrity, and my work is in fossil fuel ad bans in particular.

David 06:23

Interesting. It’s much bigger than simply a disinformation issue. It’s clear, and we’ll get back to that in a moment. Mariana, can you just talk a bit about your role as well?

Mariana Batista 06:33

So, I manage the C40 public transport network, which means that I support the cities to improve their public transport systems and advocate for better public transport in their cities. And the connection with the ad bans is because the public transport systems in cities represents a very significant percentage of advertising space in a city. So, just an example of London, 40% of all advertising space of the city is within the public transport system.

David 07:11

One of the things that I think a lot of us notice, certainly here in Canada, you know, we had an example here where on the sides of the buses in Victoria, BC, there were big ads saying BC’s LNG reduces global emissions, which is beyond absurd. [chuckles] Any burning of fossil fuels increases emissions. And ultimately, they were taken to a secret advertising tribunal and made to take the ads down. But it happened to be on public transport, so it was creating quite a controversy here. From your perspective, more globally, are those fossil fuel giants trying to shape narratives? Is that what they’re trying to do to facilitate the continued exploitation of fossil fuels? You know, it begs a question, where is legitimate advertising saying, “Buy Petro-Canada instead of Shell.”? And where is disinformation and greenwashing? What’s the line there and how do you struggle with that?

Charlie Worthington 08:13

I think it’s definitely the case that the goal of this advertising, this marketing machine, is to shape narratives. All of the choices around us in general are either driven by fossil fuels or there’s this transition to renewables and to more positive, sustainable choices. But most of that is in the infrastructure of the choices that we make. It’s not so much down to individual consumers. The reason that they’re spending this $7 billion a year on advertising is to change people’s minds. To create social license is one of the things that we call this. Creating this sense that these companies—that this industry is essential for our economy, that they’re doing more than they actually are to support this shift towards sustainable energy and towards a clean economy at huge scale. They’re spending a lot of money. We know, for example, that this is often targeted very specifically, not just at the general public, but at politicians. We see a real concentration of fossil fuel adverts around national parliaments, around city town halls, in places where these decisions are made. I think politicians often don’t realize the extent to which they are the target for a lot of this advertising. There’s really a very direct effort, a way that this industry can spend huge amounts of money to make a very specific message, both to the general public but also to drive political change.

David 09:33

So, Charlie, if I could just ask you, when we talk about fossil fuel advertising, what are we talking about in terms of scale and influence?

Charlie Worthington 09:44

Yeah. So, the scale is pretty massive. We know that, by best estimates, around 7 billion US dollars are spent around the world every year on advertising by the 29 largest fossil fuel companies. So, they’re spending a really huge amount of money on promoting, to some extent, their own products, oil, gas, coal, but also their investment in renewables, or even a kind of more abstract promotion of the company and their role in energy transition.

David 10:14

You know, some would say, “Okay, that’s their right to do that.” Why are we concerned about each of those things?

Charlie Worthington 10:21

We’re concerned because the primary goal of this advertising is, in general, to misinform, to promote disinformation, to create this narrative of the continued value of the fossil fuel industry in a world where we know that its time is up. It’s causing huge damage to public health, to the environment, to the economy, and we know that there’s very strong public support for taking action against these misleading claims.

David 10:49

So, one more question for you, Charlie, and I’d like to turn to Mariana and drill down a bit into the more detail of this. You know, there’s a lot of free speech advocates who would say, “Oh, it’s a war of ideas.” These are big, powerful companies with an agenda that isn’t healthy for the planet. In that context, what’s the policy case for restricting fossil fuel advertising and are there historic precedents where, as a society, we’ve decided to do the same kind of thing?

Charlie Worthington 11:21

[slow rhythmic music] Definitely. So, the obvious comparison is to advertising restriction of tobacco. I think there’s a very direct comparison here, especially on public health grounds. We have data from the World Health Organization shows that tobacco kills around seven or eight million people around the world every year. Even today, it’s actually a very similar figure for air pollution. The health impacts of the two is much more comparable than we think.

David 11:45

Wow!

Charlie Worthington 11:45

Yeah, absolutely. There’s more of a challenge in, I think, how we understand this advertising. I think when you’re buying tobacco, you’re harming your own health versus when you’re buying high carbon products. When you’re advancing to the fossil fuel industry, the health impacts are very distributed. In some ways, that really strengthens the public interest, the moral case. We see that people are making decisions, are buying things, are driving our economy in a way that is harming the health of everybody else, and especially of the most vulnerable. [music ends]

Peggy 12:17

[theme music] This episode of Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press with generous support from C40 Cities.

Jess 12:28

Want more access to current research on how city leaders are approaching climate action? We also publish the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy.

Peggy 12:37

Our mission is to publish timely, evidence-based research that contributes to the urban climate agenda and supports governmental policy towards an equitable and resilient world.

Jess 12:48

The journal serves as a platform for dynamic content that highlights ambitious, near-term climate action, with a particular focus on human-centered solutions to today’s most pressing climate challenges.

Peggy 12:59

To read the latest issue visit jccpe.utpjournals.press or click on the link in our show notes. [music ends]

David 13:09

I’d like to turn to you, Mariana. Many cities have declared climate emergencies, C40 cities and beyond, yet still seem to have advertisements from fossil fuel giants, some blatant misinformation, some sort of subtle, including on their public transport. Any insights into why that contradiction persists? That a city is saying, “This is an emergency and we’ve got to deal with climate change,” but are allowing entities that propagate the cause of climate change to continue to spread this propaganda?

Mariana Batista 13:44

Yeah, of course. First thing, of course, it is hard for the public transport systems to change the revenue resources, so they see the fossil fuel industry as very powerful, very strong, very rich. The other thing is because the governance is very fragmented. So, sometimes the city is not responsible for the railway, for example. It is just responsible for the buses and then railways are under national governance or state or province governance. You also have the issue of having different departments in a city. Sometimes you have a department of communication and it doesn’t really touch public transport department. So, it can be a mixture of different things for different places.

But I also would like to address here, which I think is very obvious to us, that public transport is a very, very powerful tool against climate change. But it’s not so obvious to people riding public transport, generally speaking. So, the citizens know they’re doing good for the environment when they are buying, for example, organic food or when they are not using as much plastic, but I wouldn’t say that citizens would know that they are doing good for the environment when they are choosing public transport over the cars or any private mode of transport. So, this is not so clear. And I would say that most times people don’t really see a contradiction in advertising SUVs in their public transport. They don’t see as two opposite sides.

David 15:27

You know, as an avid public transit user, it always baffles me. We used to see ads with BP saying ‘beyond petroleum’ and they’d talk about their clean energy work, which they of course chucked over the side of the boat at the earliest opportunity. From a public transport perspective, given that it’s publicly owned and the advertising is therefore under public rules and control, anywhere you’re seeing progress on addressing this issue of misleading narratives coming from the fossil fuel industry?

Mariana Batista 16:02

Yeah, I think this is all connected. Especially after the pandemic I think citizens started to see public transport as a service that should be good and should have some quality to attract people. Because before public transport was the only option of people so people wouldn’t care about the quality of it because people wouldn’t have another choice, and now you’re seeing this movement of improving its quality and then improving the number of travelers and users. So, I think this is the first change and this has led to some cities to ban, for example, advertising of ride-hailing companies inside the public transport system.

And I think the same logic is starting to apply to fossil fuels. In Europe, mainly, we have seen very recently, I think that was last week, the Amsterdam ban. There are also other cities in the Netherlands who have bans on fossil fuels advertising. And also, there is, specifically about transport, Gothenburg in Sweden also had this complete ban on fossil fuels. So, there is some progress there and we are working to spread this more.

David 17:19

Europe’s taking the lead at the moment. Charlie, can you comment more broadly? You know, C40’s been working with a number of cities to address the consequences of fossil fuel advertising, including bans and convenings at major global moments like COP. Fossil fuel advertising is pernicious. And by this, we don’t mean a company saying what the price of gasoline or petrol is in any particular day. There’s lots of efforts by the fossil fuel industry to directly attack and create confusion and doubt, and they do that by undermining the science. They also do that by pretending that they’re green and suggesting, for example, that their efforts at green energy are far more than they actually are. Can you speak a bit more about the work and what shifts you’re seeing at a city level?

Charlie Worthington 18:16

Yeah, absolutely. I think most obviously in the latest version of our Cities Climate Transition Framework there’s a requirement that all of our cities are signed up to for cities to use all available powers to support this transition away from fossil fuels. This phase out of fossil fuels, including advertising restrictions as a really key element in these toolkits. And we provided various materials in our knowledge hub to support cities in doing so, but are also having conversations all the time about how to do this. And this transport angle that Mariana rightly brings in, I think, is a really interesting one. I think one that’s worked very effectively in cities in lower or middle income countries, especially, that are really interested often in this fossil fuel phase out in restricting fossil fuel advertising, but often more concerned about this revenue question. We found that creating opportunities around new sustainable commercial partnerships, looking to the future, creating opportunities to talk about the good work that cities are doing to partner with sustainable companies to advertise positive choices instead has been really effective.

David 19:21

It’s a bit unfortunate that clean air doesn’t have the billions of dollars that fossil fuel giants have to advertise itself on public transport. There’s a lot of resistance at the moment, politically [and 19:32] general, to anything uses the word ban. In some parts of the world, there is some misguided, in my view, analysis of free speech which says you can say anything. I think that’s wrong. It’s always been the case legally that harmful speech like yelling, “Fire,” in a crowded movie theater isn’t legal. But in that context, what kind of resistance are you starting to see, Charlie, when cities consider restricting fossil fuel advertising or outright bans? We’ve discussed the economics of it, but certainly politically or legally.

Charlie Worthington 20:07

Yeah, of course, the reality is, yeah, as you say, that cities—that governments are always having to consider public interest, health, safety when defining what people can and can’t do in city spaces and spaces that the city is responsible for. And restricting one kind of advertising is not a political decision in a vacuum. Choosing not to regulate fossil fuel advertising, to allow this to continue, to promote these really harmful products and this really harmful sector is in itself a political decision that is infringing on people’s rights and freedoms. So, I think it’s important to see both sides of the picture there.

David 20:44

That’s a lovely way to put it. Deciding to do nothing is, in fact, a decision that infringes on people’s rights to health and planetary rights to live in an environment that isn’t suffering planetary collapse. That’s a fantastic point, Charlie.

Charlie Worthington 20:59

And to add on as well, the question of pushback that cities are getting, we see a lot from the advertising sector, actually, first of all, has become quite divided on this question. We’ve seen in the UK, in the Netherlands, some strong statements of support from advertising companies in support of fossil fuel advertising restrictions. But also, we know a lot of lobbying behind the scenes, kind of scaremongering often, to cities that are interested to lead on this about what this means for revenue, for public support. Whereas, in fact, all of the data shows public support is very strong. The impact of tobacco advertising restrictions, for example, on city revenues was negligible. Often didn’t affect it at all. Revenues continue to increase. We know that these arguments don’t hold a lot of weight, but absolutely we can expect fossil fuel companies to really join the conversation here and to create a lot of challenges for cities that are leading the way on this.

David 21:53

You know, it’s interesting, Charlie, I was an elected official in Toronto when decisions were taken to ban smoking in restaurants, which seems obvious now, but it was very controversial at the time. One of the things that the tobacco industry had done was sponsor arts. And so, certain parts of the arts community came out and said, “You can’t do this because we’ll lose our sponsorships,” and I think we’re seeing a quite similar dynamic. Going forward, what developments could accelerate this movement in the next few years? And how can—people who care about fossil fuel industry propaganda or outright disinformation, how can they get involved to support the movement?

Charlie Worthington 22:38

So, in terms of key developments coming up, I think on the global level we see things like the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, the first fossil fuel phase out global conference is going to be happening in Colombia in April of this year, disinformation very strongly on the agenda. This is growing momentum, again, following up from COP30 and this focus on information integrity. I think leadership at global level to platform these solutions will make them much more visible, will allow us to champion successes of cities that have already led the way on this. And I think just seeing these examples of cities that have made progress as evidence of positive impact is really the biggest thing for unlocking this expansion of policies and encouraging others to take it up.

David 23:22

Mariana, from your perspective as the public transit lead, what do you see happening next on these issues and how can city residents who care about this support the movement in general?

Mariana Batista 23:38

Yeah. What I see is that some cities didn’t act yet on this issue because they haven’t thought of it yet, so they didn’t really realize the power that this fossil fuel industry has through advertising. One of the works that we have been doing here is talking to cities, even though they are not part of the project themselves I think they are starting to think about this influence and how they could be tackling it. And citizens can support from different ways. One of the ways is thinking about public transport. It is very simple. If you’re riding a bus and you see a fossil fuel advertising, you have channels to communicate with the public transport authority. You can just complain about that, this can be as simple as that, and then finally, you could start a motion in your city.

David 24:34

You mean, a motion at city council?

Mariana Batista 24:36

Yes. And that’s how it started in many other cities from citizens pressing and the motion started.

[slow rhythmic music] And it can take years, but then we are seeing the results right now.

David 24:49

It’s amazing what organized and articulate citizens can do, including pushing back on some of the richest companies in the world who are trying to send out propaganda that says their poisonous products aren’t actually a problem. A really important issue, Mariana and Charlie, you’re doing. Terrific and important work. Thank you so much for joining us on Cities 1.5 to give us a few highlights.

Mariana Batista 25:17

Thank you.

Charlie Worthington 25:17

Thanks so much, David. [music ends]

David 25:21

[rousing music] As cities confront the realities of a rapidly heating world, the question of fossil fuel advertising is about more than marketing. It’s about credibility, public health, and what stories should be told in public spaces. In 20 years’ time will we look at fossil fuel advertising in the same way as we look at tobacco advertising now? What is clear is that the conversation is shifting from whether cities can act to whether they can afford not to. Because the future of urban climate leadership may be shaped not only by the policies cities pass, but by the messages they choose to platform. [music ends]

[theme music] On the next episode of Cities 1.5, in recognition of International Women’s Day, you’ll be hearing less of me in order to give more space to hear from Catherine McKenna, the former Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change. She’ll be telling us about her time as Canada’s lead negotiator for the Paris Agreement, her work as chair of the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities Working Group, the stories she tells in her memoir Run Like a Girl, and how she challenged both political opponents and the right-wing media’s sexist depiction of her as ‘Climate Barbie’. You won’t want to miss it.

This has been Cities 1.5, leading global change through local climate action. I’m David Miller. I was the mayor of Toronto, Canada, and I know firsthand the role cities can play in solving the climate crisis. Currently, I’m the editor-in-chief of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, published by the University of Toronto Press in partnership with the C40 Centre, the thinktank for cities and climate, where I’m also the managing director.

This podcast is produced by Jessica Schmidt and edited by Morgane Chambrin. Peggy Whitfield is our writer and executive producer with narrative and communication support from Chiara Morfeo. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder. The future isn’t waiting and neither are cities. To learn more, visit the show’s website linked in the episode notes. See you next time. [music ends]