COP, Look, Listen: Issue 5

Welcome back to COP, LOOK, LISTEN. The big news yesterday was the record 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists granted access to this year’s conference. While fossil fuel groups clearly invest considerable resources into political influence on the ground, they also seek to engage and persuade millions online through ads or sponsored content.

With this in mind, we set out to analyse fossil fuel adverts on Google’s revamped Ads Transparency Center. However, the tool provides such limited information that it is borderline unusable beyond a surface analysis – see more below. Despite this, the volume of greenwashing we found is a major concern. So concerning that we asked Faye Holder of InfluenceMap what she thought. She said:

“Advertising and lobbying are both essential to the oil and gas industry’s toolkit for influencing policymakers. This research shows that despite Google’s bold promises on climate, the company continues to profit from misleading greenwashing ads during climate negotiations. We need real transparency of online advertising in order to prevent the spread of misleading greenwashing ads.”

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