MARKETING Magazine Asia

The world’s fossil fuel industries should be banned from advertising to help save the world from climate change, the head of the United Nations said on Wednesday.

UN Secretary General António Guterres called coal, oil and gas corporations the “godfathers of climate chaos” who had distorted the truth and deceived the public for decades. Just as tobacco advertising was banned because of the threat to health, the same should now apply to fossil fuels, he said.

His remarks were his most damning condemnation yet of the industries responsible for the bulk of global warming. They came as new studies showed the rate of warming is increasing and that global heat records have continued to tumble.

Data from the EU’s climate service confirms that each of the past 12 months set a new global temperature record driven by human-caused climate change. He said many in the oil, gas and coal industries had “shamelessly greenwashed” with lobbying, legal action and massive advertising campaigns.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority has previously pledged to clamp down on misleading environmental claims, while the European Union recently announced a new law to tackle the problem.

“I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies,” he told an audience in New York. “And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising.”

Sport is one of the biggest areas of fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship, with football having a long association with oil and gas producers.

Source: BBC.COM