Thread by @ChristineArena

RESEARCH DROP: @RBrulle and C. Werthman’s new paper, “The Role of Public Relations Firms in Climate Change Politics,” provides the most comprehensive look to date on how PR firms are a major force in obstructing climate action.

This 🧵 breaks it down.
cssn.org/wp-content/upl…

2/ The major contribution of this paper is that it helps illustrate why we are where we are on climate policy today. Instead of climate denial or scientific misinformation, our focus needs to turn to climate obstruction and corporate propaganda.

3/ The paper answers three questions:

1. Which PR firms are most utilized by the fossil fuel industry?
2. What is the extent of their involvement in climate politics?
3. What activities do they undertake to advance fossil fuel interests?

4/ Regarding utilization, this paper illustrates why current debate around whether or not fossil fuel clients deserve representation is flawed. The real issues are: How are they currently represented? To what end? How does the larger climate obstruction operation work?

5/ As this graph illustrates, some PR firms rep a few fossil fuel clients while others are central to climate obstruction efforts – representing many ff clients across oil/gas/coal/rail/utility sectors and corporate/trade assoc/political spheres.

6/ Of note, the biggest dot and only firm to have worked in all fossil fuel sectors, with the most contracts in oil & gas, and the most relationships with extreme trade associations including American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers as recently as 2019, is Edelman.

7/ From 2008 to 2018, Edelman made nearly $500,000,000 in contracts with trade associations opposed to climate action. This does not include income made from their corporate clients Exxon, Chevron, etc., who also oppose climate action.

8/ Relatedly, the claim that PR firms help fossil fuel clients make the transition to clean energy by serving them is false. Despite the huge contracts, oil co’s still invest just 1% of their assets in clean tech (0.16% in Exxon’s case).
axios.com/edelman-pr-fir…

9/ Another interesting utilization finding is that big dot firms play both sides. PR firms with deep fossil fuel relationships serve environmental groups simultaneously.

10/ To brandish their own reputations, many big dot firms highlight their work for environmental groups while obscuring the fact that a large portion of their business is funded by fossil fuel contracts.

11/ In terms of their direct involvement in climate change politics, big dot firms are deep in. They increasingly engage in political activities on behalf of clients – astroturfing, front groups, opposition research, lobbying, advising on political contributions, and more.

12/ Further, big dot firms effectively shape public understanding and discourse about climate change on behalf of their clients. Most of the messaging they produce is public opinion oriented, not consumer choice oriented.

13/ Language plays a central role in shaping public opinion – with terms such as “clean coal,” “renewable natural gas,” “coal country,” “carbon footprint,” and “Earth Hour” directly attributable to PR campaigns.

14/ Looking more closely at fossil fuel advertising, the majority of ads evaluated across a data set of 179 clients and 11 big dot firms are fundamentally misleading – relying heavily on greenwashing and factual distortions.

15/ A supplemental summary of ongoing research by the @ClimateDevLab, “Beyond Climate Denial,” was also released today, providing detail on misleading creative campaigns and the agencies behind them, including BBDO, WPP, FTI, Ogilvy, Wavemaker & more: climatedevlab.brown.edu/uploads/2/8/4/…

16/ Herein lies the recipe for climate obstruction: We have unrestricted fossil fuel marketers and their vast resources feeding off PR firms’ willingness to produce messaging/outreach that’s both misleading and policy oriented.

17/ Next, we have a media environment that allows the above conditions to thrive, with practically no guardrails established by social or ad platforms themselves.

18/ Finally, we have a failure of agency leadership to respond to the climate crisis and an unwillingness or inability to self-police against climate disinformation, greenwashing and other harmful practices.

19/ Recent public comments by the few agency CEOs who have spoken out since the October @OversightDems hearings on Big Oil disinformation have been entirely dismissive of the above issues.

20/ This research invites intensifying scrutiny on the part of public policy experts and lawmakers going forward. It also demands a moment of reckoning within the PR and Ad world at large.

We must do far better.

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