(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



These Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics Are Fueling Democratic Backsliding [1]

['Laura Kilbury', 'Joel Martinez', 'Calee White', 'Mariel Lutz', 'Kat So', 'Kate Petosa', 'Allison Mcmanus', 'Senior Director', 'Media Relations', 'Director']

Date: 2024-09

With the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (UNFCCC COP28) now underway, a renewed spotlight has been cast on the fossil fuel industry’s meddling with governance. Specifically, host country United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been accused of using the climate conference to seek oil and gas deals after allowing the CEO of its state-owned oil company to serve as conference president. These concerning developments are just the latest example of climate obstruction from the fossil fuel industry. Through a wide array of tactics, the multinational $4 trillion fossil fuel industry has not only corrupted citizens’ understanding of the climate crisis but also contributed to the erosion of democracy around the world. First, by propagating deception and misinformation, the industry has polluted the information ecosystems essential for democracies to function, pushing open societies closer to the “post-truth” politics that allow authoritarianism to thrive. Second, enabled in part by its misinformation campaigns, the industry has used its considerable financial and lobbying influence to bend policy to serve its own narrow interests instead of the public good. Finally, the fossil fuel industry has directly undermined core democratic rights by filing unfounded lawsuits to silence critics, promoting draconian anti-protest laws, and supporting voter suppression efforts.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

This column examines what these tactics look like in practice and how they work against democratic systems to stifle climate action. Tactic 1: Pollute democratic societies’ information ecosystems with deception and false climate solutions The fossil fuel industry’s spread of deceptive or misleading information about climate change—often referred to as disinformation and misinformation—hurts democracies by undermining public trust in governments, democratic processes, and even the notion of objective truth itself. Within the climate change discussion, the fossil fuel industry—whose emissions are the dominant cause of global warming—has made a coordinated effort to spread climate disinformation and misinformation that prevents essential action to address climate change. Through a sophisticated lobbying and public influence machine targeting lawmakers and citizens, the fossil fuel industry has undemocratically shaped how the world thinks and talks about the climate crisis. In particular, “greenwashing”—when an entity depicts itself as doing more on climate than it actually is—has become a frequent industry tactic to distract from and delay meaningful proposals to reduce emissions. Greenwashing not only harms the public’s ability to be well-informed; it also erodes public trust in scientific consensus and genuine solutions to the climate crisis. For instance, oil and gas companies often tout their investments in biofuels and hydrogen as evidence that they are taking action on climate, but these investments are largely superficial and vastly outweighed by the continued reliance on fossil fuels that the industry perpetuates.

Industry’s declared efforts to fight climate change fall woefully short, with oil and gas companies often devoting more attention to creating the appearance of working on climate solutions than actually developing them.

Learn more about offshore wind

The Truth About Offshore Wind: Busting Oil Money Myths and Misinformation Article June 6, 2023 The Truth About Offshore Wind: Busting Oil Money Myths and Misinformation Michael Freeman

Fossil fuel industry lobbying: By the numbers $125M Amount spent by industry on lobbying in 2022 $93M Amount spent by industry on lobbying so far in 2023 27x Greater amount spent on lobbying by fossil fuel industry vs. climate advocacy groups from 2008–2018

The fossil fuel industry’s lobbying efforts to weaken climate action and obstruct public will are clear attempts at “regulatory capture,” understood as when government agencies are dominated by the sectors they are supposed to be regulating. One example among many is the industry’s concerted effort to limit the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate-related financial disclosure rules. The fossil fuel industry makes similar efforts in Europe. The European Union has been seeking to make its member states become greener, but the industry is obstructing these efforts through lobbying and funding campaigns. In 2020, for example, investigations revealed that “oil majors” such as Exxon Mobil and Shell worked behind the scenes to water down the European Green Deal before it could even be publicly announced.

The industry’s anti-democratic strategy is clear: manipulate the levers of power to obstruct any climate policies that may reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.

In the United Kingdom, the fossil fuel industry is playing a similarly outsized role in influencing politics and policy. The fossil fuel lobby group Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) and its affiliated oil and gas operators—which include BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil, and TotalEnergies—strategically leveraged privileged access to exert influence on legislation. Replicating Italian oil company Eni’s strategy to capitalize on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, OEUK representatives met with ministers more than 200 times to lobby against the United Kingdom’s windfall tax proposal to put a levy on oil and gas producers. In some cases, this manipulation even extends into multilateral spaces. World climate leaders and activists—with the United States notably absent—voiced concerns over the UAE hosting the annual UNFCCC COP28 and appointing the CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as the COP28 president. Days before COP28 commenced in Dubai, however, leaked documents indicated that the UAE was using its presidency to seek lucrative oil and gas deals with a range of government officials. If true, this would show an unprecedented industry capture of the multilateral climate space, directly undermining global climate progress at a time when scientists warn that the window to reach Paris Agreement goals is closing. In all of these cases, the industry’s anti-democratic strategy is clear: manipulate the levers of power to obstruct any climate policies that may reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, even—or especially—when the public supports those policies.

Read more

The oil and gas industry’s voter suppression efforts are directly connected to its goal of thwarting the fight against climate change.

The fossil fuel industry has also played a major role in promoting voter suppression, which disproportionately affects voters who most strongly favor climate and environmental justice policies. Between 2015 and 2020, fossil fuel interests donated millions to state lawmakers who backed voter suppression bills. This support includes funding the organizations leading the voter suppression charge. For example, fossil fuel giant Koch Industries is a key funder of organizations such as the Honest Elections Project, a spinoff of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has been instrumental in pushing voter suppression and other anti-democratic proposals. These voter suppression efforts are directly connected to the fossil fuel industry’s goal of thwarting the fight against climate change. Notably, voter suppression disproportionately disenfranchises communities of color, low-income groups, and Indigenous peoples—communities that favor environmental regulation and climate change legislation significantly more than other demographics. Because such groups are also more likely to vote for candidates who support climate justice, suppressing their votes can help prevent the election of lawmakers that favor real policy proposals on climate change. Conclusion Unchecked, the oil and gas industry skews democracy, making governments more responsive to corporations than their own citizens. It does this by spreading misinformation, manipulating policy for self-interest against the public will, and stifling democratic rights through lawsuits, anti-protest laws, and voter suppression. In the case of the UAE’s COP28 presidency, the industry capture of these spaces is complete, with a state-backed fossil fuel company threatening to interfere with multilateral climate progress at the highest and most consequential level. As warning lights of democratic backsliding strobe across the world and endanger critical efforts to address the climate crisis, the twin threat of the fossil fuel industry’s attacks on climate action and the democratic functions necessary to take that action must not be ignored.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-fossil-fuel-industry-tactics-are-fueling-democratic-backsliding/

Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.