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Climate Brief: PR Firm Organizing COP27 Greenwashed Tobacco and Big Oil Since 1950s [1]
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Date: 2022-10-22
Egypt has contracted with Hill+Knowlton Strategies to handle public relations for next month’s COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. Both big tobacco and big oil began using H+K in the 1950s to manage disinformation campaigns about their products.
The US public relations firm helping Egypt organise COP27 also works for major oil companies and has been accused of greenwashing on their behalf, openDemocracy can reveal. Hill+Knowlton Strategies, which has worked for ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Saudi Aramco, is managing communications for Egypt’s presidency of the UN climate conference, which will take place next month in Sharm El Sheikh. Hill+Knowlton’s clients have also included Coca-Cola, which last month was controversially named as a sponsor of the conference despite having been declared the world’s worst corporate plastic polluter for four years in a row. www.opendemocracy.net/...
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called out the agency last month for the work they did for the tobacco industry decades ago.
“Fossil fuel interests need to spend less time averting a PR disaster – and more time averting a planetary one,” he said.
On Twitter, Jamie Henn hones in on a Scientific American article Tobacco and Oil Industries Used Same Researchers to Sway Public, which reveals that beginning in the 1950s, the two groups shared publicists and scientists in campaigns to downplay the dangers of smoking and climate change.
x Want to learn more? Here’s a good article on @HKStrategies work for both Big Tobacco and Big Oil:
https://t.co/WvcqVzWXRr
And of course, go listen to @amywestervelt’s podcast the Mad Men of Climate Denial which has much more! — Jamie Henn (@jamieclimate) October 21, 2022
Documents housed at the University of California, San Francisco, and analyzed in recent months by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, show that the oil and tobacco industries have been linked for decades. The files CIEL drew its research from have been public for years. The unknown author of one memo, who once worked for Standard Oil Co. Inc. of New Jersey, suggested scientists for an advisory committee study the health effects of smoking. “I am giving below the names of individuals who you might consider as potential members of the Medical Advisory Committee for the tobacco industry, as related to its current medical problem,” the person wrote to a tobacco research board, alluding to building evidence that smoking caused health problems. Both industries hired public relations company Hill & Knowlton Inc., an influential New York firm, for outreach as early as 1956.
At November’s COP 27, (27th conference of the parties) some 200 nations will convene in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to address climate goals agreed to in the Paris Agreement. Topics on the agenda include: Clean technology, water and agriculture, loss of biodiversity, the transition to clean energy, finance, and attempts to decarbonize the global economy. unfccc.int/… Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to address climate goals agreed to in the Paris Agreement. Topics on the agenda include: Clean technology, water and agriculture, loss of biodiversity, the transition to clean energy, finance, and attempts to decarbonize the global economy. x With under 3 weeks to go until #COP27, take a look at @Cop27P's Climate Action Calendar 📅
To allow for in-depth discussions, the summit's dedicated theme days will include:
🚗 Transport
🌳 Adaptation
💰 Finance
⚡️ Energy
Explore these themes and many more👇 — COP26 (@COP26) October 20, 2022
The IPCC issued a report last spring which noted that the tools exist to address the climate crisis — what is lacking is political courage.
“Having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place to enable changes to our lifestyles and behavior can result in a 40-70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This offers significant untapped potential,” IPCC Working Group III co-chair Priyadarshi Shukla, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad who specializes in energy and environment modeling and policies, said in a press release.
More public policies have been put in place in the last dozen years to increase energy efficiency, cut down on deforestation rates and put renewable energy into action faster. But the implications and consequences of climate change remain dire, the report warns, particularly if “immediate and deep emissions reductions” across sectors like energy, agriculture and urban development are not executed in an efficient and timely manner. www.pbs.org/...
x #NatureBasedSolutions to climate change, which include planting & protecting mangroves, have the potential to store significant amounts of carbon whilst protecting biodiversity.
Experts meeting ahead of #COP27 have called to scale up public & private finance for such solutions. — UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) October 18, 2022
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