that i'm on government and i said that i suffered that a on saudi arabia, nigeria major energy play around the planet. and i think that this phenomenon that eyes of and of natural gas prices only point more in that direction. all of shorts were seen as unlikely. successor of chancellor anglo merkel has made it clear that a new government is unlikely to create new hurdles to northridge to despite earlier opposition from the green party, to smooth his ambitious transition to clean energy. guess as seen as essential, steadfast and al jazeera in berlin. ah, hello again. i'm fully battle with the headlines on al jazeera. india is celebrating administering 1000000000 cove in 1900 vaccine doses. it's a 2nd nation to reach shatter achievement after china. india,

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eat on purpose. i did 0 had the time any programming. go live on the on the go live, the were another boy that may not be me cream. if i said, i'm going out with the way that you tell the story is what can make a difference with i am, i had to have a dean filling in for family. okay. and you're in the stream today, a look at big oil and greenwashing environmental groups, se savvy ads and social media from energy companies are distracting the public from the real impact of fossil fuels. should those ads be regulated or even band? if you have an opinion on that or anything else, jumping to our live chat on youtube and you too can be part of the street. joining

us today, we have jeffrey superman, a research fellow at harvard university and co director of the climate social science network. in brussels, belgium, sylvia pastorelli, a climate and energy campaigner with greenpeace, and in washington, d. c. rebecca lieber, senior climate reporter with vox jeffrey, let's start from you know, the definition itself. what is greenwashing? why is it so problematic? and what does it really look like? sure. green washing is an umbrella tongue for a variety of misleading communications or practices are usually exhibited by the fossil fuel industry to intentionally or not induce a false positive perception about their environmental performance. so to put them all simply is when an oil company talks green, but ex 30 and as to the scale, it's massive. it's now to one of the dominant forms of public communications or propaganda by the fossil fuel industry. over the last 30 is just the, the 5 largest fossil fuel companies in america. i've spent something like

$3600000000.00 on what's called corporate reputational advertising. so, you know, i think most of your viewers will actually have been exposed to these ads. one time or another. right. and you know it's ads, but it's also on social media. of course, sylvia, if you look at this tweet from exxon mobil, we're supporting the goals of the parents agreement with the little gift they're explaining how they think they're doing that. and, you know, sylvia have to ask you, i mean, it seems as if green washing at its most basic, is really just when a company tries to appear more green than it is as we just heard. but what, what does this morphing into? i mean, how is this becoming maybe more sophisticated? what is the real problematic element? i, it's a very good question and i think the de tweets that you brought up as an example is great because we're talking about advertisements. and we're used to think about advertisement as, as talking about products specific products. but the advertisement that was seen at

nowadays from philosophy companies very rarely display a project that they're trying to sell and eat. so a lot more than just then selling it, selling the product itself. well, i didn't, i don't think any of us has seen recently a fossil gas pipeline on a positive company ads or a barrel of oil, what they do isa, and exactly promoting their brands as a, as a green brands and promoting the company as a relevant part of the solution to the climate crisis, which we know they are primarily responsible for. and they do this by any of the highlighting climate pledges that hath, on very little basis in or you know, very, they're not very it and all matched in that day to day business. and that these companies set up. and rebecca, you know, just, just hearing that, you know, we have a tweet from mary hagler on twitter saying in response to a tweet from b p a. it's not fair that they get to be both the problem and the solution. now on

the face of it, that does seem a bit maddening, right? for people who care about the climate or at least odd, i'm curious in your research in your work, what can you tell us about how greenwashing actually impacts the public's perception of what these oil companies do rather than just what they represent. but what they're actually accomplishing. yeah, the example is, highlights the theme that oil companies benefit from appearing to be part of the pollution that they're serious about climate change. because that means they can actually be in the room with policy makers and seem like they're being serious on climate science. and. 9 by being in that room, they can start to influence really important matters like timelines of how and when we address climate change and definitions like accounts of clean energy and how natural gas fits into that equation. shaping the public perception is definitely important. part of shaping political perception because by appearing serious and

like they're talking about solutions, they do come applause, that they are indeed a part of the problem. right. and i know i see you nodding their job, you want to add something. yeah, i was just going to build them what rebecca was saying, you know, the strategic purpose of the oil industry is green washing is to make it like look like they're doing more than they really are. and the end goal of that is to lend this industry and or of scientific and environmental authority and credibility. research has shown that green washing is one powerful discourse amongst others. that together creates what we call a fossil fuels savior, framing of the climate crisis. and that's exactly what mary hagler was saying and how to eat, but they position themselves in a very insidious way as the trustworthy solution and innovator. you know, to get this out of this problem, that primarily is associated with the funding of products and quite odd even, even just to me. you know, well on that note,

we asked several major oil companies to join this discussion, but they declined our offer. so let's listen to, to energy ceos in their own words, talk about the future of the business. this is ben van burden of royal dutch shell, and b, p. c. o bernard, luni, take listen. oh, the way to will produce as an uses. energy is visibly changing. oh, but to meet the most ambitious goals of the parents agreement, change needs to happen faster. oh, shall, is becoming an energy business for the future. and it's playing, it's bought to help drive that chain. want to change because it's the right thing for the world. and it's a tremendous business opportunity for b. pete, we're heading to net 0 and there is no turning back. sylvia, you're smirking. i, when you see that ad sylvia, she,

that the giggle there, but it's serious stuff. i mean what, what, what comes to mind. i mean from what i'm saying that this is almost dead and text it green washing and especially from 2 companies that we know are still massively investing in fossil fuels. and i'm sure you have notice at what the showing t to display in these ads. a's nothing. i like their business. what we're lookin i, what we're seen in this ads isa wynn palms and solar panels. and dead blue sky and green fields. and the 1000 to reflect a tool, the reality of what the business is. we have recently, and we've greenpeace, and andy's mom, we have recently published her reports at that looks exactly into the advertisement of a 6 major philosophy companies. and over 3000 advertisement from different social media platform on what the strep with has found is that essentially, i almost 2 thirds of all these advertisements are at greenwashing ninety's,

either over emphasizing exactly this very marginal investment that they have in renewables or a false solution so what we will call full solutions. so in your mind, this is very deliberate, including the terminology that's being used jeffrey. i see you nodding and i know that your research early on back when this was in its nascent days, uncovered something kind of revealing about where the term carbon footprint comes from. and this idea that we all need to be very aware of, you know, our role, but maybe it's a deflection from, you know, the actual problem. i want to ask you in that, in that video from the c o is phrases like net 0 and carbon neutral? what are these words mean to what's not 0, right? so, so these are thank you for showing those because these are brilliant illustrations of 2 of the key techniques used by green bushes which are language and imagery. so to take the language 1st you, they use these times like net 0 carbon neutral. they just throw out tons like with

iris agreements that make us really start to see these, these communicators in some way consistent with the thing that they're talking about. but the reality is, sylvia just mention the study after study has shown that no major fossil fuel companies, business models aligned with the parent time agreement. and you know, just to make it really stock forever, a thing that they're saying about clean energy and change and all that on average, major oil and gas companies today are spending one percent of their budgets on low carbon technologies, one percent over the last decade. and service, and that's compared to, you know, 507890 percent focus of the as i own those things. they're not investing in one. and i was going to ask you if you have any other examples as to what this actually looks like. i mean, are they investing in renewable energy is meaningful. yeah, and i reported on jeffrey's report, i'm looking at that invention of carbon footprint. so it's to hear about that here

. what all companies have been doing in the last few years as a face, lots of legal challenges across the world, saying they're not taking climate change seriously. they're pointing to a very small subset of their pollution and saying that they're addressing essentially their production emissions. this is just a small subset of what the oil industry is actually responsible for when it comes to climate change. really, the biggest impact comes from the products that we consume, like gas, like the gas powering our electricity, coal and oil. but when they're saying they're reducing their carbon footprint, they're talking specifically about production facility. so they aren't looking at the full problem here. and that's, that's just a piece of what jeffries talking about when you saying they're not really taking responsibility for their actual impact on climate change. well, you know, i know that there have been a lot of different attempts to address the way to solve this. what is the way to

address this and some people, sylvia, like yourself and other groups like greenpeace, are suggesting much like with the tobacco industry, a ban on advertisements, not just for the green washing, but from what i understand, a general band that they shouldn't be able to promote these products anymore. is that a bit radical in your mind? i think that the parallel here is really fitting the parlor window tobacco and we have a product. oh, you know, we have companies that we know are promoting products and activities that we know are harmful, that never growing body of evidence that says that we know that this is the major cause of the climate crisis that we're leaving at through right now. we know what we should do to address is climate crisis and steel. we see this product, these companies activities being promoted to and you know, advertise at every corner. we have done the same for tobacco. years ago i,

we knew that it was the product that was harmful, and we simply bond at the advertisement of this product. and considering the urgency of decline, cries as decline with an environmental crisis that we're living. we're leaving through, i think that the spat an idea of bonding will advertisement and sponsorship young philosophy accompanies it. simply it's fitting it's appropriate. 8th, it matters the level of edge retina. rebecca, you want to jump in? we have a lot of people. are you tube job by the way, also jumping in with questions that are along these lines. for example, hermes saying, do they just believe that green washing should be criminalized as a form of false advertising? rebecca, does this make sense to you? wow, i think these are, these are complicate proposals. i think of course, whenever you're talking about something like criminalizing you got into free speech issues, you can get into kind of how you define what is that,

that crossing the line. and one kind of counterpoint to talking about banning fossil fuel advertising is just realizing the reality we're in where the fossil fuel companies realize they are not popular. that people don't trust their method gang. so instead they are also funneling tons of money, millions of dollars a year into advertising, through other messenger. so these might be dark money groups or 3rd parties that where their connections might be less obvious that they are directly funded by the oil industry. or they might be hiring and, and some of my reporting influencers, who are maybe trusted names on instagram and social media and trying to get their message out basically through these other messengers that people might actually trust. and i think, yeah, and we're talking about banning fossil fuel advertising. it's important to realize it doesn't always fit in these neat boxes. right. and i was,

i was having conversations with the, you know, the team i, you know, about, you know, if you bam, advertising, you still need the gas and you still rely on the companies. and, you know, we have a lot of different viewpoints on this issue. jeffrey, both in our chat and also a comment that was sent to us. for those of you who don't know, there is a new initiative in europe, the european citizens initiative trying to come up with a new e u law to ban fossil fuel, advertising and sponsorships are you know, they think this could be a historic baron much like we saw with the tobacco industry as we have referenced earlier, jeffrey, we also have this video comment that was sent to us from james watson. he's the secretary general of euro gas. i want to get your thoughts at the end of this comment. see what you think. when brands that people are familiar with doing a lot of work to advertise the importance of renewable energy to them help society understand. there needs to be an energy transition. and these technologies do work . and he's saying he's are liable and will help power futures is,

i would say that it is actually necessary for those companies to be involved in informing public about the transition that we need to address the climate emergency . jeffrey, 2 things that stood out to me with that comment, just this idea, it's actually necessary for them to in inform the public. is that what's happening though? are they informing the public or they may be misleading the public? let's be very clear. green washing is through and through a form of propaganda. that's not a radical statement that that's based on my are in my colleagues peer reviewed research that the fossil fuel industry on masters of this art with a century of experience innovating and inventing. in fact, these contemporary tactics and propaganda, and they've been winning at this communications war for a long time. and so, you know, in my personal opinion initiative such as the greenpeace one that you mentioned are really valid. you know, an attempt to confront this dangerous and misleading messaging. and one of the most

important approaches that should be taken today to confront the climate crisis unit just to throw one extra point. you know, looking back at the, the b p ag, where he was saying there's no going back and, and the gentleman just now saying it's really important for us as a fossil fuel industry to highlight all these technologies. i'd just like to politely remind them the b, b, p, launched a $100000000.00, pir beyond petroleum campaign in the early, 2, thousands hurting it so forwards, just like we're seeing again as a clean green company. and they did exactly the opposite of what the ceo saying they would never do, which is they went back, they stopped to invest things they double down on fossil fuels. so there's a lot of books in action. and so i think, you know, and natural skepticism about this green washing is perfectly valid. if you take a look, oh, go ahead, go ahead. i. so again, thank you my old say are down to dare say auntie did the both features hertz, again, with, you know, we hearing ne pocket spin pay on citizens,

people adding access to the right information so that people into each of the designs can be informed and make the right choices. and again, here the honors his aim chief said from a different company to 2 people. while at the same time, we know that advertisement doesn't equal necessarily access to information. advertisement is advertisement. they're pushing a, you know, either has meant we know what, what these, what these are, what these are, what this means. it's pushing a product and the retirement, you know, the, the real did, you know, the 1st a description of what an advertising is, you know, trying to push a product no matter what, how much you actually need it. it's not about information per se. and again, if putting the blame on consumers, making sure that you and i make the right choices rather than plus accompanies and then it just a great segue there. jeffrey on b p. 's, twitter account. tweeting out right here, you can see the 1st step to reducing your emissions is to know where you stand.

find out your carbon footprint with our new calculator and share your pledge today . ah, it certainly feels like it's making me question what i'm doing and what my footprint is. and it's kind of putting the focus on myself as we just heard sylvia say, and your research, as we referenced earlier, you know, they created this term, carbon footprint. and what was the aim back then? how has the propaganda, as you call it, of green washing evolve since those early days back in the 2000? sure. and i certainly wouldn't take credit for all of these findings. a number of investigative journalists and scholars have been behind on earth. the fact that the very notion of a personal carbon footprint was 1st promoted and popularized by none other than b. p, as i said, is part of a major $100000000.00 per year marketing campaign between 2004. and she doesn't 6, they did it across all media. they had billboards, tv radio. they made the 1st carbon footprint calculator. they put it on their website and they say, what else is a carbon footprint cap?

case to go find out yours and how you personally can take action. and so here we are a decade and a half later, a new carbon footprint calculator and the same messaging of individualized responsibility. of course, you and i, we all play a role in this crisis, but you and i are passively guilty bruin, into a fossil fuel society. these entities are actively guilty, actively working to lock us in to this fossil fuel society. and so yeah, my research and others has shown that numerous companies, particularly we looked at on mobile. have you systematically biased language in their public communications to fixate on consumer responsibility. jeffrey, you bring up exxon mobil. i know that i know that you informed us and, and many people are remarking on the very bizarre reality that is that exxon mobil spending more on advertising. it's research on biofuels, then doing the actual research itself as so you know, allocating money to say, look what we're doing, but what, what are they actually doing?

and, and i, i frame it in this way to rebecca because we have a video common that came in from a lauren mcdonald who confronted the c e. o of shell famously, infamously, perhaps at a ted events where things unraveled on stage. take a listen to what she said. green washing is so dangerous because it starts people from realizing that these big pollution companies do not have our best interest at heart. and we need to fully understand this problem to be able to tackle it. we need to really understand that these companies have no intention of helping to create a just society. if they did, they wouldn't be continuing to coil over the ground, pollute our world. we need to take the power away from oil companies, especially to be able to advertise their lives. does rebecca, what is, what is your reaction to that?

yeah, i just think of the overlap of how closely related misinformation is to greenwashing and how important it is to have journalism into have scientists and academics like jeffrey and putting the word out there and. and taking that close look at language and, and just to give an example of how important language is and how fully agreeing the oil industry propaganda is here is just think about natural gas, the phrase, natural gas, natural implies good and loyal industry has really capitalized on that inherent kind of association with natural gas as this being cleaner, a cleaner technology, them coal, a cleaner source for fuel. so i think it's important to inspect our language, especially for journalists who are a big part of that equation of how to communicate with the public. jeffrey when we talk about language it's, we've spoken about in the past. i'm curious, you know, with the methane of it all, if you will. i mean, advertising ethics boards are saying it's absolutely not creating the science is

there it's, you know, so it is it, is there any way that these oil companies can actually defend themselves and say, this is not a deliberate attempt to misrepresent these technologies that we heard from the guest from a euro gas saying that they have a right to explain to their audience, to the public that these technologies work, that they're part of the solution. and what can be done outside of banding odds? i mean is this is where government steps in. i know there's initiatives with an organization called normative in europe as scandinavia, i believe that's being funded by google. where's the solution? well there are number 11 initiative thing proposed is that fossil fuel ad should come with tobacco warning. busy labels to alert the public to the fact that this may be misinformed messaging. actually the, the case in point is, you know, i think one way to do that would be,

it would be fair if the industry were allowed to spend a portion of time of its advert. focusing on low carbon technology's commensurate consistent with the fraction of their spending on those technologies. so they should be allowed to spend about one percent of the talking about solar and wind. but you know, in that shallow g shows i was making quick notes. we saw the song, the source guy, we saw solar cells and we saw wind farms and we saw one image of a gas pump. so that's about a 4 to one ratio in the wrong direction, right? so very, very interesting, even just symbolically and visually, sorry, i don't mean to cut you off, but, but if you think rebecca, rebecca, i want to ask you, i mean, we have a kind of potential, unprecedented moment where it seems silly is called it historic oil executives are going to be testifying to u. s. congress this month regarding their role in climate misinformation disinformation. what, what would you like to happen at the hearing? do you think that this is a watershed moment? it could be, i think we're, we're at a point where the, the public,

if you in the u. s. i think, journalist, i think politicians are realizing that this is the combination of a decades long campaign from the industry. so we're finally, we're at the starting point of getting those answers. so i wouldn't compare this to kind of aftermath of tobacco, but just at the beginning of discovery of what is under the cover. so i think one thing that i would like to, to learn from these upcoming hearings is the role that the p r industry has also played here. who else is working with royal industry to get the message out there? and that's an important question that's being a good and are you to shop by many of our guests? i want to ask you very quickly, sylvia. is this historic moment? do you think what's happening at congress this month? i'd it stay definite yates. i mean, now d, e d t is showing the dots, are, you know that we are at the appointment in time where this conversation are

becoming and not just sit in chronicles him as for it, we know i had to wait at the bon at our proposal for a bon right well and has been assigned to sylvia, but your me, you say inevitable. it is inevitable. it's also inevitable that we're running out of time. so i want to thank you for joining us. it's all the time we have. we'll see you next. i'm here on the stream bank ah, ah, multiple people and told ashley including my father that he was going to killer u. s. laws prohibit some people convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms . fold lines investigates the gaps in the system that allow the law to go unenforced, and the deadly consequences that ensued we shouldn't have laws on the books that are just for show on, relinquished on al jazeera lanham is approaching a tipping point in the lead up to the cop 26 climate summit al jazeera showcase is

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