Volunteer climate action advocacy group, Comms Declare, has today called for ad agencies to immediately drop clients promoting fossil fuel usage, including the Australian Federal Government.
The group – which comprises roughly 330 communications professionals, agencies and organisations – said the Federal Government’s aim to reduce emissions by up to 28 per cent by 2030 is inconsistent with IPCC modelling which recommends a 75 per cent reduction in order to maintain a 1.5C global temperature rise.
“As the Federal Government is not only allowing, but actively supporting and financing fossil fuel expansion, we call on agencies to refuse to work for it,” said Comms Declare founder, Belinda Noble.
“If you are working with any client that is not on track to reduce emissions by at least 50 per cent this decade, then you are enabling the climate emergency.”
This call-to-action follows similar measures taken earlier this year by a coalition of 450 climate scientists who penned an open letter calling for all advertising and PR agencies to immediately drop clients who continue to “obfuscate or downplay our data, and the risk of the climate emergency.”
That letter followed a peer-reviewed study by Brown University’s Robert J. Brulle and Carter Werthman which catalogued hundred of campaigns spearheaded by creative and PR agencies designed to hinder climate action.
“There is nowhere to hide if you’re helping or protecting the biggest single cause of global warming – fossil fuels,” said Noble.
“Coal must be phased out this decade and gas extraction needs to be reduced, not expanded.”
Yesterday, the IPCC released its latest report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability which outlined climate change’s increasing impacts on people, communities, and ecosystems, and the necessary steps needed for adaptation.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner of the dire new report.
“Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
