Oil & Gas Majors Busy W. New Turd-Polishing Campaigns; Straight-Up Denial Out, Extra-Strength Greenwashing In

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The video opens on an anonymous industrial site, where a woman stands under a clear blue sky. She’s wearing a white hard hat and a grey utility shirt with the name “Regina” stitched above the breast pocket. Smiling into the camera, she tells viewers that “the world needs ways to reduce carbon emissions.” Speakers from diverse backgrounds then reassure viewers that, luckily, they’re working on solutions to that very problem, “like carbon capture, and clean energy from hydrogen.” If it weren’t for the logos appearing on their uniforms, it would be easy to miss that these characters are representatives of one of the world’s biggest oil companies — until Regina reappears to say, “Believe it or not we’re ExxonMobil.”

This ad, created by New York-based agency BBDO, barely mentions fossil fuels, even though it was paid for by one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. These kinds of ad campaigns are popping up all over. Even as the ad and PR industry comes under growing scrutiny for its role in polishing up the reputation of the fossil fuel industry — agencies are seeking new ways to give their oil and gas clients a climate-friendly sheen. From claims that carbon capture can “give trees a hand”, to an apparent TikTok influencer touting the technology on behalf of Chevron, firms are deploying their creative talents to sell the perception that the industry is the gatekeeper to climate solutions.

Yet both fossil fuel companies and their advertising agencies know that carbon capture and storage (CCS) — a 50-year-old technology used to trap carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from smokestacks, then bury the planet-heating gas underground — may never make a meaningful contribution to the climate fight. Despite decades of pledges to deploy it at scale, carbon capture has been plagued by such a litany of failed targets, cost overruns and economic and technical hurdles that the world’s entire existing operational capacity can only mop up about 0.14 percent of annual global carbon emissions (assuming that capacity is working at full tilt, which it rarely is).

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Among hundreds of oil and gas industry internal documents released by a U.S. Senate investigation into climate disinformation in May, an email chain revealed that ExxonMobil executives met with BBDO in 2016 to discuss a proposed package of ads highlighting CCS and low-carbon fuels. BBDO’s initial ideas for proclaiming the technology’s benefits were so zealous that they prompted a cautious response even from Exxon, whose executives suggested replacing any lines “that imply the technology is live today, and [sic] more the solution more future focused (e.g. we’re building a plant to test this…)” Buchan believes that carbon capture is often featured in these types of ad campaigns because it would allow oil and gas companies to continue doing business as usual. “In their perfect world they can still build all the fossil fuel infrastructure, extract all the oil and gas and just pay a small tax via CCS to reduce the emissions.”

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https://www.desmog.com/2024/11/13/give-trees-a-hand-ad-agencies-line-up-to-sell-sketchy-climate-solutions/