UN Secretary General Calls For Global Ban On Fossi

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United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres took the marketing industry to task today calling on advertising and PR agencies to stop working for the fossil fuel industry.

Specifically, he called on ad and PR firms to stop taking on new fossil fuel clients and to start making plans to drop existing clients.

Guterres told a crowd at New York’s Museum of Natural History that agencies must “stop acting as enablers” in the fossil fuel industry’s successful effort over decades to “shamelessly greenwash” its way to higher profits while investing a mere 2.5% of total annual spending on renewable energy projects.

He also called on media outlets around the world to stop accepting fossil fuel ads and urged all countries to ban such ads, just as some countries have banned ads for tobacco products.

Guterres tagged the fossil fuel industry the “godfather of climate chaos,” and charged that agencies were “fueling the madness” with massive ad campaigns that have deceived the public and sown seeds of doubt about the industry’s harmful role in propelling climate change. By doing so, he added, agencies risked tarnishing their own brands.

He also called on fossil fuel industry players to invest more in renewable energy as a way of ensuring its own future.

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