The head of the United Nations, António Guterres, has for the first time called on governments to ban fossil fuel companies from advertising, as many have already done with the tobacco industry.
In a speech to mark World Environment Day at the American Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, he said that “many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action – with lobbying, legal threats and massive ad campaigns”.
“I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies,” he said on Wednesday, adding that many governments already ban or restrict tobacco advertising – and that “some are now doing the same with fossil fuels”.
In 2022, France banned adverts for some fossil fuel products, and similar laws are being discussed in Canada and Ireland. The Dutch city of Amsterdam has banned fossil fuel adverts and the Scottish capital Edinburgh is set to do the same.
Guterres described the fossil fuel industry as “the Godfathers of climate chaos”, raking in record profits and feasting off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies. Meanwhile the oil and gas industry last year invested “a measly 2.5 percent” of its total capital spending on clean energy, he added.
“Mad Men fuelling madness”
The UN Secretary-General said fossil fuel companies “have been aided and abetted by advertising and [public relations] companies, Mad Men – remember the TV series – fuelling the madness”.
He called on them to “stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction” by refusing new fossil fuel clients and setting out plans to drop existing ones.
According to sector campaign group Clean Creatives, nearly 300 advertising and PR agencies held contracts with fossil fuel firms between 2022 and 2023.
Subsidiaries of the British company WPP had the highest number of fossil fuel contracts – 55 – despite having a pledge to reach net zero by 2030. Their clients include oil and gas giants Saudi Aramco, Equinor and BP.
On the other hand, more than 1,100 organisations in advertising and publicity have pledged to cut ties with fossil fuel companies and decline any contracts with them in future.
Clean Creatives executive director Duncan Meisel said Guterres’ speech was “a turning point in the advertising and PR industry’s relationship with climate change and fossil fuels”.
“There is no longer any cover for agencies to say that they are doing the right thing when working with polluters,” he said, “Everyone knows this is wrong, and everyone needs to act.”
Don’t take ads
Guterres also said that news media and technology companies should stop taking fossil fuel advertising.
Internal documents from fossil fuel firms like BP have shown that they consider placing sponsored content in the news media as a deliberate and effective strategy for influencing both public opinion and energy policy.
Research by investigative website DeSmog and Drilled showed that in-house advertising teams at international media outlets like Reuters, Bloomberg, The Financial Times and The New York Times facilitated this strategy, by promoting fossil fuel companies’ messaging through sponsored content like podcasts, newsletters and videos.
In April, The Financial Times and Reuters pulled content sponsored by Saudi Aramco that showcased the state-run oil company’s preference for technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.
DC political journalism is drowning in oil.@PunchbowlNews presented by @Chevron @axios Generate sponsored by @Chevron@politico Power Switch presented by @bp_America pic.twitter.com/9XfD3ifO7y
— Brad Johnson SUBSCRIBE TO HILLHEAT.NEWS (@climatebrad) November 13, 2023
As well as sponsoring content, fossil fuel companies take out regular adverts in mainstream and specialist media. For example, Chevron sponsors Politico’s energy podcast.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, received around $4 million from fossil fuel firms in return for running adverts spreading false claims over the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, according to research from Climate Action Against Disinformation.
Hottest May ever
Guterres’ speech was scheduled to coincide with World Environment Day on June 5 – also the day, he pointed out, that May 2024 was confirmed as the hottest May in recorded history
“This marks twelve straight months of the hottest months ever,” the UN chief said. “For the past year, every turn of the calendar has turned up the heat. Our planet is trying to tell us something. But we don’t seem to be listening.”
On the same day, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said there is an 80% chance that one of the next five years will be 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times. In 2015, that chance was estimated at close to zero.
In the Paris Agreement adopted that year, all governments agreed to strive to limit global temperature increase to 1.5C “recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.
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“WMO is sounding the alarm that we will be exceeding the 1.5C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,” WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett said in a statement on Wednesday.
“However, it is important to stress that temporary breaches do not mean that the 1.5C goal is permanently lost because this refers to long-term warming over decades,” she added.
The WMO also said there is a close to 50% likelihood that the global temperature averaged over the five years from 2024-2028 will exceed 1.5C above the pre-industrial era.
The UN decided to combine its scientific and advocacy powers on World Environment Day in a bid to push climate change back up the global political agenda, which has been dominated by conflicts and major elections this year.
The aim is to increase pressure on the richest nations ahead of the G7 summit this month – and on all governments tasked with preparing new climate action plans – to urgently step up their efforts to cut emissions.
“The battle for 1.5 degrees will be won or lost in the 2020s – under the watch of leaders today”, said Guterres.
(Reporting by Joe Lo and Daisy Clague; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post UN chief calls on governments to ban fossil fuel ads appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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