UN Secretary-General Calls for Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising

TapTechNews June 23 - United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres early this month called on global governments and the media to stop accepting financial support from the fossil fuel industry. He strongly accused energy companies of "distorting the facts, deceiving the public, and sowing doubts about the climate crisis", and said: "Let those 'Mad Men' stop adding fuel to the fire!"

TapTechNews has noted that Guterres' remarks come at a critical time in the automotive industry. Due to the fact that the prices of many new electric vehicles are still much higher than those of petrol vehicles, consumers remain wait-and-see on electric vehicles.

Guterres called for similar restrictions on fossil fuel advertising as on tobacco and alcohol advertising. However, the restrictions on tobacco advertising are mainly to avoid influencing the mental state of children, while the restrictions on fossil fuel advertising are designed to influence consumer behavior.

Some countries, cities and companies have begun to ban advertising by oil and gas companies. France restricts the promotion of coal, natural gas and hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, and Amsterdam, Sydney and Edinburgh also restrict the advertising of high-emission enterprises. In the media, The Guardian, Vox and Le Monde in France have all banned oil and gas advertising.

However, in the United States, implementing such restrictions at the national level may be more difficult. Rebecca Tushnet, a First Amendment professor at Harvard Law School, said: "Even if Congress tries to implement it, a fossil fuel advertising ban will almost certainly face legal challenges due to a violation of current US law."

Tushnet added in an interview with Scientific American that a comprehensive federal ban on fossil fuel advertising would be difficult to sustain unless there is a major shift in the interpretation of the US Constitution (where the First Amendment protects commercial speech) by the US Supreme Court.

A more realistic approach is that the government can take measures against fossil fuel companies that post false information. However, given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations requires that global greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to net zero by 2050, there needs to be greater efforts to reduce the presence of fossil fuel advertising if this goal is to be achieved.