COP27 Drifts Through Greenwash; Hill & Knowlton Once Did Big Tobacco; Now They Do Climate Summits

[hatrack]

Companies with ties to the fossil fuel industry and poor records on pollution will have a notable presence at the United Nations climate summit starting Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, sparking backlash from environmentalists. Egyptian organizers have hired Hill+Knowlton Strategies, a public relations firm that has represented oil giants including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Saudi Aramco, to manage communications for the COP27 negotiations, according to emails and other materials reviewed by The Climate 202.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola was selected as a sponsor of the summit, despite the beverage company’s connection to the billions of tons of plastic waste choking the world’s oceans. Hill+Knowlton has touted its focus on sustainability, while the Egyptian organizers said they chose Coca-Cola because of its commitment to reducing emissions. But environmentalists have slammed the significant role of these companies in the world’s largest annual gathering aimed at spurring greater climate action.

“It's like putting Philip Morris in charge of tobacco negotiations,” said Jamie Henn, the founder of Clean Creatives, a campaign pressuring PR and advertising agencies to quit working with fossil fuel companies. In 2017 and 2018, Hill+Knowlton created ads that touted Shell’s efforts to power London’s buses with biodiesel made partly from coffee grounds. “Your coffee can now help power buses: Shell,” the ads said. And this year, Hill+Knowlton has helped the Egyptian organizers of COP27 hold virtual briefings for journalists, according to an emailed invitation shared with The Climate 202. The briefing featured remarks by Timothy Hurst, a managing director in Hill+Knowlton’s Dubai office, according to a screenshot.

Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University professor who studies climate disinformation, called it “unconscionable” that the firm is involved with the climate summit, given its work on behalf of Big Tobacco and Big Oil. “Hill and Knowlton was one of the central players who developed the 'tobacco playbook,' which used half-truths and disinformation to discredit the scientific evidence of the harms of smoking,” Oreskes said in an email. “Then that playbook was used for decades by Big Oil to discredit the scientific evidence of the harms of burning fossil fuels. It’s unconscionable to me that COP would hire them to help with climate change PR.”

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/04/environmentalists-slam-corporate-influence-un-climate-talks/

[Eugene]

1. Hill & Knowlton of Free Kuwait fame

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

... and let's not forget their great work with BCCI.

COP27 is devolving into farce.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Humanity will extract and use/burn every last bit of fossil fuel that's economically viable

And the earth is going to fry.

You guys know that, right?

We're at the point where the only option with ANY chance of avoiding catastrophe is limiting births significantly, possibly under penalty of law, worldwide.

We also need to rethink the idea of keeping people alive for as long as possible.

We also need to limit people migrating from lower-carbon-per-capita countries ... to First World countries.

Noboby will have the political will to suggest any of those things, however, except maybe that last one.

So the planet is fucked. Barring a miracle advance in technology like abundant and cheap fusion energy in the very near future.