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COP-28 LAST DECEMBER was an historic failure with no agreement for a global phase out of fossil fuels. Despite this, we need to start taking concrete steps towards fossil fuel phase out now if we are to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic global heating of 2 degrees more.
A ban on fossil fuel advertising, including petrol, diesel and the private cars and flights that use them, can be one of those steps — alongside radical ecosocialist measures to give people real alternatives.
Car companies, airlines and fossil fuel companies wouldn’t spend billions on advertising if it didn’t work. Just like the tobacco companies before them, they are spending those billions on ads to make billions in profits — despite the damage their products are doing to the environment.
Ireland is one of the most car-dependent societies in Europe, and Dublin is one of the most congested cities in the world. The average motorist spends 158 hours a year — almost a whole week! — sitting in traffic. Transport accounts for 17% of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions and the vast majority of this comes from private fossil fuelled cars.
As well as being the primary cause of the climate crisis, fossil fuels are the main cause of a host of other health and environmental problems. They are the main cause of air pollution in our towns and cities, leading to chronic diseases like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and heart and respiratory problems. A study in London found that children growing up in the most polluted parts of the city had significantly reduced lung capacity, likely for life.
Ireland has the highest rate of asthma in Europe. One in ten children in this country are currently suffering from the disease and one in five will suffer from it at some stage during their childhood. 380,000 people in this country have asthma right now and 890,000 will develop it during their lifetimes.
The last time such a major public health threat was so clearly associated with a particular product was with tobacco. We banned tobacco advertising and sponsorship because of the clear link between smoking and illness, disease and death. It’s time to do the same with advertising of fossil fuels and the vehicles that use them.
Last month, I introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the Dáil that would ban corporate advertising of fossil fuels, private fossil fuelled vehicles (private cars and motorbikes) and flights.
The Bill only applies to corporate advertising, merchandising and sponsorship — not to small ads taken out by individuals selling a second hand car, for example. There are also exceptions for on-premises advertising and price display, so petrol stations can still display prices for example and airlines can advertise prices of flights on their own websites. The Bill would also set up a Fossil Fuel Information Commission, so consumers can compare prices and features of fossil fuels and fossil fuelled vehicles.
People who still need to buy fossil fuels for heating or a petrol or diesel car because of a lack of affordable, feasible alternatives would still be able to do so. There is no question of anyone being prevented from buying a new or second hand car. In fact, they would have access to better, unbiased information than they do at the moment to enable them to get the best deal.
The big difference is that we would no longer be bombarded with constant advertising for fossil fuels that are killing us and killing our planet.
Once you start noticing it, it’s striking just how much car advertising there is everywhere — on billboards, on websites and as sponsors of TV and radio programmes. There’s evidence this has a direct impact on the lack of media coverage of the climate crisis — a topic the Late Late Show has barely covered in all its years of showcasing shiny new cars.
Most of the new cars being advertised are SUVs, which as well as being more environmentally damaging are two to three times more likely to kill pedestrians. The massive increase in SUV sales in recent years is not encouraging at a time when we’re seeing a growing number of road deaths in Ireland.
Last year in Ireland, the number of new fossil fuelled cars or SUVs increased by 10% to over 99,000 new cars sold. Sales of electric vehicles also increased but four times as many new fossil fuelled cars as new electric cars were sold.
The average car on Irish roads is nine years old so these new fossil fuelled cars will be pumping out carbon emissions well into the 2030s. At that stage, we will have breached 1.5 degrees of heating and may be well on our way to 2 degrees.
Of course, along with a ban on fossil fuel advertising, we need ecosocialist climate action to give everyone a real alternative to the private car and fossil fuelled heating. That means massive public investment in free and frequent public transport, right across the country and free access to public bikes, e-bikes, e-scooters and electric car sharing schemes. It means public funding for free retrofitting for all households that need it and rapid state investment to transform our electricity system from fossil fuel dependency to 100% renewables.
This Earth Day, 22 April, I am launching a campaign for a ban on fossil fuel advertising alongside environmental and health activists. We hope to gain widespread public support for this idea that can push it up the political agenda and force the government to act.
Paul Murphy is a People Before Profit TD for Dublin South West.
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The Green Party would probably go one better and tax people just for watching a TV ad about fossil fuels
@Chaotic State: Keep piling on the taxes. That’ll sort it all out, and, if it doesn’t then just pile on some more of them.
@Chaotic State: fossil fuels, especially oil, have raised the standard of living for different people groups and every nation in the world, particularly since the start of the twentieth century. Oil has brought millions upon millions and millions more out of poverty, and saved many more than it wil ever kill
@Kieran Mac C: Possibly in Alaska, where admirable native community leaders have insisted on profit sharing with the people of Alaska. Elsewhere in the world, nations are known for their pollution, city congestion, traffic kill rates and a vast difference between those profiting exclusively from fossil fuel prices and those in poverty with breathing difficulties.
Can you name anywhere that’s benefited equally from rail travel, other than Europe? The US used to have a great and modern network, yet has been trying to deny decent public transport to millions of their own citizens for decades.
@F Fitzgerald: Off the top of my head…agriculture, pharmaceuticals, electricity, irrigation, transport, aquaculture, ambulances, day-glo jackets worn by ‘Just Stop Oli’ protestors, air-purifying systems in sterile surgical theatres, prosthetic limbs, health monitoring systems, computers, phones, affordable clothing and footwear.
Oil has raised the standard of living for not just western socity, but all society, even those poor, put-upon citizens of North Korea, who would suffer even worse famine were it not for mechanised oil-fired systems (‘tractors’)to gather at least some of their harvest. Oh, and modern hospitals. Don’t forget the hospitals
Ireland is too small to make a difference, if you believe in the climate agenda
@Irish Axe: Forget climate, clean air is more than enough reason.
@Irish Axe: We are part of the EU, which is not ‘too small to make a difference’.
Anyway, everyone, every place, everywhere can make a difference.
When Murphy talks, I generally stop listening. Likewise this article, I haven’t read it. I’m certain it’s nonsense.
@honey badger: All good points, free transport for all, trains everywhere (I don’t know in who’s lifetime thats going to happen) but an advertising ban is like skimming a stone in the middle of the ocean. Still I’d be for it, no harm. We could use less advertising.
@honey badger: ‘lets go burn down the observatory, so this will never happen again!’
@Setanta O’Toole:
“My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd who do not want to look at the planets, the moon, or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times?.” Galileo
It isn’t parts per million of carbon dioxide that will define this era, but the manipulation of images of the Earth to suit clockwork solar system modelling.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210922.html
None of you feel anything for good or otherwise, and that is the definition of a subculture based on those who are perceptively dead.
@Gerald Kelleher: zzzzzzzz.
@honey badger: It is nonsense, all Murphy says is!!
@Setanta O’Toole:
” And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newtons sleep.” William Blake
It is good that you reacted with sleep symbols, as it is indeed a type of perceptive sleep you and many in society suffer from. That era’s clockwork solar system modelling was the basis for all scientific or mechanical modelling.
The Age of Reason is the Age of Treason, an attempt to seal humanity off from its higher faculties and goodness me, society has paid dearly for that.
@Gerald Kelleher: it was a simpsons qoute Gerald. Take a day off lad.
@Setanta O’Toole:
I live in the expansive world of Western astronomy, whereas many of you live in the cartoon world of experimental theorists created a few centuries ago through the Royal Society.
It is not that you can reason your way out of that perceptive sleep you suffer from, it is that you feel nothing for the visual narratives that would heal you and so many others.
The observatories were burned down to make way for scientific method voodoo long before any of you were born. It isn’t that you take a day off, in a cartoon world, you haven’t really lived with a connection to terrestrial and solar system surroundings.
@Gerald Kelleher: the qoute lampoons those who are anti-science and would rather live in denial, which Is what I assume you were making me out to be with your initial diatribe. If you weren’t so busy hoping to god you can fool people into thinking you are a genius with your pretentious word salads and obscure references, you might be able to identify subtext/sarcasm and the use of quotation marks before you jump the gun in your constant quest to be the smartest in the room.
How many times does it have to be said that there is no viable alternative to fossil fuels now or for the foreseeable future.
The big oil companies are not going to allow their profits to be eroded until the crude supply runs out. They will exploit every last drop.
Fuel advertising makes f all difference. We all know what petrol and diesel are, and most just look for the lowest prices.
@Ciaran: Apparently Toyota are to stop making fully electric, rowing in behind hydrogen.
@Ciaran: If we wait until the last drop to switch energy source 90% of us will die.
We have to start now and use alternatives wherever we can while we still have enough fossil fuels to keep the lights on and things moving while we build the wind and solar farms as well as the massive energy storage facilities we will need.
The big oil companies are already making their transition plans.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: it’s already there, hydrogen and nuclear.
This guy’s voter base see him for the tool that he is, all for open borders & no solutions to where these people will be housed or the services required for them, while the people at home have been abandoned by this woke socialist. The guy is a complete waste of a vote. Heard it all from PBP when I heard Brid Smith say on RTE, that we are a wealthy country, Murphy & PBP couldn’t give a toss for working class Irish workers, more interested in those arriving in record numbers here daily. Any utterances out of him are horse manure.
If Murphy and his ilk had their way we would all be barefoot and living off potatoes
@Joseph Lenihan: I don’t know – the main parties seem bent on making everyone else live in their cars while hoping for an affordable place to rent. It’s getting to be a vicious cycle.
Does anyone ever use fossil fuels based on advertising? You’ll hear your house however it’s set up. You’ll fly in a plane whichever airline it is and likewise for driving a car whatever make. Large ticket items like wind farms, solar farms etc. will make the big difference.
Windbag
You see, PBP voters do t have to get up in the morning to drive to work.
They get their unlimited free dole wired to their accounts while they sleep in their free houses.
No tax? No vote!
Where do these government people think all their tax comes from, now also want to stop marketing revenue so people in marketing jobs get hit aswell. People look at prices and choose cheapest option not brand names. Watch out as soon as fossil fuels go you will see taxes on clean energy aswell. No escaping !!!!!!
@Paul Geraghty: AI will sort out all those marketing jobs sooner than later, there won’t be many marketing jobs left to lose.
This nonsense reminded me of “don’t talk the economy down”, we need heating oil and petrol until we have affordable alternatives.
“There is no question of anyone being prevented from buying a new or second hand car.”… VRT?
Ireland most dependent nation on cars I wonder why?
Living in reality Paul or just ignorant of the facts that most of us have no choice around public transport options?
We all have paid vast sums in taxes to be consistently wasted by this and former governments.
I have little expectation next government whoever it is will do the same and then blame everyone except themselves.
Just 100 companies produced 71 % of GHG emissions. Are you doing your bit though?
@Louis Jacob: Spineless in the face of the master.
Totally agree with this. The majority of people have no need for a huge SUV – it’s a status symbol for many. They take up so much space on the road and are so high up the drivers can’t often see if a child is right in front of them. Public transport should also be way more expensive, regular and affordable to get more cars off the road.
@Sylvia Power: expansive*
@Sylvia Power: what planet do you live on. More expensive and affordable public transport.
@Joe Kelly: Expansive, it was a typo.
@Sylvia Power: Public transport should definitely be extended in large urban areas and free car parks on the outskirts of these areas so people commuting can benefit from it. Unfortunately public transport will not be able to be provided to a lot of our population due to allowing the building of one off houses on every back road and lane in the country.
@Sylvia Power: People are entitled to spend their money whatever way they want, just like you do!! If I want to drive a gas guzzling SUV I will. I won’t be dictated to by begrudgers!!
“ecosocialist” – that term really sends a shiver up the spine. The environment is a great excuse for ” the people” (read: the state) the take over everything and make it worse
Murphy gets a bit of exposure..that’s all he wants.
This could probably have more of an impact in reducing emmisions with little to no cost to the public compared to than all the new cycle lanes and additional stealth carbon taxes the Green Party have introduced since they have came into power.
@John Dennehy: This will have exactly 0% impact. People have buy petrol and heating oil. Advertising or no Advertising won’t change anything.
@Wolfgang Bonow: @Wolfgang Bonow: Poor aul Ryanair won’t be too happy when they can’t advertise their €20 euro return winter special to liverpool, I’m pretty sure Micheal O Leary wont agree with you on your opinion on advertising.
While the rest of us have to pay extra taxes for everything due to ” Climate change ” & all he’s worried about is banning the advertising rather than trying banning fossil fuel completely, which we’ve been led to believe is such a disaster for the planet. Along with Aviation & yet in Ireland, the sales of private planes have risen since Covid with figures almost doubling! But the rest of us are told to grow lettuce!
@Colette Kearns: Is he not pointing out that fossil fuel advertising is working when most people can’t imagine life without a car? Imagine the modern, European style railways we could have if we didn’t settle for having to buy so many cars and having roads everywhere?
Pay more tax people and don’t be whinging about needing alternative transport to work get up earlier and cycle the distance. Take family showers together also and preserve our clean water, perhaps even with close friends or neighbours,we can do it if we all work together and make that difference.
Advertising of fossil fuels has no effect.
Banning sales of new fossil fueled vehicles from NOW would have an effect.
Alternatively requiring a public health warning on all new fossil fueled cars (big, ugly and unmissable printing on both sides of the car) would reduce sales of them.
The current crop of electric cars are good enough, although reps will trash the batteries with regular fast charging.
As for home heating, insulation is by far the most effective way of reducing heating fuel consumption unless it’s already close to passive house standard. So push that hard with grants and raise the standards for new builds because retrofitting insulation is hard and expensive.
@Roy Dowling: True, who’s going to deliver solar panels if we give up diesel?
Real change would be banning Paul Murphy from ever opening his gob in public again…
If this government are serious about climate change give everyone in the country a once off new heat exchange system for there homes fully payed for and invest big in hydrogen fueling Stations around the country not electric its not the future electric EVs are dead in the water .give massive discounts on family’s first hydrogen car to get them on the ladder after that they can trade in .but the first car is out of reach financially for most family’s.
Banwaggoning and this is the real Elizabeth Doyle
He should launch a campaign on Earth Day to recover that this Day is also one rotation of the Earth along with its sunrise/sunset cycle.
Scientific method modellers in the 17th-century Royal Society tried to change the reference for one rotation away from the stationary Sun to the daily change in position of the stars instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYy0EQBnqHI
They didn’t know that the stars change position annually due to the orbital motion of the Earth.
https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/
The Sun is stationary while the Earth moves, and the satellite, free from daily rotation influences, captures what we see from the surface. There is no need to be dull on this Earth Day; that timelapse is a new demonstration that the Earth moves around the Sun.
Very quickly.
An experimental hypothesis is not the same as an astronomical hypothesis Kepler had to make using the Ptolemaic framework for a moving Earth in a Sun-centred system. The Ptolemaic framework was used for astronomical predictions as dates using the calendar system, so the contentious issue was whether the framework that accurately predicted events could also be used to affirm a moving Earth as a fact.
Raising the standard of consideration would remove scientific method modelling from climate. The paid professionals have no talent or incentive to change so that leaves people willing to collaborate to create the necessary visual narratives for free and often in a hostile environment.
The real power today is not with social politics but with academic politics.
Clowns running the asylum
Well, then we have to ban advertising everything that is made from oil and gas because oil and gas companies don’t just make money from filling up your car or home heating, things like TVs, phones, medical devices and drugs, furniture, makeup, roads, building supplies, home appliances, solar panels, wind turbines, foreign holidays by plane and ship etc etc etc. you cannot take gas and oil out of the ground take what you want from it and put the rest back. These politicians are imbeciles.
@brendan C5: I think you misunderstood the article – the proposal is specifically focused on fossil fuels. Not on medical devices, appliances or furniture – although if fuel prices keep rising, furniture may become fuel! Lumber prices shot up during COVID, so that’s making everywhere more expensive to live despite being natural. Roads are built to cater for private cars. My grandparents didn’t run a car and went everywhere by train.
Absolute HEADCASE
And all this from the man who was largely responsible for the most stupid mistake ever in our recent political history. Charge for the rubbish and give the water free. Let alone the environmental absurdity of it, 250,000 are paying for the water and their rubbish. So now we have constant littering and fly tipping and a capital starved water provision system.
I like the idea. Ban fossils ads in a small country, big countries may well follow suit.
@Roy Dowling: Fair point. Maybe advertising is making life less affordable for people by only promoting one way of transport?
Ban travel for St Patrick’s day for you know who
When one has nothing to say, but whose profile depends on publicity, it is essential that one says whatever one can, however ludicrous or damaging to those that will hear what is said.
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