Drilling lobby promotes natural gas as ‘clean’
Washington/ London, Sept. 3:
America’s biggest oil and gas lobby group is ramping up its advertising spending ahead of the November election to persuade voters that natural gas is a climate-friendly fuel, according to ad buying data. The campaign by the American Petroleum Institute (API), targeted at younger voters and some tight congressional races, is part of a global battle by the drilling industry to assuage growing fears over the role of natural gas in driving climate change. US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden last month unveiled a $2 trillion plan to transition the American economy away from fossil fuels, including natural gas, if he beats incumbent Donald Trump, who is a drilling advocate.
Biden’s plan would support climate litigation against polluters who conceal information about environmental and health risks.
In the three weeks following Biden’s climate announcement on July 14, API increased its spending on Facebook ads to an estimated average of $24,000 a day. That’s about six times its average daily spending in the preceding six months, according to an analysis by InfluenceMap, a non-profit group whose data on lobbying is used by institutional investors.
Those ads mainly target a younger audience, including 25-to-34-year-olds, according to a separate analysis by Bully Pulpit Interactive Media conducted on behalf of Reuters. Meanwhile, API has spent an estimated $3.1 million on TV ads between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16, according to data from analytics firm iSpot, an increase of 51% over the same period in 2019. The TV ads are part of API’s “Energy for Progress” campaign, launched in January. For at least six months, the campaign’s website cast natural gas as a “clean” fuel before that description was revised to “cleaner” on the site sometime in the last two months. Climate scientists say that natural gas is not clean and is emerging as a major threat to the climate due to the sheer scale of carbon dioxide (CO2) the industry emits.
In addition, they say, a significant amount of methane, a far more potent short-term warming agent, leaks during production of natural gas. API points out on its website that when burned, natural gas produces about half as much planet-warming CO2 as coal and less air pollution, and has helped the United States reduce emissions by replacing coal in power plants. API President Mike Sommers said that his group’s advertising ahead of the election seeks “to inform people of all generations of the importance of American energy leadership”.
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