My Financial Times colleagues and I’ve a packed agenda of interviews and occasions and can do our greatest to report the highlights of what has turn out to be one of many largest annual local weather occasions on the calendar.
We start right now with a scoop: an interview with Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, who informed me Donald Trump’s plan to intestine the Biden administration’s sweeping local weather regulation would hand China the benefit in a world cleantech race.
“We would be stabbing ourselves because it would be so foolish,” stated the previous governor of Michigan, who additionally talks in regards to the LNG pause and Trump’s accusation that President Joe Biden has undermined “US energy independence”.
Our essential merchandise right now takes us to South Africa, the place our correspondent Rob Rose stories on TotalEnergies, which has come beneath hearth for an promoting marketing campaign.
Thanks for studying,
Jamie
TotalEnergies appeals South African greenwashing ruling
TotalEnergies this week will appeal the South African promoting regulator’s ruling that it was “misleading” for the French oil firm to tout its dedication to “sustainable development” in a marketing campaign with the nation’s nationwide parks.
This case, the primary greenwashing dispute heard by South Africa’s Advertising Regulatory Board, a personal, self-regulatory physique arrange to defend customers, underscores how promoting represents a brand new entrance in the battle between activists and oil firms over local weather change.
Total, nonetheless, has confronted comparable claims earlier than throughout the globe, together with a 2022 case in France introduced by Greenpeace and different environmental teams, which accused it of breaching European shopper safety regulation. The firm on the time stated the allegations of greenwashing have been false.
And it isn’t simply oil firms going through the warmth: in August, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned a Virgin Atlantic advert for making “misleading” claims about its first transatlantic flight, which the airline stated used “100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel”.
At difficulty in South Africa is a marketing campaign that Total ran in partnership with the nation’s state-run nationwide parks physique, SANParks, in which it provided prizes for individuals who uploaded images at these parks whereas tagging Total. It claimed in the advert that “we’re committed to sustainable development and environmental protection”.
Fossil Free South Africa, the non-profit advocacy group that introduced the greenwashing grievance to the ARB, argues this was a “completely false and misleading claim” since Total is the Nineteenth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, in accordance to think-tank InfluenceMap’s Carbon Majors database, and is growing oil and gas tasks in Africa.
In its preliminary argument on the tribunal, Total rejected the declare, saying that “limiting the consequences of global warming and providing energy is a global emergency around which TotalEnergies has defined its strategy”.
It added that this was not an “advertisement”, however slightly a “corporate communication” about its social duty programme.
But in mid-August, the promoting physique dominated that Total’s declare was “misleading”, including that this did certainly quantity to “advertising claims”.
“[Total] has shown that many of its projects are indeed directed at sustainable development. There is no doubt that this is an issue high on [its] priority list. However, it is also no doubt that the core business of [Total] is directly opposed to the issue of sustainable development,” the discovering stated.
On Thursday, Total will appeal the discovering, in which the regulator stated South African promoting businesses and entrepreneurs shouldn’t settle for any promoting from the corporate in which it claimed it was dedicated to “sustainable development” when it got here to the nationwide parks.
“This finding is the first of its kind in South Africa, but only the latest in a series of findings around the world that confirm that fossil fuel companies should not be able to burnish their images by falsely claiming ‘green’ credentials and hiding the real and devastating impact of their businesses,” stated Tracey Davies, the manager director of Just Share, a South African shareholder activist non-profit.
“The challenge is to build the energy system of tomorrow, while continuing to supply the energy the world needs today,” she stated. “TotalEnergies invested $5bn in renewable and low-carbon energies in 2023 and in 2024.”
This is the second consecutive 12 months in which Total invested extra in low-carbon energy than in new oil and gas tasks, Viry stated, including that by 2030, the corporate can be among the many high 5 renewable energy producers.
It is a declare the French firm has made repeatedly. After its annual normal assembly in May of final 12 months, Total’s chief government Patrick Pouyanné hit out on the “grumps” who accused the corporate of greenwashing, saying “we’re convinced of the credibility of our climate transition plan.”
What’s at stake
In South Africa, whereas Total’s marketing campaign with SANParks is not operating, the ruling from the promoting authority will nonetheless have ramifications for a way oil and gas firms market their clear energy efforts in the long run.
“What happens in the appeal will be closely watched as it will set a precedent for how companies speak about their environmental commitments,” stated Thameena Dhansay, a marketing campaign supervisor for Fossil Free South Africa.
“From the 1970s, many oil companies chose a strategy of climate denialism. But this has evolved to climate delay — that is, promising to meet a net zero target by 2050. What they’re saying is ‘we will take action, but we can’t do it right now’,” she stated.
Fossil Free South Africa stated it meant to lodge complaints in opposition to different oil and gas firms on the promoting physique to guarantee they’re held to account for deceptive customers.
“In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be up to a small industry regulator to deal with a weighty issue like fossil fuel industry greenwashing,” stated David Le Page, director of the group. “Rather, governments should be taking this more seriously, given the opportunity it presents to mislead consumers and society.”
The South African case illustrates how excessive the stakes have turn out to be for oil and gas firms, which have poured hundreds of thousands into advertising their local weather change mitigation efforts.
Schimmel stated battles all over the world between activists and corporations over their inexperienced practices had led to “greenhushing” — firms opting not to talk their local weather objectives in any respect for concern of being dragged into authorized disputes. “This would obviously be a problem if it led to companies choosing not to invest in green initiatives as a result,” she stated. (Rob Rose)
Power Points
California sued ExxonMobil, alleging the oil supermajor deceived the general public for half a century in regards to the sustainability of its plastic merchandise.
The US proposed banning Chinese software program and parts in autos over fears that Beijing might accumulate knowledge on American drivers and hack internet-connected automobiles.
Western nations have joined forces to break China’s grip on crucial minerals, asserting a financing community for tasks to present uncooked supplies.