A slow start to the new year for climate groups and polluters
With end-of-year-fundraising in the rear-view, groups’ digital ad spending is in a lull
Welcome to Climate Monitor, your weekly digest of the digital tactics and strategies that polluters and climate-action groups are deploying online to shift public opinion and move legislation. We’ve examined political ad spending on platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Google by several dozen groups and corporations from the past week, as well as their activities on social media. Tell your colleagues to subscribe here!
What we found:
Most climate groups spent under $10,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads last week, with NRDC Action Fund being the biggest spender among them at $17,076.
While ExxonMobil and the Propane Education & Research Council are running holdover Facebook ad campaigns from last year, the American Petroleum Institute is once again targeting vets with heavily nationalist ads.
Every Democrat running in WI-SEN included climate action in their ads responding to Sen. Ron Johnson’s formal entry into the race.
Absent major news hooks, social media engagement on climate change and related issues has also lulled.
National Digital Ad Spending on Climate
Here are the top 25 spenders nationwide on climate and energy-related ads on Meta platforms from last week:
Last week, we reported that climate groups and polluters had significantly reduced their spending on Facebook and Instagram ads in the final weeks of 2021. We now know that in the first week of 2022, that trend only accelerated after groups ended their end-of-year online fundraising campaigns: two weeks ago, climate groups spent $656,176 on Facebook ads, and last week, they spent just $155,657.
One of the biggest spenders among climate groups, Climate Power, spent $15,781 between Jan. 6 - 8 on a new campaign composed of boosted news stories mostly targeted to older women that highlight some basic realities about climate change and clean energy. Action for the Climate Emergency also spent around $16k in recent days on a TikTok-esque ad campaign targeting young adults in Wisconsin that highlights how America has been dragging its feet on energy innovation (you can hop over to the Facebook Ad Library to check out the full vid).
At the same time, while polluters spent $276,118 on Facebook and Instagram ads two weeks ago, they spent $143,614 on them last week. The biggest spender among these was Maine Affordable Energy, an advocacy group backed by one of the state’s biggest utilities, Central Maine Power. They’re now spending big bucks on the platform already opposing a referendum for the state to buy out CMP and Versant, the other big utility in the state. They’re arguing that such a move would be extremely expensive for taxpayers, and they use typical conservative scare tactics about such a big government action, calling it “a government-takeover of Maine’s power grid.” Meanwhile, API has been running ads since late December appealing to older veterans in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Google + YouTube
Like last week, there were no climate or clean energy groups that ran ads on Google or YouTube, according to the Google Transparency Report. We did find that the Center for American Progress launched two new nationwide banner ads; overall, the group spent $4,300 on ads like these last week.
Snapchat
Snapchat ads from 2022 are not yet available in the Snap Political Ads Library. We’ll bring you all the latest when they are.
Climate, clean energy, and conservation ads in this year’s key states
We picked up a few new Facebook ads mentioning climate change, conservation, and/or energy in some of the biggest races Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
MI-GOV: James Craig spent around $700 on an ad tying inflation to rising gas prices: “Inflation is at a 30-year high and it's impacting us at every turn.”
MN-GOV: Scott Jensen just launched an ad attacking Gov. Tim Walz: “TIM WALZ HAS BEEN AN ENEMY TO MINING, PIPELINES, AND ENERGY INDEPENDENCE / Dr. Scott Jensen will fight for GOOD JOBS.”
NC-SEN: Cheri Beasley just launched an ad promoting an endorsement from Gov. Roy Cooper: “ He knows what is at stake in this election and I look forward to partnering with him in the U.S. Senate to deliver for North Carolina -- from good-paying jobs to affordable health care to climate action & more.”
NH-SEN: Maggie Hassan continued running a series of fundraising ads on Facebook highlighting climate action as a campaign plank: “What’s at stake if we give up and allow McConnell and the GOP to take back the Senate? An end to the progress we’ve made on guaranteeing access to the ballot box, securing a woman’s right to choose and battling the climate crisis.”
WI-SEN: Responding to Ron Johnson’s official entry into the race, Alex Lasry launched a pair of ads highlighting how - among other things - denies climate change, contrasting the senator’s denials with footage of climate disasters: “I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is as Lord Monckton said - bullshit…I absolutely do not believe that the science of man-made climate change is proven.”
WI-SEN: Sarah Godlewski took a similar approach: “Conspiracy theorist, climate change denier, and insurrection apologist Ron Johnson is officially running for re-election. The good news is we can replace him with Sarah Godlewski – a fighter for Wisconsin families.”
WI-SEN: Mandela Barnes also highlighted Johnson’s entry into the race in recent fundraising ads: “ The truth is, everything is riding on this seat – the Senate Democratic majority, abolishing the filibuster, and every issue you care about from voting rights to climate change to health care.”
Reaching Frontline Communities
The League of Conservation Voters spent around $200 on an organizing campaign targeted at young adults in southern Nevada through its Chispa Nevada page: “Our impact comes from the power of our community in Southern Nevada! We want to know what YOU care about in order to help us better serve you next year.”
Measuring the National Organic Conversation
Absent any ongoing climate disasters or a huge climate bill at the top of Democrats’ legislative priorities, there appeared to be fewer social media posts mentioning climate change or related terms across platforms, and those posts seemed to have also gotten lower engagement to boot. The top three Facebook posts mentioning climate change and related terms last week came from Occupy Democrats (65.7k interactions), Breitbart (23.5k interactions), and Fox News (14.2k interactions).
Other Facebook posts about climate change from some of the biggest voices on the platform seemed to also underperform. A post from President Joe Biden touting the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill as critical to reaching net-zero by 2050 only got 14.1k interactions, and a post from Franklin Graham - who posted one of the most-engaged climate posts of 2021 - got just under 10k interactions.
The top three Instagram posts mentioning climate change from last week came from Mark Ruffalo, IGN, and the New York Times. We’ll also note that none of the top 10 relevant IG posts were tied to a particular news hook, except for a post from Hillary Clinton using a CAP Action infographic to push for the Build Back Better Act, which got 14.9k interactions.
The top tweets mentioning climate change from last week were unsurprisingly grim, but it may interest some of our readers to know that one of them came from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
That’s it for Climate Monitor this week. As always, head to climatemonitor.substack.com to see these updates in real time as we publish them throughout the week!
And if you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop us a line by shooting an email to nick@fwiwmedia.com.