Climate and energy ads slowed down for the holidays
Spending on digital ads dropped across the board in December, as did organic social media activity, with a few big exceptions
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:
Investments in digital ads by climate groups and polluters declined across platforms in the final weeks of 2021.
A few groups bucked that trend, doubling or tripling their spending in the last week of 2021 to make a big online fundraising push.
While Democratic Senate candidates continue to put climate action at the center of many of their fundraising ads on Facebook, their potential Republican opponents are still hammering Biden over gas and energy prices to gain support.
As 2021 wound down, the online conversation around climate change centered around Don’t Look Up, year-end reviews loaded with climate disasters, and right-wing outlets dunking on Facebook for their Climate Feedback tool.
National Digital Ad Spending on Climate
Facebook + Instagram
Here are the top 25 spenders nationwide on climate and energy-related ads on Meta platforms from last week:
Overall, spending on Facebook political ads by polluters that we track declined in the final weeks of 2021. Climate groups we track may have gone through a similar trend, if not for three groups dropping huge sums last week: the spending by The Wilderness Society, NRDC, and Environmental Defense Fund accounted for more than half of all dollars spent on political ads on the platform by the 50+ groups we track. Most of the ads these three groups ran were fundraising ads, but they did also use their budgets to tout last year’s work and accomplishments by the organizations themselves or environmental activists more broadly. The Wilderness Society in particular appears to have spent a few thousand dollars on Facebook ads celebrating the work of Indiginous activists, especially Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
We also discovered one group that, while apparently operating on a much smaller budget, has been running Facebook ads fighting climate disinfo since August of 2021. Reality Team, a project of a nonprofit called Hacks/Hackers, targeted young adults in Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania with ads like the ones below featuring straightforward infographics that lay out the facts of climate change and the benefits of the clean energy transition.
Among polluters, spending by ExxonMobil on Facebook ads remained virtually unchanged week-to-week in November and December, spending around $150k each week on the same old ads about protecting our beloved gas stoves and safeguarding “affordable energy and consumer choice in the USA!” API, on the other hand, launched a huge fleet of new ads, including a campaign that implicitly ties oil and gas to the infrastructure improvements empowered by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Finally, it looks like the Propane Education & Research Council ran a 50-state campaign, with each ad targeting residents of a given state and arguing that propane is “an environmentally friendly alternative energy that helps you reduce carbon emissions.”
Overall, here’s how much climate groups and polluters spent on Facebook ads each week for the second half of 2021:
Google + YouTube
When it comes to political advertising on Google, we found that no national climate, clean energy, or conservation groups ran ads on the platform last week, at least according to the Google Transparency Report. However, we did find that Building Back Together spent $8,700 on YouTube ads targeting key swing states, touting how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and President Joe Biden are replacing lead pipes to provide clean drinking water. Additionally, Center for American Progress spent $3,800 on nationwide banner ads arguing that “A CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE = MILLIONS OF JOBS,” which have been running since at least September of 2021.
At a more local level, we found that the Michigan Environmental Council spent $800 on YouTube ads targeting metro areas in the eastern half of the state that call on Biden to stop Line 5.
Snapchat
Finally, the only group that ran climate, clean energy, or conservation political ads last week was Patagonia, which spent $6,433 on a series of ads promoting hyperlocal activism opportunities in places like California, Tennessee, and Oregon.
And with 2021 behind us, here’s a look at the top spenders on relevant ads on the platform over the course of last year:
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.
NC-SEN: Cheri Beasley spent just over $2k on an end-of-year fundraising appeal with her husband. In the video, she says, “I’m fighting for access to health care, and voting rights, and climate justice, and so much more. And with your help…we can make big changes here in North Carolina.”
NC-SEN: Ted Budd spent just over $100 boosting a Breitbart story puffing up Budd, using this copy: “Until Joe Biden fixes America's energy crisis, he should not have access to our emergency oil reserves. The Biden administration's radical environmental agenda is devastating our economy and they must be held accountable for their actions.”
NV-GOV: Steve Sisolak launched a few fundraising ads this week highlighting some of the climate action he’s taken while in office so far: “Steve Sisolak has been a fierce fighter in the battle against climate change. When Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, Steve signed Nevada on to the U.S. Climate Alliance, promising to do the hard work that Trump wouldn’t.”
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.”
OH-SEN: Mike Gibbons ran a series of Christmas-themed ads trashing Biden: “12 Days of Biden. Sing along... you know the tune: / On the twelfth day of Christmas, Joe Biden gave to me: / Tax Credits for Teslas / Giving In to China / Crime-Riddled Cities / Home Heating Rate Hike / Unsecured Elections / 70's Inflation / Guns for the Taliban / Critical Race Theory / Four Dollar Gas / Crisis at the Border / Empty Store Shelves /and more Senseless Incoherent Rambling.”
OH-SEN: Bernie Moreno implicitly compared today’s relatively high gas prices to the gas crisis under President Jimmy Carter, standing in front of a gas station saying: “Now Joe Biden and the socialists are rerunning the same playbook: they’re spending trillions of dollars on his voters - money for illegals, tax cuts for New York liberals, and it’s leading to crippling inflation.”
PA-SEN: John Fetterman launched a series of Facebook ads over Christmas lambasting Sen. Joe Manchin after he “announced that he’s voting NO on Build Back Better, the transformative social investment + climate bill that Democrats have been working on all year.” Fetterman again used the senator to contrast himself as a “get sh*t done” Democrat.
PA-SEN: Malcolm Kenyatta ran another series of fundraising ads putting climate justice at the center of his campaign: “I’m certain with your help, we can take our movement for affordable childcare, climate justice, and livable wages to the Senate. So, are you in?”
PA-SEN: Jeff Bartos was yet another Republican candidate to use energy costs against Biden and Gov. Tom Wolf: “Due to Biden & Wolf's policies, it could COST 50% MORE to heat your home this winterーJoin Jeff Bartos to Fix This Mess >>”
WI-SEN: Alex Lasry spent roughly $300 on a pair of ads connecting unusually warm winter weather to climate change, targeting young adults in Wisconsin: “It is 64 degrees in Milwaukee today. The warmest it has "ever been" in Milwaukee on Dec. 15 is 55 degrees in 1891, according to meteorologist Denny VanCleve. We are in a climate emergency, and we need Congress to act now.”
WI-SEN: Mandela Barnes continues to include climate action in many of his fundraising ads. One EOY ad reads: “ What if we told you that for $10, you could retire Ron Johnson? What if we told you $10 would mean the 51st vote to filibuster reform, action on climate change, voting rights and more?”
Reaching Frontline Communities
The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona spent $3,522 on Facebook and Instagram ads last week, most of which focus on how individuals can improve their own sustainability by reducing food waste, composting correctly, and growing one’s own food.
Measuring the National Organic Conversation
As 2021 wound down, social media buzzed about climate change, especially as folks shared their thoughts on the satirical Don’t Look Up, and as right-wing digital media kept up its drumbeat of climate skepticism. At the same time, since climate change was linked to so many devastating weather events last year, some of the most-engaged posts mentioning climate change and related terms over the last couple of weeks of last year also happened to be year-in-review type posts.
Overall, the top five climate-related Facebook posts from December 12, 2021 to January 1, 2022 came from:
The top five Instagram posts mentioning climate change from the past two weeks also include year-end posts from the New York Times, as well as the same post from Breitbart dunking on Facebook:
We only have access to tweets from the past week, but from what we can tell the top climate-related tweets were typically pessimistic:
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.