Climate groups beat fossil fuel group spending on IRA digital ads
Plus: United for Clean Power ends their astroturf campaign
Welcome to Climate Monitor, a weekly digest of the digital tactics and strategies that polluters and climate-action groups are using 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 what’s trending on social media. Tell your colleagues to subscribe here!
TL;DR:
Climate groups have spent nearly $200k on digital ads supporting the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 since it was announced just two weeks ago. Climate groups that have run pro-IRA online ads in the past couple of weeks include Climate Power, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, EDF Action, NRDC Action Fund, Action for the Climate Emergency, League of Conservation Voters, and BlueGreen Alliance.
The only fossil fuel groups that have run digital ads opposing the IRA are the National Association of Manufacturers and American Action Network, both of which are sticking to the misleading argument that it’ll make energy prices even more expensive. The largest spender overall against the bill is PhRMA.
Dark money group United for Clean Power has spent over $100k on astroturfing digital ads that target progressive House members to try to peel off their votes, but following an investigation from FWIW and Popular Information, all of their ads have been taken down. 💥
Discussion of the IRA on social media last week was relatively minimal, but we did find that Breitbart used good news about the health of the Great Barrier Reef to undermine climate science.
National Digital Ad Spending on Climate
Meta (Facebook + Instagram)
First, here are the top 25 spenders nationwide on climate and energy-related ads on Meta platforms from last week:
Last week, we saw a surge in Meta political ad spending by climate groups, largely to push for the swift passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). We estimate that Climate Power, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, EDF Action, NRDC Action Fund, Action for the Climate Emergency, League of Conservation Voters, and BlueGreen Alliance have so far spent around $180k on Meta ads supporting the bill in the past 14 days. The biggest spenders of these are Climate Power and EDF, which have spent heavily targeting key Democrats like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Rep. Josh Gottheimer with ads like these:
Other climate-related ads this week: NRDC, in its ongoing struggle with Duke Energy in North Carolina, spent about $5.5k on ads pushing the energy utility to “come clean” and help the state “cut its carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 without any new gas infrastructure.” Similarly, Sierra Club is targeting AES Indiana for “raising our bills to pay for fossil fuels.”
While climate groups were astoundingly quick on the draw, we just haven’t seen a similar oppositional response to the IRA from fossil fuel groups on Facebook. Weeks after the bill was announced, there are still only a handful of groups that have run ads on these platforms opposing the bill. The biggest of which is PhRMA, which is threatened by provisions that would lower drug costs. Another is the National Association of Manufacturers, which has so far spent around $45k on ads claiming that “Raising taxes on manufacturers does nothing to spur new investments or promote energy security.” And others come from United for Clean Power, which we found out to be an elaborate astroturf campaign using a dark money shell group. They’ve spent $36k on Meta ads (and nearly $75k on Google ads) trying to peel off progressive members of the House, but after FWIW and Popular Information published our investigation of the group, all of their ads were deactivated.
Google + YouTube
Unlike on Facebook, some pretty serious money is going into pressuring vulnerable House Democrats to vote against the IRA, pretty much all of it coming from American Action Network. They’ve spent close to $124k on YouTube ads targeting eight House Democrats, all of them blaming Biden and the target Democrat for inflation because they “attacked American energy,” and then calling on them to “support American energy” or “stop Biden’s Build Back Better scheme.” The group also spent around $20k on similar Meta ads attacking Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire.
We also found at least one pro-climate group running pro-IRA YouTube ads. Running its first ads on the platform since last year, EDF has spent over $13k on ads lauding Sens. Sinema and Joe Manchin.
Overall, here’s how much these groups spent on Google political ads last week:
Snapchat
There were no new or ongoing political ad campaigns concerning climate change or energy on Snapchat. Overall, here’s how much groups have invested in the platform so far this year:
Climate & Energy Ads in the 2022 Elections
We identified several digital ad campaigns about energy from battleground midterm campaigns across the country.
GA-SEN: Herschel Walker continues to parrot Big Oil in his digital ads: “We have an energy crisis, and one way we can fix this problem is by making America ENERGY INDEPENDENT. It's time to stop depending on other countries – especially those who hate us – for the resources we have right here at home!”
MN-2: Tyler Kistner is attacking Rep. Angie Craig for supporting clean energy: “⬆️⛽Rising gas prices and record high inflation are straining many families. Out of touch Democrats, like Angie Craig, want to push their green energy agenda with no consideration for struggling Americans. Let's make life affordable again.”
NY-3: Republican George Devolder Santos is using Big Oil rhetoric: “America is ready to move to complete and total energy independence. It’s time to restore American energy independence and create new jobs.”
NY-11: Republican incumbent Nicole Malliotakis is also using Big Oil rhetoric practically verbatim: “Under Joe Biden, America lost its energy independence and gas prices doubled…Restore America’s energy independence to lower gas prices.”
NY-19: Republican Marc Molinaro leaned on the latest right-wing non-controversy: “Gas prices are up nearly 60% and Joe Biden is selling oil from our nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. Have you had enough of Biden’s anti-American energy policies?”
TX-GOV: Beto O’Rourke is playing for an all-of-the-above energy strategy: “As governor, I will work tirelessly to ensure that Texas remains the global energy leader for generations to come. Together, we will protect our state’s oil and gas jobs while creating additional high-wage energy jobs in wind, solar, geothermal power generation, hydrogen-fueled energy, energy efficiency, and more.”
Reaching Frontline Communities
ReNew Arizona has spent around $1k on Meta ads as part of a greater campaign to reform the state’s energy grid, claiming that “creating a regional transmission organization in the Western United States by connecting disparate electrical grids. These interconnections make it easier for states to diversify their resources leading to lower electricity prices.” Additionally, they’ve boosted the work of the Biden administration to improve renewable energy development in the state.
What’s trending organically?
Last week, the most engaged Facebook posts mentioning climate change, energy, and related terms came again came from Heather Cox Richardson. Otherwise, there weren’t many very highly engaged posts about climate change or energy on Facebook last week. Notable exceptions include posts from PragerU and Breitbart, the latter of which used encouraging news about the Great Barrier Reef to further the argument that climate scientists are hypocritical liars. Additionally, one of the most engaged posts from the left was Occupy Democrats supporting a primary threat to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema when her support of the Inflation Reduction Act was still uncertain.
Overall, here’s how the most engaged content on Facebook breaks down:
On Instagram, the most engaged posts about climate or energy came from NASA, which shared a stunning photo of the Arctic Ocean to discuss how observations of that region can help us better understand climate change. After that outlier, the most engaged post came from Save the Reef, which re-shared footage from April of NASA scientist Peter Kalmus getting arrested after chaining himself to a Chase bank to protest climate inaction. Breitbart’s above post about the Great Barrier Reef got nearly 80k interactions on Instagram, about twice as many as it got on Facebook.
Overall, here’s how the most engaged content on Instagram mentioning climate, energy, and related terms breaks down:
That’s it for Climate Monitor this week. As always, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop us a line by shooting an email to nick@fwiwmedia.com.