Climate groups look to Georgia Senate runoff
Also inside: Dwight Schrute changes his name for climate action
Welcome to Climate Monitor, a weekly digest of the digital strategies polluters and pro-Climate groups are using to shift public opinion and move legislation. We’ve examined political ad spending on social media platforms, as well as what’s trending on social media. Here’s what we found:
Toplines:
LCV Victory Fund and the Environmental Voter Project have launched new digital ads in the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff on December 6th.
The top climate & energy-related spender on Facebook/Instagram ads last week was the American Chemistry Council, which spent $147,000.
Opponents of California’s Proposition 30 spent big on Google + YouTube ads in the campaign’s closing days.
The guy who played “Dwight Schrute” in The Office changed his name to raise awareness of climate change last week, and posts about the move went viral on Instagram.
Conservative mega-pages Dan Bongino and Sid Miller received moderate engagement on two Facebook posts defending American oil production last week.
Facebook + Instagram Advertising
Here were the top 20 climate and energy-related advertisers on Facebook and Instagram last week:
The American Chemistry Council, through its “America’s Plastic Makers” Facebook page, was the top-spending advertiser on Facebook last week, spending over $145,000 on Facebook ads promoting “sustainable innovation” and “advanced recycling.” The ads targeted users nationwide. Pipeline company Enbridge was also a top advertiser last week, running a greenwashing ad about the company’s efforts to reach “Net Zero” emissions by 2050.
Among environmental + pro-climate advertisers, LCV Victory Fund + Priorities USA Action’s joint campaign led spending last week. The majority of the two groups’ ad dollars went to final GOTV ads before Election Day, and now LCV has already launched a new video ad supporting Sen. Raphael Warnock in his runoff election on December 6th. Environmental Voter Project is also already spending in Georgia’s Senate runoff.
Google + YouTube Advertising
The majority of climate and energy-related spending last week was over California’s Prop. 30, which would have raised taxes on the rich to provide more clean energy incentives. The “No on 30” campaign spent over $500k on YouTube in the campaign’s final few days. Here’s an explainer on the proposition and why it failed.
Snapchat Advertising
According to Snapchat’s ad library, there were no new climate-related ad campaigns on the platform in the past week. Here’s where previously-mentioned campaigns stand YTD:
Trending on Social Media
How are climate and energy issues being discussed by Americans on social media?
Here were the top-performing public posts (by # of interactions) related to climate and energy on Facebook last week:
Before we dig in, we wanted to call your attention to a major change that will have a big impact on Facebook moving forward. Since the 2020 election, Facebook has slowly and steadily deprioritized political and news content on its platform. FWIW has a write-up here >>
OK, back to the chart: Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s daily missives, which mentioned the COP summit in Egypt, unsurprisingly received the most interactions last week. Following Richardson were two conservative posts from Dan Bongino and Sid Miller, attacking Democrats and defending American oil production:
Other top posts came from Mike Bloomberg and Joe Biden, both touting climate action during the COP summit.
Meanwhile, on Instagram, here were the top performing feed posts (excludes Reels & stories) related to climate and energy last week:
On that Instagram, a single climate-related story dominated the top-performing posts. “The Office” actor Rainn Wilson supposedly “changed his name” to call attention to the climate crisis. Dozens of major accounts shared the news. Here were the top two:
Weekly Reading
Must-reads at the intersection of the internet and climate:
Our Approach to Climate Misinformation (Meta, 11/4)
Twitter's climate vigilantes (Heated, 11/11)
Oil giant Occidental wants to remake itself as a climate tech leader in Texas (The Verge, 11/14)
Fossil fuel industry dupes media, quietly funds non-profits to block renewable energy (Popular Information, 11/15)
That’s it for this week! If you enjoyed reading this issue, give it a share on Twitter!
Climate Monitor is a product of the Digital Climate Coalition + FWIW Media. Tips/comments/questions? Email kyle@fwiwmedia.com