Pro-climate Facebook ad spending reaches 2022 high with GOTV campaigns
Plus, a look at how discussion around Hurricane Ian and climate change played out on social media
Welcome to Climate Monitor, a weekly digest of the digital tactics and strategies polluters and climate-action groups use 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. Tell your colleagues to subscribe here!
TL;DR:
As more groups try to turn out climate-minded voters with Meta ads, spending on the company’s platforms by pro-climate groups reached a 2022 peak of nearly $650k last week.
Joining the likes of Climate Power, LCV Victory Fund, and Somos Votantes, are EDF Action and Protect Our Winters, which are looking to turn out young voters in Pennsylvania and western states, respectively.
Pro-natural gas group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future launched new pro-renewable energy digital ads, and the American Petroleum Institute launched new GOTV ads targeting older voters.
We noticed a significant uptick of candidates from both parties in competitive U.S. House races running digital ads talking about gas prices; Democrats usually talk about taking on Big Oil, while Republicans usually accuse their opponents of “voting for higher gas prices.”
Right-wing rhetoric around climate change and Hurricane Ian was far more prevalent on Facebook, while rhetoric linking climate change and the likelihood of big storms like Ian was more common on Instagram last week.
National Digital Ad Spending on Climate
Facebook + Instagram
First, here are the top 25 spenders nationwide on climate and energy-related ads on Meta platforms from last week:
Last week, pro-climate groups made their biggest investment in Meta political ads of any given week so far this year, spending nearly $650k on the platform. Almost half of that spend - $290k - came from groups running digital ads trying to turn out young voters and/or support Democrats in the rapidly approaching midterms: Climate Power Action, Climate Power, Action for the Climate Emergency, NRDC Action Votes, Somos Votantes, and LCV Victory Fund.
On top of growing their digital ad spend last week from the previous week, most of these groups are also continuing to roll out new ads each week. Climate Power and Somos Votantes started partnering on their Meta ads, which seek to improve President Joe Biden’s climate creds with young Millenials and Gen Zers in states with crucial midterm races like PA, GA, MI, CA, AZ, NV, and WI. LCV Victory Fund is also upping their investment in digital ads using the Inflation Reduction Act to support Mandela Barnes in WI and John Fetterman in PA, but interestingly the latter ads’ targeting excludes a slew of zip codes around eastern PA. Also active in the Keystone State is EDF Action, which is highlighting extreme heat and Pennsylvania’s emerging clean energy economy to implicitly support Josh Shapiro for governor. Finally, Protect Our Winters, the outdoor recreation-focused pro-climate group, is also running a “Stoke the Vote” campaign targeting young adults in western urban areas in AZ, CO, MT, NV, and UT.
Also running pro-clean energy ads last week was the pro-natural gas group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future. The group just finished an ad campaign targeting young adults in Washington DC calling on the federal government to invest in natural gas infrastructure. And just this week, they launched three new ads pushing the greenwashing argument that “natural gas will help us to reach climate goals faster, reliably, and affordably.” Other new ads from pro-fossil fuel groups came from the American Petroleum Institute, which just launched brand-new GOTV ads primarily targeting older voters in CA, FL, OH, OK, NC, PA, and TX.
Google + YouTube
We didn’t identify any new ad campaigns on Google or YouTube about climate change or energy last week, but we did find that Yes on 30: Clean Air California, significantly increased their spending on the platform to support the California proposition, spending nearly $170k last week compared to $27k the previous week on Google Search ads.
Overall, here’s how spending on climate- and energy-related ad spending on Google + YouTube last week breaks down:
Snapchat
NextGen Climate Action Committee just launched a GOTV Snap campaign targeting metro areas in key swing states, including PA, AZ, NV, and WI. However, instead of focusing on climate issues, they’re framing the upcoming midterms as a choice between the Trumpian mob and young Black power.
Overall, here’s how much has been spent on climate, clean energy, and conservation ads on Snap so far this year:
Climate & Energy Ads in the 2022 Elections
We identified quite a few new digital ad campaigns about climate change and energy from battleground midterm campaigns across the country.
CA-22: Republican David Valadao launched a static ad attacking his Democratic opponent: “Salas voted with radical environmentalists to increase the price of gas! Rudy Salas’ liberal votes are hurting Valley families.”
CA-42: Republican Ken Calvert launched a new video ad attacking his Democratic opponent: “Gas prices are on the rise again. I want to increase American energy production to lower prices. Will Rollins wants to stop American energy production, which will increase prices.”
CA-47: Democrat Katie Porter launched a new ad attacking Big Oil: “Oil companies are raking in record profits while they raise our gas prices. That’s why I passed a bill to stop price gouging and get gas costs down.”
CO-07: Republican Erik Aadland is trying to thread the needle between Big Oil rhetoric and environmentalism: “Protecting our environment while cutting energy costs should not be red or blue. It's time to explore clean energy sources and lower the cost of energy altogether. It's time to make our economy more affordable and more sustainable.”
GA-SEN: Raphael Warnock launched a straight-to-camera ad touting the Inflation Reduction Act: “It brings to us historic investments in addressing the very real problem of climate change. Clean energy, clean energy jobs of the future, investments at historic levels.”
MI-10: Republican John James echoes Big Oil rhetoric in a new video ad: “The Biden Agenda means MORE layoffs for Michigan auto workers…They’re shutting down Line 5, sending our energy to China, while you’re struggling to make ends meet…I’ll restore common sense, make America energy independent, and bring our manufacturing jobs back to Michigan.”
Reaching Frontline Communities
The Wilderness Society themselves made their biggest investment in Meta ads last week of any given week this year, spending $43k, in part to promote two BIPOC-centered conservation education programs. The first, the IMAGO Initiative, focuses on Indigenous-led conservation in Alaska with a webinar on Friday, October 7th. The second, the Public Lands Curriculum, discusses both the racist and Black- and Native-led conservation efforts throughout American history. And looking at the Wilderness Society’s detailed targeting, we see that they’re targeting users with interests in subjects like Maya Angelou, Mexico, HispanicTV, African-American literature, and feminist philosophy, so we can infer that these ads are also targeted at BIPOC communities nationwide.
What’s trending organically?
Last week, the top Facebook post mentioning climate change, energy, or related terms came from Newsmax, which criticized President Joe Biden for urging gas stations, banks, and cell phone services to lower costs and eliminate “junk fees” such as overdraft charges. Highly engaged posts about climate change last week were otherwise largely from climate skeptics. Benny Johnson and Townhall both shared clips of Speaker Nancy Pelosi getting booed at last week’s Global Citizen music festival in New York City while she delivered remarks to attendees about the historic climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. The moment was almost exclusively covered by right-wing outlets like Fox News, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, Newsweek, and the Washington Examiner.
We’ll also note that the most engaged Facebook posts connecting Hurricane Ian to climate change also largely came from right-wing pages, though the engagement was relatively minimal. The right-wing web tried to spread a CNN clip in which a meteorologist calmly declined to connect this individual storm to climate change. Even still, climate-skeptic pages from MRCTV to the Washington Examiner twisted that into “CNN's Don Lemon got SHUT DOWN when he tried to push the left's radical climate change agenda.” The top 10 posts about this clip got just 67k interactions. And FWIW, the top post from any of Florida’s major statewide candidates about Ian came from Charlie Crist, which got just 4k interactions.
Overall, though, we found that engagement on posts mentioning climate change and other related terms was even lower than the previous week. Here’s a breakdown of the top posts:
On Instagram, the top post came from Angelina Jolie, who used her platform to highlight the climate catastrophe that is still unfolding in Pakistan; former Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi did the same in meeting with Sen. Cory Booker. The most engaged Instagram posts about climate change otherwise came entirely from pro-climate action pages including Ian Somerhalder and Leonardo DiCaprio. Most of these posts touched on either Hurricane Ian (unlike on Facebook, the connection between climate change and this storm’s intensity was more openly discussed here) or the mass feminist protests in Iran.
Overall, here’s how the most engaged content last week 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.