Progressive environmental advocate wins seat on powerful utility regulator in Louisiana
Also inside: Fusion energy leads the conversation on Instagram, while conservatives dominate Facebook
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:
Digital ad spending among climate and energy organizations was way down last week, with 2022’s elections in the rearview mirror.
NRDC Action Fund launched new Snapchat ad campaigns in New Mexico and Colorado, urging Governors to take state-level environmental policy action
A progressive newcomer and environmental advocate won a seat on Lousiana’s powerful Public Service Commission, ousting an entrenched incumbent (with the help of a digital-first campaign)
Facebook + Instagram Advertising
Here were the top 20 climate and energy-related advertisers on Facebook and Instagram last week:
The highest-spending advertiser among these organizations was once again the American Chemistry Council. In fact, the pro-plastics lobbying group was the number two political advertiser across all of Facebook last week, just behind PhRMA. The organization spent the lion’s share of its ad budget promoting fluffy, buzzword-filled content that is likely meaningless to the millions of Americans who were served the ads.
One consistent pro-Climate advertiser on Facebook ads is Potential Energy Coalition’s “Science Moms” page. Over the past month, the group has spent a whopping $150,000 promoting one video ad nationwide warning Americans that we’re “running out of time” to address climate change. You can watch the ad here >>
Way down South, progressive newcomer and environmental advocate Davante Lewis won a seat on Lousiana’s powerful Public Service Commission on Saturday, beating an entrenched incumbent. According to the Times-Picayune, Lewis “called for a quicker transition to renewables, an effort to harden the electric grid in the face of increasingly severe hurricanes and a crackdown on excessive fees by Entergy and other utilities.”
He had the support of a PAC called Keep the Lights On, which was backed by national enviro groups like the Environmental Defense Fund. Keep the Lights On spent over $30,000 on Facebook ads over the past month.
Google + YouTube Advertising
Like the previous week, there were only a handful of environmental-related electoral advertisers on Google & YouTube last week. They were: Keep the Lights On ($6,400), NRDC Action Fund PAC ($6,100), LCV Victory Fund ($2,800), and NC WARN ($1,000)
Snapchat Advertising
There were a handful of new Snapchat ad campaigns launched last week. Here’s a snapshot of climate and energy-related Snapchat advertising year to date.
The most notable was from NRDC Action Fund, which launched new ads targeting users in New Mexico and Colorado urging additional state-level actions on lowering emissions.
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:
Overall, engagement on climate and energy-related posts was down on Facebook last week - the top-performing post only received 25,000 interactions. However, of the posts that received the most engagement (likes, shares, comments), the majority came from anti-climate or conservative voices.
This video depicting violence against pro-climate protestors (shared by American Wire) received the most interactions, followed by a graphic from Judicial Watch calling on U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry to be investigated. Other predictably anti-climate posts came from Sen. Tim Scott decrying oil prices and Ben Shapiro attacking electric vehicles. The only pro-climate post in the Top 10 last week came from actor and activist Aidan Gallagher, who celebrated a new electric race car.
Meanwhile, on Instagram, here were the top-performing feed posts (excludes Reels & stories) related to climate and energy last week:
As you can see, the conversation on Instagram was much more favorable to the pro-climate movement. Leonardo DiCaprio nabbed the top two highest-performing posts sharing his thoughts on big conservation news in Honduras and Argentina.
A New York Times interactive feature about “the Climate Impact of Your Neighborhood” spread widely on Instagram as well, receiving over 55,000 interactions in a few days.
And finally, BBC News and Washington Post received loads of engagement on posts excitedly sharing the news of the Department of Energy’s fusion breakthrough in the context of clean energy.
Big on TikTok
We’re going to start including a few new climate-related TikToks each week that are racking up the views.
This “bardcore” music video has been watched over 700,000 times, as has this holiday-themed singalong:
Weekly Reading
The Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released its final report before Republicans take over the House. See the thread + report here >>
The Climate Impact of Your Neighborhood, Mapped (NYT, 12/13)
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