InfluenceMap’s Post

💡 Last week InfluenceMap released new research looking at How the US Gas Industry is Promoting LNG on Social Media. This analysis revealed a surge in spending on social media ads from the fossil fuel industry in response to Biden’s LNG export pause. It also highlighted the key narratives used in these ads. Let’s debunk some of those claims 👇 🌎 Narrative 1: LNG is a Climate Solution and a key part of the global energy transition. ❗ FACT CHECK ❗ LNG is still a fossil fuel, primarily methane, a greenhouse gas 86x more potent than CO2 over 20 years. Its production and transport emits significant GHGs, complicating its role as a "climate solution." 🗳 Narrative 2: The LNG Pause is politically motivated ❗FACT CHECK ❗ The pause aligns with IPCC guidelines urging rapid emissions cuts by moving away from fossil fuels, including fossil gas, to limit warming to 1.5°C. This decision reflects adherence to scientific advice, not just politics. 🏭 Narrative 3: Reducing LNG supply increases global reliance on coal ❗ FACT CHECK ❗ Current data doesn't strongly support this idea.The IEA projects significant declines in coal usage in key markets like the EU and China, and after decoupling from Russian gas, the EU chose to expand renewable energy infrastructure instead of developing coal. You can read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/etCf_-4V Read the coverage here: https://lnkd.in/e4bqkkV2 Mohammed Nasif Kendra Haven Ed Collins Dylan Tanner

 🛩 How US Airlines are attempting to Influence EU Climate Policy 🛩 Tomorrow marks the final vote on the non-CO2 monitoring, reporting and verification framework in the European Commission. This framework intends to track climate warming effects from aviation; which flights are included under the framework has been a key debate within the aviation industry and will be determined tomorrow. Documents obtained by InfluenceMap, and outlined in this evening’s article in The Guardian, reveal Airlines for America (A4A)'s opposition to the framework’s application to long-haul flights in direct meetings with the EU Commission. The group instead urges that the measure only applies to flights occurring within the EU. In contrast, easyjet, Ryanair, and Wizz Air urged the EU Commission to include long-haul flights, which likely contribute the majority of non-CO2 warming effects, asserting their omission breaches EU law. Lucca Ewbank - Transport Lead at InfluenceMap said: “Much of A4A’s lobbying against the mandatory reporting of aviation non-CO2 emissions is flying under the radar. We know that non-CO2 emissions may account for up to two-thirds of the climate impacts of flying. And yet US airlines are trying to dodge accountability for the extra climate warming long-haul flights may cause, and have pushed for the rule to only apply to intra-European flights. This stance is in keeping with the continuous attempts InfluenceMap has observed from the US airline industry to drastically weaken EU climate policy. A4A is not alone in its obstruction. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has also pushed back against proposed monitoring of long-haul flights. Both associations paradoxically use the argument of scientific uncertainty to oppose a policy designed to reduce uncertainty. However, such opposition is not unanimous within the aviation industry. There is a growing divide between laggard international aviation associations and more supportive EU low-cost carriers. As easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air push legal arguments for the inclusion of long-haul flights, and ensure the real-world impact of transatlantic flights are not hidden, the split within the industry widens.” Read the article in full here: https://lnkd.in/g57W73p2 Lucca Ewbank Ben Youriev Ed Collins Dylan Tanner Kitty Hatchley Ajit Niranjan

Still time to sign up to join InfluenceMap ✨ tomorrow ✨ for the first in a new series of webinars exploring Corporate Climate Policy Engagement and our methodology for scoring company alignment with science based benchmarks. https://lnkd.in/eKsBtv8V

📢 🚨 New Research: How the US Gas Industry is Promoting LNG on Social Media Our new analysis released today reveals a surge in spending on social media ads from the fossil fuel industry in response to Biden’s LNG export pause. Mohammed Nasif, US oil and gas analyst said: “The surge in online advertising following the LNG pause underscores how the fossil fuel industry is leveraging social media to spread misleading narratives on fossil gas. These ads, which promote false claims about LNG's environmental benefits, are distorting the public conversation and exemplifying the deceptive tactics that UN Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned in his call for advertisers to break ties with fossil fuel companies.” So what does the research show? 🚢This work analyses 11 industry associations - representing over 65% of the US LNG export capacity - and identified a surge in ad spending on Meta social media platforms from The American Petroleum Institute (API), the American Exploration and Production Council (AXPC), and the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) following the Biden administration’s announcement to pause LNG export licence approvals. Further analysis revealed that the US Chamber of Commerce and PAGE Coalition also launched social media ad campaigns promoting LNG. 💵 These five groups collectively spent $140k+ on 100+ ads promoting US LNG, reaching 8.5M+ impressions. ❌No LNG-specific ads were detected in the previous 6 months, suggesting this was a coordinated effort post-pause to influence public perception. 🗳️Many of these ads appeared in key election states such as California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. 📄The work identified two key narratives repeated in these ads, both of which InfluenceMap assess as inaccurate when evaluated against science based recommendations: 1. That LNG is promoted as a climate solution  2. That it is an essential tool for maintaining domestic and geopolitical security ✍️ API, AXPC, TXOGA and the US Chamber also opposed the LNG pause by jointly signing a letter to Secretary Granholm in March. This unified response highlights the industry’s mobilization against recent regulatory changes. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/etCf_-4V Mohammed Nasif Caroline Heneghan Dylan Tanner Ed Collins Kitty Hatchley Kendra Haven

Join InfluenceMap's LobbyMap Director Ed Collins for the first in a new series of webinars exploring corporate climate policy engagement and our methodology for scoring company alignment with science based benchmarks. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eKsBtv8V Dylan Tanner Caroline Heneghan Kitty Hatchley

📣 💻 Advancing AI Strategies to Combat Climate Disinformation : A New Milestone We’re hugely excited to share that InfluenceMap’s Director Dylan Tanner and AI lead Harri Rowlands have partnered with Christopher Manning and Gaku Morio of Stanford University to publish a new paper, which has been presented at the Association for Computational Linguistics Conference this week. "Predicting Narratives of Climate Obstruction in Social Media Ads" In this paper, they explore how social media ads are being used to disseminate climate obstruction narratives—akin to strategies employed by the tobacco industry - and using natural language processing (NLP) models have developed a tool to classify these narratives effectively, even in data-constrained scenarios. This is a brilliant step on the road to using NLP models and other programming tools to further increase our capacity for identifying and challenging the use of climate disinformation around the world. 📖 Read the full paper here: https://lnkd.in/ep5mXmSa 🖥 Visit the project website: https://lnkd.in/e_qEvhKD #NLP #ClimateChange #SocialMedia #MachineLearning #ACL2024 #AI

Huge thanks to GreenFin 24 for giving us the opportunity to summarize what we do - and how we drive change - in just one minute. It’s the kind of challenge that really focuses the mind, and Mohammed Nasif was more than up to the task. Watch the full talk here: https://lnkd.in/ewmCsRuf If you’re interested in our analysis of the US Chamber of Commerce’s climate policy engagement, and how it continues to be misaligned with its members - take a look at our latest briefing here: https://lnkd.in/gpDJXfnc Kendra Haven Ed Collins Dylan Tanner Grant Harrison Julia Vann Kitty Hatchley

📢 Our latest briefing on the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable is now live. Our research finds that industry associations the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable are aligning with their most regressive members in taking legal action against the SEC's climate disclosure rule. The research shows that members of these powerful industry groups have diverse views on regulated climate disclosure. However, yet again, these associations are taking the 'lowest common denominator' position. Also in the briefing: 🚩 The US Chamber's multi-pronged approach to opposing the SEC rule, including 19 meetings with SEC officials, 9 comment letters, and attempts to shape wider public opinion through research and webinars 🚩 The US Chamber's submission of a joint brief in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals with conservative think tank the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). The NCPPR has a history of climate denial, and in 2023 their general council wrote “the decarbonization of the world, or even western economies just isn’t going to happen. Probably ever. And everything will be fine”. This despite the fact that we know that ~94% of the US Chamber members we track have recognized the science of climate change. Read the full briefing here: https://lnkd.in/gpDJXfnc Rebecca Vaughan Ed Collins Cleo Rank Dylan Tanner Kitty Hatchley

💥 InfluenceMap recently released a new analysis of 50 years of oil and gas lobbying against the energy transition. It shows that some of the world’s most powerful oil and gas associations - The American Petroleum Institute (API), Fuels Europe and Fuels Industry UK - have been using the same playbook of narratives to delay the global energy transition since as early as 1967. In May this year, the US Budget Committee held a hearing entitled 'Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid, Accountability for Climate Change'. This showed more clearly than ever that oil and gas companies have known about the negative impacts of their industry on the climate for the last 50 years. This report adds a detailed analysis of the narratives that were developed - as early as the 1960s - to safeguard the industry, and how entrenched they have become in the pro-fossil fuel playbook. The three key narratives identified are: 🛢️Affordability and Energy Security 🛢️Policy Neutrality 🛢️Solution Skepticism The report author Tom Holen reflected on the research this week for Social Europe “By following this playbook, the oil-and-gas industry associations have sown doubt among policy-makers, over the viability of solutions and the need for zero-carbon technologies, while stoking fear about the implications of the energy transition from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, their individual corporate members, particularly in Europe, have been able publicly to support policy on technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and EVs while simultaneously advocating expansion of fossil fuels behind the scenes, funding these associations to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. This corporate ‘doublespeak’ enables the fossil-fuel lobby to undermine climate progress." "We must also ensure policy-makers are vigilant and informed, able to identify and call out the outdated and misleading arguments that are compromising effective climate policy and jeopardizing the realization of climate goals." 🔎Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eWVtMwtg ⬇ Download the report: https://lnkd.in/gFAJtgYw Robin Wilson Dylan Tanner Sofia Shehana Basheer Kitty Hatchley