Advertising for fossil fuel industries around the world must be banned to save the world from climate change, the head of the United Nations said on Wednesday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called the coal, oil and gas industries “godfathers of climate chaos” who had been twisting the truth and deceiving the public for decades.

Just as cigarette advertising was banned because of the high health risk, the same should now apply to fossil fuels, he said.

His suggestions were “shots” at the industries that are primarily responsible for global warming. New studies have shown that the rate of temperature increase is steadily increasing and that global heat rates have gone downhill.

What the data show about the rates of heat increase

Figures from the EU’s climate agency confirm that each of the past 12 months has set a new global temperature record for the time of year. The high temperatures are due to human-caused climate change, although it was also given a small boost by the El Niño climate phenomenon.

While the El Niño phenomenon is waning and we expect it will soon bring a pause to consecutive months of ever-increasing temperature records, degrees are set to rise in the long term due to the emissions of gases from human activities, which warm the planet.

Last year was the warmest on record and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday that the record could be broken again this year.

A group of about 50 leading scientists reported that the rate of human-caused global warming continued to increase.

They found that continued high emissions of greenhouse gases mean the world is moving closer to breaching the symbolic 1.5C warming mark in the long term.

Guterres rings the climate change bell

To try to prevent this outcome, the UN Secretary-General called for faster political action on climate change and a “crackdown” on the fossil fuel industry.

“We must confront directly those in the fossil fuel industry who have shown an unrelenting zeal to block progress – for decades.”

He said many in the oil, gas and coal industries had engaged in “shameless greenwashing” with lobbying, legal action and massive advertising campaigns.

“I urge every country to ban advertising for fossil fuel companies,” he told an audience in New York.

“And I urge the media and tech companies to stop doing fossil fuel ads.”

What recipients of subsidies from fossil fuel industries have said

The BBC has approached international fossil fuel producers for comment.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has previously pledged to crack down on misleading environmental claims, while the European Union recently announced a new law to tackle the problem.

Mr. Guterres’ call for a complete ban on all fossil fuel advertising goes further, but it has no legal standing and the United Nations has no means of enforcing the idea.

However, it will be seen as a boost to activists who have fought against sponsorships and advertising from coal, oil and gas companies.

Both the Hay and Edinburgh book festivals recently suspended sponsorship from investment firm Baillie Gifford following controversies over links to fossil fuel companies.

Sport is one of the biggest areas of fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship, with football having a long relationship with oil and gas producers.

Human health concerns have banned alcohol and tobacco sponsorships from football in the past, and green campaigners will hope Mr Guterres’ support will see fossil fuels go the same way.
In his speech, Mr Guterres stressed that time is of the essence, with the effects of warming already being felt – such as the recent killer heatwaves in Asia or floods in South America.

Climate scientists are sounding the alarm

Record-breaking global heat means average temperatures over the past 12 months were 1.63C above “pre-industrial levels” in the late 1800s, according to Copernicus figures.

“We live in unprecedented times,” says Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.

This is not a violation of the Paris climate agreement, in which nearly 200 countries pledged to try to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change.

Overall, the past decade has been about 1.2 C warmer than pre-industrial levels.

But a new study released today by a team of leading climate scientists has highlighted just how close the world is to a long-term breach of the 1.5C price.

They estimate that by early 2024 the world could emit only about 200 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) with a 50/50 chance of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius – up from 500 billion tonnes in early 2020.

At current emission rates, this ‘carbon budget’ could be exhausted by 2029 – although the world would probably not exceed the long-term limit of 1.5C until a few years later, due to the effects of greenhouse gas warming outside of CO2.

There is uncertainty about exactly how the climate system will respond to these factors, and of course whether countries will make urgent emissions cuts.

“We have little control over this as a society,” says lead author Professor Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Center for Climate at the University of Leeds.

Despite the gloom, there has been some recent progress, with particularly rapid growth in renewable electricity from wind and solar.

Greenhouse gas emissions are also showing signs of plateauing – but still at record high levels.

They must fall quickly if global targets are to have any chance of being met, with every fraction of a degree of warming exacerbating climate impacts.

“Every degree matters, every tenth degree matters,” says Ko Barrett, WMO Deputy Secretary-General.

“The difference between 1.5 C and say 2 C could mean […] dire consequences, for coastal communities, for fragile ecosystems and the biodiversity contained within them, and for the world’s glaciers and frozen areas.”