It’s time to ban the advertising of high carbon products – like flights abroad and fossil-fuelled cars

As governments battle the climate emergency, it is insane to have billions pouring into advertising the industries fuelling the greatest threat to humanity, writes Donnachadh McCarthy

‘The UK is a major global advertising hub’

Amsterdam has become the world’s first city to ban high-carbon adverts on its metro system. As of 23 May, adverts promoting flights and fossil fuelled cars were banned – and I applaud it.

As governments battle the climate emergency, it is insane to have billions pouring into advertising the industries fuelling the greatest threat to humanity. It is time for a global ban on advertising for fossil fuel corporations and high-carbon products – just as governments realised that in order to tackle the tobacco health crisis, they needed to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

In fact, there are many parallels between the battle to ban tobacco adverts and the new campaigns to ban fossil fuel adverts. These were outlined in the report “Smoking out the Climate”, which pointed out that pollution from burning fossil fuels contain many of the same toxins as tobacco smoke – and both industries pursue similar marketing strategies to block or delay regulations.