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Climate
'The Well-Oiled Plan': Short Film Targets Fossil Fuel Industry's PR Tricks
"Fossil fuels are making people sick—and the companies behind them are spending millions on advertising and PR to cover it up," said a leader at the Global Climate and Health Alliance.
Oct 14, 2025
With less than a month until the next United Nations climate summit, filmmakers and campaigners on Tuesday released an animation that calls out the fossil fuel industry's use of Big Tobacco's public relations tactics in under three minutes.
The Well-Oiled Plan was created by Daniel Bird and Adam Levy at Wit & Wisdom, in association with the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), a consortium of over 200 health professional and civil society groups. It "comprises scenes spun off from My Pet Footprint," a comedy feature film about climate grief that Wit & Wisdom is developing with Greenpeace.
"My Pet Footprint plays with the idea that consciences are removable," Bird, the director, said in a statement. "Decades ago, the fossil fuel industry decided business as usual was worth any price, and it takes an incredible deficit of conscience to be able to do that when that price is the demise of civilization and possibly even life in general."
With the new short, he said, "we took a direct route from smoking as an evil perpetuated on individuals, and the nascent public relations industry around that, to smoking as an industrial process imposed upon the global population. The only difference now is that the PR machine has become all the more sophisticated, and, dare we say it, successful."
The short film—starring comedians Cody Dahler and Michael Spicer, and actors Jaylah Moore-Ross and Sinead Phelps—comes as Big Oil has faced mounting scrutiny for its decades of burying, denying, and downplaying the impacts of its products. Since the #ExxonKnew exposés a decade ago, more journalism, scholarly research, lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, and congressional reports and hearings have further revealed major polluters' climate disinformation efforts.
In 2020, Fossil Free Media launched Clean Creatives, a project targeting public relations and advertising agencies that serve Big Oil. Since then, 2,700 creatives and 1,500 agencies have signed the campaign's pledge to decline future contracts with the industry. Despite that progress, polluters continue to dump money into PR and ads from firms that will work for them.
"Fossil fuels are making people sick—and the companies behind them are spending millions on advertising and PR to cover it up," said Shweta Narayan, campaign lead at GCHA—which last month released a report detailing "the health toll of fossil fuels" for at every stage of the production cycle and across the human lifespan.
"The PR and communications industry must commit to fossil-free contracts," she argued. "Firms cannot claim to advance sustainability while helping fossil fuel companies greenwash their image or delay climate policy. We call on agencies to adopt fossil-free policies, disclose all fossil fuel clients, and ensure their work does not obstruct the transition to clean, healthy energy systems."
"We call on agencies to adopt fossil-free policies, disclose all fossil fuel clients, and ensure their work does not obstruct the transition to clean, healthy energy systems."
Narayan noted that "the same PR firms spreading fossil fuel disinformation are also working with health organizations—a clear conflict of interest for health. Through the Break the Fossil Influence—Fossil-Free Health Communications commitment, health organizations are leading by example, by cutting ties with those agencies."
Clean Creatives executive director Duncan Meisel stressed that "health organizations should not be hiring agencies with fossil fuel clients."
"The fossil fuel industry is one of the leading causes of long-term illness and premature death worldwide, and agencies that help sell coal, oil, or gas products have a conflict of interest when it comes to organizations and companies that promote public health," he continued. "At the same time, the public health sector has enormous leverage to use their procurement policies to accelerate the marketing industry's exit from fossil fuels."
Hundreds of organizations including GCHA are also calling on Brazil, host of the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), to "make clear that unchecked corporate influence is not compatible with climate leadership."
GCHA executive director Jeni Miller on Tuesday urged the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) "to draw a red line" and declare that "no PR or advertising firms that continue to work for fossil fuel companies should be allowed to shape the story of the COP or the climate crisis."
"For all future COPs, governments and the UNFCCC must adopt clear conflict-of-interest rules and ethical procurement standards for all communications, PR, and event contractors—just as the World Health Organization does under its tobacco control framework," she said. "Just as the health community once stood up to Big Tobacco and its advertising, now it's time to stand up to Big Oil."
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World's Forests 'Still in Crisis' Halfway to Deadline to End Deforestation: Report
"The 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment is out and can broadly be summarized as, 'We suck,'" said one climate scientist.
Oct 14, 2025
The world's governments are falling far short of their goal to tackle forest destruction by the end of the decade, according to a key annual report published Monday.
At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Scotland, 145 countries adopted the Forest Declaration, pledging to end deforestation and forest degradation and restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems by 2030.
Annual Forest Declaration Assessment reports—which are published by a coalition of dozens of NGOs—track progress toward achieving the objectives established at COP29. Although stopping and reversing deforestation by 2030 is crucial to averting the worst consequences of the climate and biodiversity crises, every annual report has highlighted how the world is failing to adequately protect its forests.
This year is no different. According to the 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment, "in 2024, forests continued to experience large-scale destruction, with nearly 8.1 million hectares permanently lost globally."
"Primary tropical forests continue to be cleared at alarming rates, with 6.73 million hectares lost last year alone, releasing 3.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases," the report continues. "Losses in forested Key Biodiversity Areas reached 2.2 million hectares, up 47% from the previous year, threatening irreplaceable habitats."
The assessment notes:
Deforestation remains overwhelmingly driven by clearance for permanent agriculture, accounting for an average of about 86% of global deforestation over the past decade, with other drivers such as mining exerting growing pressure. Because deforestation commodities are both consumed domestically and exported internationally, deforestation represents a systemic problem; national land-use policies and practices are deeply intertwined with global demand. This highlights the urgent need for structural change in how production and trade are regulated, monitored, and ultimately governed.
Furthermore, according to the report, "financial flows are still grossly misaligned with forest goals, with harmful subsidies outweighing green subsidies by over 200:1," and "despite new pledges, the flow of funds to forest countries and local actors remains far below what’s necessary to deliver on 2030 goals."
"'Global forests remain in crisis' is not the headline we hoped to write in 2025," the publication states. "As the halfway point in the decade of ambitious forest pledges, this year was meant to be a turning point. Despite the indispensable role of forests, the verdict is clear: We are off track."
The news isn't all bad—the report highlights how "restoration efforts are expanding, with at least 10.6 million hectares hosting forest restoration projects worldwide. But global data remain too fragmented to determine whether the world is recovering forests at the scale required."
The assessment offers the following recommendations for policymakers:
- Governments must act to value forests, including through regulations and pricing in the real cost of deforestation;
- Action must become integrated, not siloed, as the climate emergency, biodiversity crisis, and social inequality are all interconnected; and
- Decision-making must be inclusive and participatory, as rapid progress toward 2030 forest goals requires the participation of Indigenous peoples, local communities, women, and civil society.
"At the halfway point to 2030, the world should be seeing a steep decline in deforestation," the assessment says. "Instead, the global deforestation curve has not begun to bend."
The new Forest Declaration Assessment comes ahead of next month's UN climate conference, or COP30, in Belém, located in the Brazilian Amazon.
“This COP30 is extremely crucial for us to move these pledges to actions,” Sassan Saatchi, founder of the non-profit CTrees and a former NASA scientist, told Climate Home News on Tuesday.
"The nice thing about COP30 being in Belém," Saatchi added, "is that there is a recognition that the Global South has really come forward to say: ‘We are going to solve the climate problem, even though we may not have been historically the cause of this climate change.'"
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Nationwide Backlash Brewing Against Big Tech's Energy-Devouring AI Data Centers
"For any Democrat who wants to think politically, what an opportunity,” said Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The people are way ahead of the politicians.”
Oct 14, 2025
America's biggest tech firms are facing an increasing backlash over the energy-devouring data centers they are building to power artificial intelligence.
Semafor reported on Monday that opposition to data center construction has been bubbling up in communities across the US, as both Republican and Democratic local officials have been campaigning on promises to clamp down on Silicon Valley's most expensive and ambitious projects.
In Virginia's 30th House of Delegates district, for example, both Republican incumbent Geary Higgins and Democratic challenger John McAuliff have been battling over which one of them is most opposed to AI data center construction in their region.
In an interview with Semafor, McAuliff said that opposition to data centers in the district has swelled up organically, as voters recoil at both the massive amount of resources they consume and the impact that consumption is having on both the environment and their electric bills.
"We’re dealing with the biggest companies on the planet,” he explained. “So we need to make sure Virginians are benefiting off of what they do here, not just paying for it.”
NPR on Tuesday similarly reported that fights over data center construction are happening nationwide, as residents who live near proposed construction sites have expressed concerns about the amount of water and electricity they will consume at the expense of local communities.
"A typical AI data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the largest under development will consume 20 times more," NPR explained, citing a report from the International Energy Agency. "They also suck up billions of gallons of water for systems to keep all that computer hardware cool."
Data centers' massive water use has been a consistent concern across the US. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Monday that residents of the township of East Vincent, Pennsylvania have seen their wells dry up recently, and they are worried that a proposed data center would significantly exacerbate water shortages.
This is what has been happening in Mansfield, Georgia, a community that for years has experienced problems with its water supply ever since tech giant Meta began building a data center there in 2018.
As BBC reported back in August, residents in Mansfield have resorted to buying bottled water because their wells have been delivering murky water, which they said wasn't a problem before the Meta data center came online. Although Meta has commissioned a study that claims to show its data center hasn't affected local groundwater quality, Mansfield resident Beverly Morris told BBC she isn't buying the company's findings.
"My everyday life, everything has been affected," she said, in reference to the presence of the data center. "I've lived through this for eight years. This is not just today, but it is affecting me from now on."
Anxieties about massive power consumption are also spurring the backlash against data centers, and recent research shows these fears could be well founded.
Mike Jacobs, a senior energy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, last month released an analysis estimating that data centers had added billions of dollars to Americans' electric bills across seven different states in recent years. In Virginia alone, for instance, Jacobs found that household electric bills had subsidized data center transmission costs to the tune of $1.9 billion in 2024.
"The big tech companies rushing to build out massive data centers are worth trillions of dollars, yet they’re successfully exploiting an outdated regulatory process to pawn billions of dollars of costs off on families who may never even use their products," Jacobs explained. "People deserve to understand the full extent of how data centers in their communities may affect their lives and wallets. This is a clear case of the public unknowingly subsidizing private companies' profits."
While the backlash to data centers hasn't yet become a national issue, Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), predicted in an interview with Semafor that opposition to their construction would be a winning political issue for any politician savvy enough to get ahead of it.
“For any Democrat who wants to think politically, what an opportunity,” he said. “The people are way ahead of the politicians.”
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'Our New Reality': Planet Reaches First Climate Tipping Point With Coral Reef Dieback
“We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” said one researcher. “This is our new reality.”
Oct 13, 2025
Less than two years after researchers at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom warned that the world was nearing numerous climate tipping points, a report out Monday warns that one such "point of no return" has already been reached, with warm-water coral reefs "experiencing unprecedented dieback."
Surging global temperatures, especially in recent years, have pushed the world's coral reefs into a state of widespread decline, with the worst bleaching event on record taking place since 2023. More than 84% of the world's reefs have been impacted.
In the Global Tipping Points Report 2025 released Monday, the researchers warned that "the central estimate" of coral reefs' "tipping point of 1.2°C global warming has been crossed," with planetary heating now at about 1.4°C above preindustrial levels.
The warming waters have caused widespread bleaching of coral reefs, which impacts the nearly a million species of marine animals and organisms that rely on them to support some of the planet's most diverse ecosystems.
“Unless we return to global mean surface temperatures of 1.2°C (and eventually to at least 1°C) as fast as possible, we will not retain warm-water reefs on our planet at any meaningful scale,” the report says. Minimizing non-climatic stressors, particularly improved reef management, can give reefs the best chance of surviving under what must be a minimal exceedance of their thermal tipping point."
The decline of coral reefs also leaves coastal communities without natural barriers against storm surge, compounds the overfishing crisis by depriving fish of a habitat in which to reproduce, and impacts thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in reef tourism each year.
"As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation."
"We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” Steve Smith, a social scientist at the University of Exeter and a lead author of the report, told Nature. “This is our new reality.”
The arrival of the tipping point necessitates immediate, significant reductions in fossil fuel emissions that are driving planetary heating in order to return to a global mean surface temperature of 1.2°C over preindustrial temperatures, but climate scientist Bill McGuire did not mince words Monday regarding the likelihood of mitigating the damage already done to coral reefs.
"We won't reduce temps to 1.2°C as soon as possible, so this is the death knell for most of the world's stupendous reef communities," said McGuire. "Other tipping points will follow."
The report notes that the world is still headed toward other climate tipping points, namely the "large-scale" degradation of the Amazon rainforest, which is projected to "weaken global climate regulation" and accelerate biodiversity loss; the melting of mountain glaciers like Áakʼw Tá Hít in Alaska; and for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which regulates the climate by transporting warmer waters from the tropics to the northern Atlantic Ocean, whose likelihood of reaching a tipping point "increases with global temperature" rise.
Without rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the Global Tipping Points report says, the upper threshold of global temperature rise for coral reefs of 1.5°C is likely to be reached within 10 years.
“We are going to overshoot 1.5°C of global warming probably around 2030 on current projections,” Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute told The Guardian.
Manjana Milkoreit, a co-author of the report and political scientist at the University of Oslo, told Nature that "we have the knowledge regarding how to stop the Earth from reaching more tipping points."gr
“What we need is a kind of governance that matches the nature of this challenge," she said.
The report also acknowledges "positive tipping points" that could have runaway impacts on the ability to rapidly draw down greenhouse gas emissions, such as the widespread adoption of regenerative agricultural practices and an acceleration in the transition toward electric vehicle and solar power use.
"Solar PV panels have dropped in price by a quarter for each doubling of their installed capacity. Batteries have improved in quality and plummeted in price the more that are deployed," reads the report. "This encourages further adoption. The spread of climate litigation cases and nature positive initiatives is also self-amplifying. The more people undertaking them the more they influence others to act."
Lenton told The Guardian that "the race is on to bring forward these positive tipping points to avoid what we are now sure will be the unmanageable consequences of further tipping points in the Earth system."
As Common Dreams reported last week, global progress toward transitioning away from fossil fuels and expanding the use of renewable energy is surging worldwide—but the US has been left out this year under President Donald Trump, with a major spending bill imposing new fees on solar and wind development and boosting drilling on public lands while the US Department of Energy is investing $625 million in coal.
The Global Tipping Points report was released four weeks before global leaders are set to meet in Belém, Brazil for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), where policymakers will be asked to contribute to a Granary of Solutions: "a reservoir of concrete tools and initiatives—scalable, replicable, and aligned with the Paris Agreement—that connect ambition with implementation" in order to trigger "positive tipping points of transformation leveraging solutions that already exist."
"As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation,” Mike Barrett, chief scientific adviser at the World Wide Fund for Nature in the UK and a co-author of the report, told Yale Environment 360. “Countries must show the political bravery and leadership to work together and achieve them.”
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