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We need to treat fossil fuels like Big Tobacco

#121 of 121 articles from the Special Report: Negotiating survival

The historical approach to the Big Tobacco lobby can be applied to Big Oil. Our health depends on it. Photo by Basil MK/Pexels

It’s unbelievable and worrisome to return from COP29, the climate conference, having been surrounded by nations and corporate lobbyists advocating for continued and even increasing fossil fuel use. It reminds me of decades ago when Big Tobacco used disinformation and lobbying to weaken health policy on smoking. But we can draw hope from public health winning that battle and creating strong regulations limiting the ability of tobacco companies to influence public policy. We now need to do the same with the fossil fuel industry. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was enacted in 2003 in response to decades of poor behaviour by the tobacco industry. That behaviour included downplaying the health effects of smoking, concerted lobbying to limit regulations on their products, and advertising to entice new users, including teenagers. 

Finally, the harms were so clear and the behavior so egregious that countries were convinced to unite to counter their money and power, and the framework was born. Since then, the framework has saved millions of lives, and in turn, revolutionized how we address industries that harm people.

The rapidly worsening impacts of the climate crisis are increasingly apparent, with devastating wildfires, droughts, floods and hurricanes across the world. For a rational civilization, there would be clear incentives to be much bolder in countering this existential crisis. But, in large part, thanks to active disinformation, disruption and lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, the ambition seemed evidently weaker at COP29. 

The cracks in the COP climate conference system are so gaping and obvious that there is now a cacophony of voices calling for changes. In particular, the “Club of Rome” suggests reforms that would substantially improve negotiations. The historical approach to the Big Tobacco lobby which includes banning advertising, eliminating lobbying and taxing products (or at least removing subsidies, in the case of fossil fuels) can transform our approach.

The fossil fuel industry's presence at climate talks is as inappropriate as tobacco companies at a lung cancer conference. There were 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists identified there with at least 28 from Canada alone. Prominent fossil fuel lobby organizations had pavilions, including OPEC, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and Canada’s own Clean Resource Innovation Network (awkwardly named to avoid the words “Canada” and “oil and gas”.) 

Meanwhile, authoritarian petrostates have hosted the conference three years in a row, further disrupting the negotiations.

We need regulations to protect against the fossil fuel industry's attempts to delay and dilute effective, life-saving climate legislation. Fossil fuel advertising and public relations campaigns continue to undermine efforts to implement effective measures to discourage fossil fuel use and protect people from pollution and climate change. To reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and stem disinformation that blocks effective climate action, a comprehensive ban on advertising, promotion and sponsorship of fossil fuel products and industries is needed.

The climate crisis is a health crisis. As a Canadian emergency physician, I see the fallout firsthand: the asthma exacerbated by wildfire smoke, the loss of primary care by internally displaced people from our annual wildfire events, and the PTSD and depression that follows climate disasters. 

And scientists tell us things are going to get worse, possibly much more rapidly than expected. That money is better spent elsewhere — for example, on our teetering health care systems, or climate adaptation and mitigation. 

So, I speak on behalf of my patients and my children, and entreat the world: We must do more, faster. Let’s not allow the fossil fuel industry to delay life-saving reforms, as Big Tobacco once did. 

Ban fossil fuel advertising. Remove lobbyists from negotiations. End subsidies. The science is clear, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s time to treat fossil fuels like Big Tobacco.

Dr. Joe Vipond is an emergency doctor and the past-president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. 

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