Speaker 1: When Professor Christian Danny appeared before a Senate inquiry into
Speaker 1: climate and energy misinformation, he warned that Australia's facing coordinator
Speaker 1: campaigns the aim not to debate solutions, but to stare them.
Speaker 2: There is a network of organizations that exist to influence
Speaker 2: the public, influence the media, influence political arenas like our Parliament,
Speaker 2: to stop or reverse effective climate action.
Speaker 1: Professor Danny has spent years tracing the billions spent on
Speaker 1: messaging and outlining what he calls the climate obstruction playbook.
Speaker 2: Short answer is, I think we're scratching the surface as
Speaker 2: much more to research, but there's an overwhelming body of
Speaker 2: empirical evidence now about these actors, about the financial flows.
Speaker 1: That inquiry has now reported back with twenty one recommendations,
Speaker 1: including more scrutiny of greenwashing, more transparency around who funds campaigns,
Speaker 1: and more support for communities affected by renewable energy projects.
Speaker 1: But the government still hasn't formally responded. I'm Daniel James,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to seven am today we're bringing you
Speaker 1: our episode with professor at A and US School and
Speaker 1: Regulation and Global Governance Christian Downey on how the obstruction
Speaker 1: Playbook has been so successful in stopping action on climate change.
Speaker 1: It's Sunday, Jane fourteen. This episode was first published in
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: So, Christian, you've spent a lot of time investigating the
Speaker 3: lobbyists and the tactics that they use behind a lot
Speaker 3: of the misinformation that we see around climate change. So
Speaker 3: where did that start for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess for more than a decade, I've been
Speaker 2: thinking about the politics of climate change. I've been working
Speaker 2: in James and government and universities. I think the one
Speaker 2: thing that stood out as I thought more about this
Speaker 2: issue is, you know, because of the path breaking work
Speaker 2: of climate scientists, we have a good understanding of why
Speaker 2: the world is heating up, what the impacts are. Because
Speaker 2: of the work of engineers and entrepreneurs, we have al
Speaker 2: those all the technologies we need to cut pollution and
Speaker 2: stabilize our climate. And because of the work of economists
Speaker 2: and public policy experts, we know most of the policy solutions,
Speaker 2: and yet we continue to fail to implement ambitious climate policy.
Speaker 2: So is that kind of puzzling question about why are
Speaker 2: we failing? Why aren't we reducing emissions? Like scientists are asking?
Speaker 2: A major fact that it's become clearer over the years
Speaker 2: is because of the efforts by groups and individuals in
Speaker 2: society to obstruct actual and climate change, that is, to
Speaker 2: block and oppose policies, and our failure to understand that
Speaker 2: and then of course to overcome it.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk a bit more about those people and
Speaker 3: groups and what you've come to learn about them. I
Speaker 3: know that you went to Washington to meet some of
Speaker 3: these people. So when you were there in the room
Speaker 3: with them, tell me what you've learned about who they are,
Speaker 3: how these campaigns are built, how they come about.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I've spent a number of stints over in the
Speaker 2: US trying to study our climate and energy policy was shaped,
Speaker 2: interviewing senior executives lobby.
Speaker 4: From all the major fossil fuel industries.
Speaker 2: Probably spent countless hours, now, you know, waiting in the
Speaker 2: foyers of big office buildings, going through security up into
Speaker 2: the corporate boardrooms, and sitting in the offices of major
Speaker 2: coal corporations, executives from oil and gas corporations down in Houston,
Speaker 2: their lobbyists in Washington, d C. But I've also spent
Speaker 2: time with lobbyist in the soul A Wind hydro sector.
Speaker 2: And you know, what you really find out is that
Speaker 2: a lot of these groups are engaged and this is
Speaker 2: part of how policy works in that town. There are
Speaker 2: engaged in sophisticated political campaigns to try and shape policy outcomes,
Speaker 2: to block policy outcomes, often particularly around climate change.
Speaker 3: And so being in those rooms and seeing how this
Speaker 3: works behind the scenes, was there anything that you witness
Speaker 3: that really suppost crystallized the playbook that's been created and
Speaker 3: used here.
Speaker 2: You know, the thing that really I guess crystallized it
Speaker 2: for me was probably over a couple of conversations that
Speaker 2: when the lobbyists had come to it describes, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, cat a lot of detail how they were
Speaker 2: plotting their strategies. Often that involved developing sophisticated public relations campaigns,
Speaker 2: but they were often designed to kill off the next
Speaker 2: piece of climate legislation. Maybe it was attempts to limit
Speaker 2: emissions from coal. Of course, this isn't new, you know,
Speaker 2: we know fossil fuel companies around the world have funded
Speaker 2: multi billion dollar campaigns since at least the nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: to deny the.
Speaker 4: Existence of climate change.
Speaker 2: They find a television campaigns, online campaigns, front groups, consultancy reports,
Speaker 2: and many others, and it's worked, and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: through these conversations it really became apparent to me that's
Speaker 2: what me and many other researchers have been working on
Speaker 2: for some time.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: I'm so curious. Tell me more about these campaigns, what
Speaker 3: the strategy is.
Speaker 2: Well, when you're thinking about, for example, the campaigns run
Speaker 2: by corporations, often they have very long time horizons. They're
Speaker 2: thinking what do they want to achieve over the next decade,
Speaker 2: and maybe over a decade it is simply to you know,
Speaker 2: store climate action as long as possible because they want
Speaker 2: to keep selling oil or gas or coal. They're simply
Speaker 2: just motivated by commercial interests. How those campaigns play out, Well,
Speaker 2: there's a lot to it. There's lobbying, there's public relations.
Speaker 2: There's often litigation. There's campaigns to cast doubt on the
Speaker 2: role of science and scientists. I'll give you one example,
Speaker 2: perhaps on public relations, which is really I think a
Speaker 2: key part of what you might call the climate obstruction playbook.
Speaker 4: So, public relations.
Speaker 2: And advertising firms have long been paid to craft political
Speaker 2: campaigns for oil and gas companies, among others. Now these campaigns,
Speaker 2: they involve more than simply running a few television ads
Speaker 2: for a corporate client. Often, affirm will do polling, they'll
Speaker 2: do focus groups, they'll do media and social media campaigns.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they'll even undertake astroturfing.
Speaker 2: By astroturfing, what I'm referring to is creating fake community
Speaker 2: groups to give the impression of widespread support or widespread
Speaker 2: opposition for an issue.
Speaker 3: Okay, so pr companies are being paid to come up
Speaker 3: with these campaigns, but how much is being spent on
Speaker 3: this and what does the money trail look like?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think this is one of the fascinating questions, right,
Speaker 2: like if you follow the money of what's actually happening.
Speaker 2: So what we did to try and answer that question
Speaker 2: and follow the money trail was I can't say it
Speaker 2: was the most exciting task all the time, but we
Speaker 2: were looking at.
Speaker 4: Their tax records.
Speaker 3: Sounds exciting to me.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to kill a dinner party conversation
Speaker 2: and you start talking about tax records. But what we
Speaker 2: tried to do was look at ninety trade associations. These
Speaker 2: are kind of industry lobby groups and see go for
Speaker 2: a decade, how much were they spending on politics. So
Speaker 2: the first thing we did was just figure out how
Speaker 2: much money they got. And these are huge sums of money,
Speaker 2: even in the US context. So ninety trade associations working
Speaker 2: on climate issues over a decade had twenty five point
Speaker 2: six billion.
Speaker 4: US just in revenues.
Speaker 2: Wow, whats of money. And then the next question is,
Speaker 2: you know, are they spending all of that on politics?
Speaker 2: How much all of it? In fact it's only thirteen percent,
Speaker 2: but thirteen percent of that is three point four billion.
Speaker 4: Much of it.
Speaker 2: And in fact two point two billion of that was
Speaker 2: going to public relations advertising campaigns. Another seven hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty million was going to lobbing. Now this is big
Speaker 2: in the US, but it's not peculiar to the US.
Speaker 2: Of course, similar things happen here too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So if those are the sorts of sums that
Speaker 3: we know are being spent in the US, do we
Speaker 3: know how that compares to what might be happening here
Speaker 3: in Australia.
Speaker 2: Well, part of the problem is we just don't have
Speaker 2: as good transparency or disclosure practices here in Australia. So
Speaker 2: we know that groups like say the Minerals Council of Australia,
Speaker 2: which has probably done a lot to what climate policy,
Speaker 2: or at least advocate against client policy here in Australia
Speaker 2: does spend significant sums of money on political campaigns. They
Speaker 2: run television and other campaigns. These things cost a lot
Speaker 2: of money, but we aren't able to follow the money
Speaker 2: trailer the same way that we are in the US.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the issues I think here is
Speaker 2: just lack of transparency.
Speaker 3: Coming up. How Australia could fix its transparency problem.
Speaker 2: Look, as a social scientist, it's notoriously difficult to try
Speaker 2: and reach very robust conclusions on the effectiveness of one
Speaker 2: particular strategy. But I think we can safely assume that
Speaker 2: one of the main reasons that we're failing to implement
Speaker 2: perhaps climate policies that are consistent with what climate scientist
Speaker 2: has been calling for is is because of the activities
Speaker 2: of some of these organizations.
Speaker 3: Is not beyond because you just recently gave evidence to
Speaker 3: a Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation. Can you
Speaker 3: tell me about that inquiry and why you decided to
Speaker 3: speak now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in the last couple of months, there's a
Speaker 2: cross part inquiries set up. It's called a Senate Select
Speaker 2: Committee on Information Integrity and Climate Change Energy. But basically
Speaker 2: what they're interested in is looking at how is misinformation
Speaker 2: around climate change affecting Australian politics, affecting public debates.
Speaker 5: So it's a tried and true playbook which has been
Speaker 5: tested overseas, particularly in the US. And is there any
Speaker 5: reason to believe that this isn't now being tested here
Speaker 5: in Australia or do you think that the learnings have
Speaker 5: already come across No.
Speaker 2: I believe those types of campaigns are being run here currently.
Speaker 2: It did have senators from across all parties concerned about
Speaker 2: this issue. You're wanting to know more about it and
Speaker 2: really gathering information about the extent of these campaigns.
Speaker 4: How they're playing out in Australia.
Speaker 2: So we'll expect the committee to report in February and
Speaker 2: hopefully they produce some strong recommendations that the Government decides
Speaker 2: to act on.
Speaker 3: And when we talk about misinformation in climate change and
Speaker 3: the climate wars, and you know the media's role in this,
Speaker 3: this has been going on for a long time. So
Speaker 3: has something changed recently? Is what we're seeing different now?
Speaker 2: I don't think anything significantly change. It kind of happens
Speaker 2: with peaks and troughs. Often if there's a big climate
Speaker 2: policy put forward, such as say a carbon price.
Speaker 4: We saw a lot of lobbing in that period.
Speaker 2: But one thing that we have had in the last
Speaker 2: few months is a debate around what Australia's greenhouse gas
Speaker 2: target is. You know, how much should Australia reduce its
Speaker 2: emissions by. So for the last few months we've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of political media attacks on renewable energy and
Speaker 2: climate action here and I think these are straight out
Speaker 2: of the climate obstruction playable.
Speaker 6: There is a pathway for Australia to be really ambitious
Speaker 6: in terms of the target that it sets, but it
Speaker 6: is expensive and it's difficult, and we need to make
Speaker 6: sure that we're very clear eyed in terms of the
Speaker 6: approach that we take.
Speaker 2: So we saw the Business Council Australia, one of the
Speaker 2: biggest business groups in the country, released modeling.
Speaker 6: We want Australia to co ambitious, but we need to
Speaker 6: make sure that we're inherently practical along the way, it.
Speaker 2: Was the Business Council a chief executive Brand Black, who
Speaker 2: also says in action on climate change is no longer
Speaker 2: an often you know warning the government that you know,
Speaker 2: if you take a particular target, this might cost a
Speaker 2: lot of money. Analysts say if the climate target is
Speaker 2: to reduce emissions by more than sixty percent, it will
Speaker 2: require more than four hundred billion dollars in new capital investment.
Speaker 2: We saw Australian scientists who'd actually prepared the nation's first
Speaker 2: national climate risk assessment showing the devastating consequences that we're
Speaker 2: going to see from climate change and are already seeing.
Speaker 2: If you have experienced the bushfires or the flooding of
Speaker 2: recent years.
Speaker 7: The report wardens natural disasters will cost the economy forty
Speaker 7: billion dollars annually by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: We saw them being you know, a lot of scare
Speaker 2: mongering about them on the front pages of Australian newspapers.
Speaker 7: By the twenty sixties, climate change will allegedly rob us
Speaker 7: of two point seven million work days a year. But
Speaker 7: here's the thing. Governments can't even project next year's budget deficit.
Speaker 2: So a lot of these kind of examples are very
Speaker 2: much consistent with the empirical evidence that we've gathered from
Speaker 2: around the world about how these groups obstruct climate action.
Speaker 3: And when you read those sorts of reports and the
Speaker 3: media reporting on them, you hear these lines like the
Speaker 3: one from the Business Council of Australia that we support
Speaker 3: ambitious but quote achievable targets. So what should we be
Speaker 3: taking from that kind of messaging.
Speaker 8: Well, I think the.
Speaker 2: First thing is people should always be wary of information
Speaker 2: that's spread by organizations such as an industry group that
Speaker 2: have a commercial interesting issue. So you know, if you've
Speaker 2: got a gas company out there saying well, renewable energy
Speaker 2: is more expensive than gas, well you've got to remember
Speaker 2: that the gas company.
Speaker 4: Is going to make more money if people believe that.
Speaker 2: So it's the same for industry groups like the Business Council.
Speaker 2: I think the next time you see an industry groups
Speaker 2: such as them or the Minerals Council out there complaining
Speaker 2: about government regulation or claiming we need achievable and issius targets,
Speaker 2: we've just got to remember it's not us they represent,
Speaker 2: it's the interests of their members. Industry associations have a
Speaker 2: legitimate role to advocate on behalf of corporations, but we
Speaker 2: should never confuse this with what's in the interests of
Speaker 2: the public.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned this issue around transparency in Australia, Tommy,
Speaker 3: I suppose how you think that issue can be looked
Speaker 3: at and changed.
Speaker 2: Research suggests that I guess if you're going to combat
Speaker 2: climate change information, there's a whole range of things you
Speaker 2: could do. In o its estimated before the Senate, we
Speaker 2: suggested a few things, not an exhaustive list by any means,
Speaker 2: but one is just to enhance individual immunity. Often people
Speaker 2: talk about public inoculation much like a vaccine.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 2: The idea is that you can weaken the impact of
Speaker 2: misinformation if you just make people aware about it, draw
Speaker 2: their attention to who's doing it, what's their financial support.
Speaker 4: Another thing, of course, you can do, which we've.
Speaker 2: Spoken about, is making sure that the government thinks about
Speaker 2: putting in place regulations that forces some of these actors
Speaker 2: a trade association to disclose, you know, where they're getting
Speaker 2: their money from, what are they spending it on, so
Speaker 2: we can shine a light on some of.
Speaker 4: These political practices.
Speaker 2: We're also going to, of course, need more systemic changes
Speaker 2: and that often it might involve regulators like the atrible
Speaker 2: C or ASK or others holding organizations to account but
Speaker 2: engage in green washing. So there's a whole range of
Speaker 2: things we can do, and of course at the individual level,
Speaker 2: you know, we also we all et BC lives, but
Speaker 2: to the extent we can checking you verifying the source
Speaker 2: of something, particularly before we go and share it on
Speaker 2: social media.
Speaker 3: Well, Christian, thank you so much for talking with me.
Speaker 4: A pleasure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Seven am will be back tomorrow with an interview with
Speaker 1: Peter Garrett, the former Labor Minister. At midnight All front
Speaker 1: Man is leading a the public inquiry into the most
Speaker 1: expensive defense project in Australia's history, UCAS. We ask why
Speaker 1: he believes Australians deserve answers and whether it's too late
Speaker 1: to walk away.
Speaker 8: And when I do a back of the envelope on
Speaker 8: the cost of UCAS, I'm up around five hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 4: It's a hell of a lot of money.
Speaker 8: For that amount of money, you could, arguably, according to
Speaker 8: defense experts, have a small, bigger fleet of diesel submarines.
Speaker 8: You could enhance land based defense forces, and you'd have
Speaker 8: quite a lot of spare change left over for schools
Speaker 8: and hospitals.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James c EVM