A message from Chris Packham. I'm calling on Parliament to ban fossil fuel advertising, and I need your help.

Writing exclusively for The Lead ahead of the debate in Parliament, we and the broadcasting legend need you to show your MP why action is needed now

Chris Packham and one of the BP adverts he is fighting to stop

A ban on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship will be debated in parliament on Monday 7th July 2025. Here broadcaster and environmental campaigner Chris Packham explains why he wants The Lead readers to sign the petition calling on their MPs to tell them to end the promotion of planet-destroying fuels.

I believe that fossil fuel advertising belongs firmly in the past, with the stained and toxic remains of tobacco promotions. Gone are the days (in the UK at least) when tobacco companies’ logos were emblazoned on sports shirts, when they sponsored exhibitions in our national museums and even used cartoons to advertise to children.

Now though, we see fossil fuel companies using exactly the same playbook to garner political influence and public support.

Norwegian oil company Equinor was recently found to be targeting UK children as young as seven with its ‘EnergyTown’ videogame. Oil giant BP has sponsored national museums and art galleries for decades. While most institutions have cut ties after civil society protests, BP continues to sponsor the Science Museum in London, with highlights including a 2021 exhibition titled 'Our Future Planet'. Shell announced a sponsorship deal with British Cycling in October 2022, which, despite enormous backlash and the resignation of the cycling group’s CEO just three weeks later, continues today.

It’s time to cut off its pipeline of misleading publicity. Just this week, more than 60 marketing agencies, many of whom have voluntarily cut ties with the fossil fuel sector, said they would support the introduction of a national fossil fuel ad ban.

Fossil fuel branding infiltrates our lives, our politics and our public consciousness. BP’s green sunflower logo and Shell’s wind-turbine filled adverts are ubiquitous, and familiarity leads to trust. By systematically painting themselves as green leaders in the energy transition, both companies have shored up a social license to pollute through their expanding fossil fuel operations. Shell alone is planning 700 new oil and gas fields. Both have largely avoided any meaningful taxation or environmental clean-up, and in the last year both have abandoned or drastically watered down climate commitments.

In 2023, Equinor admitted that its “Broader Energy” ads, which suggested the company had a diverse energy mix portfolio (while in fact 99.85% of its production came from fossil fuels!), were specifically aimed to influence political decision-makers. That September, its “carbon bomb” Rosebank oilfield bid was given government approval.

The world’s top polluters are spending billions on marketing to maintain the status quo, fearing the inevitable shift to renewable energy production as the economic, health and moral case intensifies. The majority of people in the UK desire more action to reduce the risks of climate change from businesses and government.

From top-level political access, to influencer campaigns by champion surfers, polar explorers and Granfluencers, to wholesale “station domination” advertising by fossil fuel majors across Westminster tube station directly targeting MPs and their staff, these companies are fighting hard to fend off effective government regulation.

The run of BP adverts along a Tube station - these would be banned if MPs act

It took decades to extricate the influence of Big Tobacco from society and politics, with health professionals warning politicians to listen to the science, do the moral thing or at least think of the economic case of saving millions of lives. The eventual ban on tobacco marketing has reduced the uptake of smoking by 37%. A fossil fuel advertising ban would save countless more lives.

Major medical journals, media platforms and several UK cities including Edinburgh and Sheffield have also introduced bans on advertising by fossil fuel companies. Some national restrictions on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship are already in place in France and have just been introduced in Spain. The Lancet and Médicins Sans Frontières are among 30 health organisations, representing 12 million health professionals worldwide, that have ended their ties to fossil fuel advertising.

Like you, I care about the future of this planet, with its myriad wonders, from our everyday garden birds to the bizarre creatures found in our deepest seas. All of us are threatened by the deadly expansion of the fossil fuel industry.

Join me in urging the government to act on this issue NOW. We urgently need to stop promoting pollution, and we don’t have decades to spare. Fossil fuel giants are the cigarette companies of the 21st century: let’s remove their influence and make way for a transition away from fossil fuels towards a safer, cleaner, greener future.

And please share this newsletter with three people who you know care about climate change and air quality.