LONDON, Aug 27 (IPS) – Civil society is working across the board to fight the climate crisis. Activists are protesting in large numbers, pressuring governments and companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They use non-violent direct action and high-profile events, which pay a heavy price as more states criminalize climate protest.
Campaigners are taking it to court to hold governments and companies accountable for their climate commitments and impacts, and recent developments in Belgium, India and Switzerland, among others, have many other cases pending. They are pushing institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels – 72 per cent of UK universities have committed to phasing out – and to put forward corporate resolutions that demand tougher action.
At the global level, activists are working to influence important meetings, especially the COP climate summits. At the most recent conference, COP28, states agreed for the first time on the need to phase out fossil fuels – an incredibly late concession, but one that came after the urging of civil society.
As pressure mounts, fossil fuel companies are looking for any way they can portray themselves as responsible corporate citizens while continuing their dangerous business as long as possible. They want to make it look like they are switching to renewable energy and curbing greenhouse gas emissions, when the opposite is true.
Cultural institutions are prime targets for fossil fuel companies with tarnished reputations but deep pockets. The outflow is small compared to the benefits. Through sponsorship, they try to present themselves as philanthropists and lend a high social standing to well-known institutions. But climate activists aren’t letting them get away with it. They put increasing pressure on art galleries and museums to end fossil fuel funding.
The Science Museum in the spotlight
The UK is no exception, home to many world-class galleries and museums that are under pressure to attract funding from the private sector and oil and gas giants such as BP and Shell. Almost all of London’s major cultural institutions have taken on fossil fuel funding in the past. But that is much less the case now. Thanks to the efforts of campaign groups such as Culture Unstained, Fossil Free London and Liberate Tate, several have severed ties.
The latest victory came in July, when London’s Science Museum ended its contract with Norwegian state-owned oil giant Equinor. Equinor has sponsored WonderLab – an interactive children’s exhibition – since 2016.
Equinor continues to develop new extraction projects, despite the fact that the International Energy Agency makes it clear that there can be no further development of the fuel if there is any hope of achieving the Paris Agreement. Most of Equinor owns the North Sea Rosebank oil and gas field, which the UK government approved for drilling last year.
The Science Museum publicly said its funding had come to an end, but the emails suggest Equinor is in breach of the museum’s stated obligation to ensure donors comply with the Paris Agreement, as determined by the Transition Pathway Initiative, which assesses whether companies are doing enough. transition to a low carbon economy.
Last year it was revealed that the Science Museum’s contract contained a gag clause that prevented the museum from saying anything that might damage Equinor’s reputation. Such restrictions would prevent museums from discussing the fossil fuel industry’s central role in causing climate change. There are also examples of companies such as Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell trying to influence the content of the shows they sponsor.
As well as washing the image, fossil fuel companies can use funding to lobby for further extraction: BP’s sponsorship of a Mexico-themed event at the British Museum enabled it to contact representatives of the Mexican government as part of a successful bid for drilling licences. Since the funding of arts organizations is getting more and more intense, it was reported that BP has also brought together the representatives of the supported institutions to discuss how to deal with the activists.
Room for improvement
It is impossible for this change to happen without public pressure, which raises the cost of the reputation of the Science Museum. It marked the successful end of an eight-year campaign involving young climate activists, scientists and civil society in the UK and in its home country of Equinor, Norway.
But there is still a lot of room for improvement. The Science Museum still has a contract with BP, although the Church of England pulled out of BP for the same reason the museum pulled out of Equinor: because the Transition Pathway Initiative assessed that it was not in line with the Paris Agreement.
Worse still, the Science Museum’s new exhibition ‘Energy Revolution’ is sponsored by Adani, the world’s largest coal mining developer, which is also involved in the production of drones that Israel uses to kill people in Gaza. In April, campaigners staged a sit-in protest against the deal. Hundreds of teachers refused to take students to the demonstration. In 2021, when the deal was made, two trustees resigned in protest.
There are many ways to express disgust. Shell’s sponsorship of the Science Museum’s climate exhibition has prompted some leading academics to boycott the center and refuse to have their work featured in its exhibitions. Many galleries and museums that have accepted fossil fuel funding have seen activists use their spaces to protest. While the Tate group of galleries is funded by BP, Liberate Tate runs a series of art interventions, including one where people throw specially designed fake banknotes.
The British Museum on the wrong side of history
As long as it insists on taking fossil fuel money, the Science Museum can expect a lot of bad publicity. And now it’s a laggard thing. Many internationally recognized UK institutions have agreed to the demands of civil society organizations to cut the cord. The National Portrait Gallery, Royal Opera House, Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate have cut ties with BP, while the British Film Institute, National Theater and Southbank Center have stopped accepting funding from Shell.
The trend has also spread outside the UK: Amsterdam’s famous Van Gogh Museum ended its contract with Shell in response to the campaign. In 2020, the city’s famous museum quarter was declared fuel-free.
But alongside the Science Museum, there is another major player: the British Museum, long controversial for its large collection of looted colonial artefacts. Last year it again put itself on the wrong side of history by agreeing to BP’s ten-year US$65.6 million deal, making a mockery of its stated goal of ending fossil fuel use. It operated despite protests and a letter signed by more than 300 museum professionals calling for it to end its relationship with BP, and its deputy chairman resigned in protest.
It’s not just the cultural sector that fuel companies are trying to work with – they’re also heavily involved in sports. Petrostates like Qatar, and likely soon Saudi Arabia, host world-class sporting events, sponsor everything from elite athletes to grassroots sports and use sovereign wealth funds to buy top-tier football clubs.
People rightly expect the arts, sciences and sports to uphold exemplary standards because, at their best, they are the highest expression of what humanity can achieve. That’s why it’s so scary when oil companies try to unite them. All their attempts to degrade themselves must be met with strong resistance.
Andrew Firmin is the Editor-in-Chief of CIVICUS, director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the Civic District Report.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
