"O NOVO TABACO" - Cidades estão banindo propaganda de combustíveis fósseis

A BBC publicou um artigo, assinado por Isabella Kaminski, apontando a iniciativa de um número crescente de cidades ("dezenas de cidades") no mundo que estão banindo publicidades que exponham a utilização de combustíveis fósseis em lugares públicos. 

Em junho de 2024, estive em evento da ONU em Bonn, na Alemanha, e debatemos a crescente liderança das cidades na agenda climática. Naquele contexto, o secretário-geral da ONU, o português António Guterres, declarou com indignação que "As indústria de combustíveis fósseis são os padrinhos do caos climático e estão obtendo lucros recordes"). Guterres se insurgia contra o lobby do petróleo que agia fortemente contra a agenda de avanços climáticos, colocando-se contra a formalização de compromissos para o "phase-out" do petróleo, ou seja, para a transição energética, e o fim da dependência do petróleo. Como o seu discurso foi na preparação para a COP29, realizado em Baku, Azerbaijão, que teve como tema o financiamento climático, o dirigente reclamava da conspiração das empresas pelo esvaziamento da agenda. 

Na ocasião, Guterres, exortou os países a proibirem a publicidade do uso de combustíveis fósseis e disse que os combustíveis fósseis eram o "NOVO TABACO", comparando com o banimento da propaganda de cigarros mundo afora. 

Assista o discurso do secretário-geral da ONU, António Guterres, no Dia Mundial do Meio Ambiente (5 de junho de 2024), no Museu de História Natural de Nova York.

No discurso acima, referindo-se aos grandes desastres climáticos que causaram mega extinções de espécies, Guterres alertou: "Na questão climática, não somos os dinossauros. Nós somos o meteorito. Não estamos apenas em perigo. Nós somos o perigo". Também disse que "estamos fazendo roleta-russa com o planeta" e ainda, referindo-se às empresas que fazem "green washing" (lavagem verde), fazendo relatórios de responsabilidade climática , mas promovendo lobbies anticlima, que "os combustíveis fósseis não estão apenas envenenando o planeta, mas são tóxicos para as suas marcas". 

A diretora de Saúde Pública e Clima da Organização Mundial da Saúde - OMS, Maria Neira, também reforçou a visão de que os combustíveis fósseis são o "novo tabaco". 

Após o chamado da ONU para a ação, mais uma vez, foram as cidades que responderam e passaram a liderar. A primeira cidade do mundo a aprovar uma lei nesse sentido foi Haia, na Holanda, que adotou a medida em 2024, com validade a partir de janeiro de 2025. Edimburg, na Escócia; Saint-Gilles, na Bélgica; Estocolmo, na Suécia, Sheffield e Portsmouth, na Inglaterra; Sydney, e outras 19 cidades na Austrália; Wellington, são outros exemplos de cidades que adotaram a mesma medida. Nem todas tiveram sucesso. Toronto, no Canadá, tentou, mas o parlamento não aprovou a legislação.

Diferente das cidades, pressionados pelos lobbies, os governos nacionais estão atuando de forma mais discreta e com dificuldades, agindo sobre o conteúdo das publicidades, embora alguns países estejam trabalhando pela proibição da publicidade na escala nacional. A França foi o primeiro país a aprovar uma lei nacional, mas segundo informações, desde a sua formalização, a implementação está paralisada. Na Espanha, um projeto com o mesmo objetivo está tramitando e acredita-se que haverá muita dificuldade de aprovação no parlamento.

Axel Grael
Engenheiro florestal, ambientalista.
Doutorando em Arquitetura e Urbanismo (PPGAU/UFF)

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Some cities have introduced bans for petrol cars in a bid to encourage more sustainable behaviour (Credit: Serenity Strull / BBC). Serenity Strull / BBC

'The new tobacco': The cities banning fossil fuel adverts

Isabella Kaminski

Cities across the world are clearing their billboards of flight ads, SUVs, cruise ships and petrol cars in an attempt to cut emissions.

When it comes to billboards, the centre of The Hague isn't exactly Times Square. Still, the cosmopolitan Dutch political capital has its share of looming displays and brightly lit bus shelters.

When I visited in late 2024, these were merrily advertising an array of colourful products and services in the run-up to Christmas, with one promoting trips to sunny beaches thousands of miles away in the Dutch Caribbean.

I was in the city to report on the International Court of Justice's landmark hearings on whether countries can sue each other over climate change. But when I returned seven months later to hear the court's final ruling there was a subtle difference in these adverts: there were no posters for petrol or diesel cars, or for cruises or flights to far-flung holiday destinations.

The change was the result of The Hague's 2024 decision to ban advertising for high-carbon products. The city was the first place in the world to do so through a local law, but is just one of dozens of municipalities across the world that have now agreed to ban fossil fuel adverts, including the district of Saint-Gilles in Belgium, the Swedish capital of Stockholm and most recently the Italian city of Florence. In January 2026, the Netherlands' Amsterdam became the world's first capital to put a ban into law.

"As the International City of Peace and Justice and an important UN city, we find it important to show that we're serious about tackling [the climate crisis]," says Robert Barker, deputy mayor of The Hague. "So it's really a bit weird if in a public space we have a lot of fossil ads, while at the same time you say to people, 'We should reduce them.'"

The advertising sector is increasingly coming under the spotlight for its role in promoting and normalising polluting activities and for misrepresenting their environmental and health impacts, according to a report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. (Read more about the adverts banned for misleading climate claims).

In a scathing speech in New York in 2024, UN Secretary General António Guterres said climate misinformation by the fossil fuel industry in particular had been "aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies".

Guterres urged every country in the world to ban the fossil fuel industry from advertising altogether, a call later echoed by Maria Neira, director for public health and climate at the World Health Organization, who described fossil fuels as "the new tobacco".

"We know that advertising is a really major driver of unsustainable consumption," says Cassie Sutherland, managing director of climate solutions and networks at C40 Cities, a US-based climate think tank. "Advertisers wouldn't be spending billions upon billions of dollars every year if it wasn't affecting people's behaviour."

Indeed, a 2023 scientific advice paper for Dutch policymakers concluded that fossil advertising "normalises and promotes unsustainable behaviour". It also "discourages sustainable behaviour, actively undermining climate policy", it added.

In recent years, several campaigns have emerged calling on public authorities to ban such advertising, including Adfree Cities, World Without Fossil Fuel Ads and Reclame Fossielvrij ("Fossilfree advertising" in Dutch).

Some have already had success, and the Netherlands in particular has become a hotspot for bans. In 2020, in response to a letter from campaigners and political groups, Amsterdam passed a world-first motion seeking to end the "excesses" of unsustainable advertising, such as "flying vacations at rock-bottom prices". And the city's newly passed ban, which comes into effect on 1 May 2026, goes even further than The Hague by restricting advertising for meat as well as fossil fuel products.

"Climate campaigners have now turned their attention to the UK capital, where transport operator Transport for London (TfL) has one of the largest advertising estates in the world".

More than a dozen municipalities across the country have now tried to put in place some form of restriction either through local laws or public contracts.

The road has not always been easy. The Netherlands' travel trade organisation ANVR and three travel operators went to court in 2024, claiming The Hague's law breached their right to freedom of speech and would not actually reduce fossil fuel use. But a judge ruled that the ban could help combat climate change and improve people's health, and said the city had properly substantiated its reasons for putting it in place. It has been in force since April 2025. The ANVR did not respond to a request for comment. The Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions was also asked for comment but did not respond.

Several UK cities have also introduced bans. In 2024, the city of Edinburgh banned advertising for fossil fuel companies, airlines, airports, fossil fuel-powered cars, SUVs and cruise ships on council-owned advertising spaces, including bus stops and digital media. Sheffield introduced a similar policy the same year, also including any content "which might reasonably be deemed to promote more flying". In February 2026, Portsmouth also introduced a ban.

Climate campaigners have now turned their attention to the UK capital, where transport operator Transport for London (TfL) has one of the largest advertising estates in the world. In November, London mayor Sadiq Khan agreed to review the body's advertising policy to see if it could be greener.

In Australia, 19 jurisdictions have already voted for or implemented some level of restriction on fossil fuel advertising, including Sydney, its largest city. And the regional council in Greater Wellington, New Zealand, agreed in 2023 to stop fossil fuel adverts on public transport and council assets.

Belinda Noble, founder and chief executive of Comms Declare, an advocacy group working to ban fossil fuel advertising in Oceania, argues local authorities have "enormous" influence over what their constituents see every day and are a powerful force for change. "They are more responsive to community needs and are usually less beholden to the interests of industry or big coal and gas donors," she adds.

Sutherland says there is often a much stronger focus on shifting consumption at city level than a national one. "Cities are often very ambitious on climate," she says. They also have a strong track record of making changes that are being replicated nationally such as clean transport and waste reduction, she adds.

Still, not all attempts to pass bans in cities have worked. A campaign in Toronto, Canada, for example, was voted down in July 2025, with some councillors raising concerns about the complexity of deciding whether advertising is false or misleading.

Introducing bans in the US, meanwhile, is difficult because advertising is protected under the Constitution's First Amendment, says Ellen Goodman, professor of law at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey. That means any restrictions would be subject to "fairly stringent" judicial review, she says. Instead, US climate activists have focused on legal action trying to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their impact on climate change.

To date, most national governments have focused more on the messages contained within corporate advertising, often through their regulator, rather than the adverts themselves. (Read more about the adverts banned for misleading climate claims).

Still, some countries are already exploring national bans.

In 2022, France became the first European country to ban adverts for fossil fuels through a climate law, although advocates say implementation has since stalled.

The Spanish government voted in June 2025 in favour of a draft bill that would ban advertising of fossil fuels and vehicles exclusively powered by fossil fuels, as well as short flights if there are more sustainable alternatives. However, it still has to pass parliament, which experts say will be difficult.

More widely in Europe, there is more support than opposition for advertising restrictions, according to one study.

DO BANS WORK?

It is too early to know the full impact of the bans in place so far, but the evidence of previous advertising restrictions shows they may well create changes.

After TfL introduced a junk food advertising ban in London in 2019, for example, families put an average of 1,000 less calories in their weekly shops, with a particularly big drop in chocolate and sweets and a likely knock-on reduction in obesity and public healthcare costs. And it did not result in a drop in advertising revenue as some had feared – in fact, this increased.

Likewise, fast food advertising restrictions in Chile aimed at improving children's health led to a 24% drop in purchases of sugary drinks and a rise in healthier options.

Tobacco consumption around the world has also dropped following advertising restrictions, which began in the 1960s and became progressively tougher. And a 2022 review of the research on gambling adverts suggests that cracking down on them could "reduce overall harm and mitigate the impact of advertising on gambling-related inequalities".

Trying to draw lessons from bans motivated by public health concerns, a group of sustainability researchers concluded in 2025 that restricting advertising of a harmful product could encourage the development of "benign" alternatives with a lower environmental footprint. Norway's alcohol advertising restrictions, for example, led companies to brew new ranges of low or alcohol-free beer.

"There's clear evidence that advertising bans do have an impact," says Sutherland. "We don't have that data yet on fossil fuel ad bans... but we expect to see a similar thing."

THE DRAWBACKS OF BANS

However, the sustainability researchers also noted concerns that the development of cleaner and healthier products can help to greenwash a company's corporate image and support sales of the more harmful original. A way forward here could be only allowing companies to advertise benign alternatives if they already sell a significant quantity of them, they said.

And advertising bans could have other limitations. For example, when the gambling industry agreed to voluntarily stop advertising in the UK during live sports programmes, it appeared to increase its levels at other times. Towns and cities can also do little about what people see and hear on the internet – even national governments have struggled with regulating advertising online.

"Why would we stimulate something that has a devastating impact on the planet?" – Robert Barker

Restrictions targeting products are much easier to define and enforce than those banning an industry from advertising altogether, notes Sutherland, and probably less likely to face legal challenge. There are also "grey" areas, adds The Hague's Barker. "If you were to have an advertisement about a certain country that you can only reach by plane, then is that allowed?"

A more extreme option is to scrap outdoor advertising altogether, as Brazilian city São Paulo did in 2006.

What is clear is that bans do not work in a vacuum. The Dutch government has been advised to combine bans with other policies in order to truly shift consumer behaviour. Alongside its ban, for example, The Hague is encouraging people to drive electric cars by offering more charging points around the city and giving householders interest-free loans to install insulation and heat pumps, says Barker.

Barker says public communication in The Hague was pretty straightforward because news about the ban was so widespread. "We focused on explaining why it is important to tackle the climate crisis and that ads in the public space stimulate the opposite," Barker says.

In a 2025 report, special rapporteur on human rights and climate change Elisa Morgera criticised how fossil fuel adverts have shaped public perceptions for decades "by downplaying human rights impacts and emphasising the role of fossil fuel products in economic growth and modern life". Bans on these adverts, she argued, would help to challenge the "taken-for-granted presence of fossil fuel products in our lives" and "underlying patterns of systemic inequalities, overproduction and overconsumption".

In the study on Dutch bans, the policy officials interviewed felt that while the impact of bans on consumer behaviour was still unclear, they have given important signals on unsustainable consumption and encouraging other places to follow suit.

"I think the comparison with tobacco is very accurate," says Barker. "Smoking ruins our lungs while fossil fuel ruins the lungs of the planet. Why would we stimulate something that has a devastating impact on the planet?"

Fonte: BBC