The Dutch city of The Hague is the first ad in the world to ban oil and air travel

The Hague has just become the first city in the world to ban oil ads and ads for big energy-consuming industries, including air travel and cruise ships.

The Hague, whose city council on Friday passed a proposal to ban these ads from January 1, 2025, is the administrative center of the Netherlands, home to the Parliament, Supreme Court and several major international tribunals.

The city is the first in the world to adopt such a ban, after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier this year called on governments to ban the ads.

“Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly washed themselves even as they tried to delay climate action – with lobbying, legal threats and massive advertising campaigns,” Guterres said in June, when he called out oil companies for taking advantage of the climate crisis . .

“Climate change is the mother of all hidden taxes paid by ordinary people and vulnerable countries and communities,” Guterres said, adding that “Meanwhile, the Godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel industry – are making record profits and enjoying trillions of taxpayer dollars. -financed subsidies.”

The companies “were aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies – Mad Men – remember the TV series – fuel the madness,” the UN secretary-general said.

“We call on these companies to stop acting as facilitators of planetary destruction.”

In recent years, Guterres has used almost every one of his speeches to call out fossil fuels and the companies that operate in the industry.

Just last month, he called on world leaders to phase out oil and gas from their economies and halt new hydrocarbon exploration.

Speaking in Tonga during a meeting of Pacific island leaders, Guterres said: “This is a crazy situation: rising seas are a crisis entirely created by humanity. A crisis that will soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale with no lifeboat to take us back to safety.”

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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