Oil companies sharply escalated their Google advertising campaigns in the lead-up to COP30, with Big Oil multiplying its ads nearly thirtyfold between September and October alone, according to a new report released on Tuesday.
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Big Oil refers to the world’s largest and most influential oil and gas companies collectively.
In the first 10 months of 2025, the number of Google Ads run by fossil fuel companies targeting Brazil surged by 2,900 per cent – a spike that reflects the industry’s attempt to burnish its reputation and maintain its “social licence to pollute” ahead of the UN climate summit in Belém, said researchers at the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition and the Climainfo Institute.
Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil producer and the firm responsible for 86 per cent of the country’s oil-related incidents, ran 665 ads during the period.
The surge is part of a broader global image management campaign, according to the report. Oil companies increased their Google Ad output by 218 per cent in October, jumping from 1,939 ads in September – around 65 a day – to more than 6,300 ads, or 206 a day, the following month.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, was the most aggressive advertiser, boosting its Google Ads by 469 per cent to more than 10,000 in October. TotalEnergies ramped up by 106 per cent, ExxonMobil by 156 per cent, and BP – coming off a low baseline – by 1,369 per cent. China’s Shandong Energy Group also increased spending, albeit to a lesser degree.
“Every year Big Oil spends big money on greenwashing and disinformation, and it’s well past time policymakers stop letting Big Tech players like Google get rich off lies used to justify the pollution that’s killing people and the planet,” said CAAD communications co-chair Philip Newell.
Climainfo researcher Renata Albuquerque Ribeiro, who led the analysis, said the timing of the advertising blitz was deliberate. “They know this is a decisive moment in which countries will define the next steps in the energy transition,” she said.
There are signs that Big Oil’s advertising assault around COP30 might have had some impact, as the climate talks ended with no agreement to phase out fossil fuels in the final text. A coalition of non-government organisations and academics at COP30 had called for policymakers to uphold climate information integrity and commit to robust measures to combat climate disinformation.
This year’s negotiations were also highlighted for the largest concentration of fossil fuel lobbyists ever recorded at a COP summit.
Fossil fuel advertising phase-out
Researchers warn that the rise in fossil fuel advertising threatens the integrity of public information on climate change. Travis Coan of the University of Exeter’s Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science (C3DS) said misleading climate claims remain pervasive across paid digital platforms.
“Greenwashing in adverts by fossil fuel companies poses a major threat to climate information integrity,” he said.
ACT Climate Labs co-founder Florencia Lujani called for a complete phase-out of fossil fuel advertising.
“The fossil fuel industry is fundamentally different to others: they have misled the public about climate change for decades, they are the largest contributors to climate change, and they actively obstruct climate action,” she said. “Agencies and media owners should not be working with fossil fuel clients.”
Fossil fuel advertising has been banned in jurisdictions such as the British cities of Edinburgh and Sheffield, the Dutch city of The Hague and the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Transport networks in Göthenburg, Montreal and Toronto have also outlawed dirty energy ads.
The analysis draws on a database of Google Ads from 42 extractive and heavy industrial companies, including 24 oil firms.
