Civil society is working on all fronts to tackle the climate crisis. Activists are protesting in numbers to pressure governments and corporations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They’re using non-violent direct action and high-profile stunts, paying a heavy price as numerous states criminalise climate protest.
Campaigners are taking to the courts to hold governments and companies accountable for their climate commitments and impacts, with recent breakthroughs in Belgium, India and Switzerland, among others, and many more cases pending. They’re pressuring institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels – 72 per cent of UK universities have pledged to divest – and putting forward corporate resolutions calling for stronger action.
At the global level, activists are working to influence key meetings, particularly the COP climate summits. At the most recent summit, COP28, states agreed for the first time on the need to cut fossil fuel emissions – an incredibly belated acknowledgement, but one that came only after intensive civil society lobbying.
As pressure mounts, fossil fuel companies are looking for any way they can portray themselves as responsible corporate citizens while continuing their lethal business for as long as possible. They want to make it look as though they’re transitioning to renewable energies and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, when the opposite is true.
Cultural institutions are a prime target for fossil fuel companies with declining reputations but deep pockets. The outlay is tiny compared to the benefits. Through sponsorship, they try to present themselves as generous philanthropists and borrow the high public standing of well-known institutions. But climate activists aren’t letting them get away with it. They’re putting increasing pressure on art galleries and museums to end fossil fuel funding.
Science Museum in the spotlight
The UK is ground zero, home to numerous world-class galleries and museums under pressure to attract private sector sponsorship and to oil and gas titans such as BP and Shell. Pretty much all of London’s major cultural institutions have taken fossil fuel funding in the past. But that’s far less the case now. Thanks to the efforts of campaigning groups such as Culture Unstained, Fossil Free London and Liberate Tate, several have cut ties.
The latest victory came in July, when London’s Science Museum ended its contract with Norwegian state-owned oil giant Equinor. Equinor sponsored WonderLab – an interactive children’s exhibition – since 2016.
Equinor continues to develop new extractive projects, despite the International Energy Agency making clear there can be no further fossil fuel developments if there’s any hope of realising the Paris Agreement. Equinor majority owns the North Sea Rosebank oil and gas field, which the UK government approved for drilling last year.
The Science Museum publicly stated that its sponsorship had simply reached its end, but emails suggested that Equinor was in breach of the museum’s stated commitment to ensure sponsors comply with the Paris Agreement, as determined by the Transition Pathway Initiative, which assesses whether companies are adequately transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
Last year it was revealed that the Science Museum’s contract contained a gagging clause preventing the museum saying anything that might harm Equinor’s reputation. Such restrictions could prevent museums discussing the central role of the fossil fuel industry in causing climate change. There are also examples of companies such as Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell trying to influence the content of exhibitions they sponsor.
As well as reputation-washing, fossil fuel companies can leverage sponsorships to lobby for further extraction: BP’s funding of a Mexican-themed event at the British Museum enabled it to network with Mexican government representatives as part of a successful bid for drilling licences. As its funding of arts bodies became more controversial, BP was also reported to have brought together representatives of sponsored institutions to discuss how to deal with activists.
Room for improvement
It’s unlikely this change would have happened without civil society pressure, which increased the Science Museum’s reputational costs. It marked the successful conclusion of an eight-year campaign involving young climate activists, scientists and civil society groups in the UK and Equinor’s home country, Norway.
But there’s still much room for improvement. The Science Museum still has a contract with BP, even though the Church of England divested from BP for the same reason the museum dropped Equinor: because the Transition Pathway Initiative assessed it wasn’t aligned with the Paris Agreement.
Even more grotesquely, the Science Museum’s new ‘Energy Revolution’ exhibition is sponsored by Adani, the world’s largest private coalmine developer, which is also involved in manufacturing drones Israel is using to kill people in Gaza. In April, campaigners held a sit-in protest against this deal. Hundreds of teachers have refused to take their students to the exhibition. In 2021, when the agreement was struck, two trustees resigned in protest.
There are many ways to express disgust. Shell’s sponsorship of a Science Museum climate exhibition led some prominent academics to boycott the institution and refuse to allow their work to appear in its exhibitions. Several of the galleries and museums that have accepted fossil fuel money have seen activists occupy their spaces in protest. When the Tate group of galleries was sponsored by BP, Liberate Tate staged a series of artistic interventions, including one where people threw specially designed fake banknotes.
British Museum on the wrong side of history
As long as it insists on taking fossil fuel money, the Science Museum can only expect more bad publicity. And it’s now something of a laggard. Many of the UK’s internationally renowned institutions have conceded civil society’s demands to cut the cord. The National Portrait Gallery, Royal Opera House, Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate have severed links with BP, and the British Film Institute, National Theatre and Southbank Centre have stopped accepting funding from Shell.
The trend has spread beyond the UK: Amsterdam’s renowned Van Gogh Museum ended its Shell deal in response to campaigning. In 2020, the city’s famous museum quarter was declared free of fossil fuel sponsorship.
But alongside the Science Museum, there’s another big holdout: the British Museum, long controversial for its vast collection of looted colonial-era artefacts. Last year it once again put itself on the wrong side of history by agreeing a 10-year US$65.6 million deal with BP, making a mockery of its stated intention to phase out fossil fuel use. It acted in defiance of protests and a letter signed by over 300 museum professionals urging it to end its relationship with BP, while its deputy chair resigned in protest.
It’s not just the cultural sector that fossil fuel corporations are trying to co-opt – they’re also extensively involved in sport. Petrostates such as Qatar, and likely soon Saudi Arabia, are hosting peak global sporting events, sponsoring everything from elite athletes to grassroots sports and using sovereign wealth funds to buy high-profile football clubs.
People rightly expect arts, sciences and sports to uphold exemplary standards because, at their best, they’re the highest expressions of what humanity can achieve. That’s why it’s so shocking when fossil fuel companies try to coopt them. All their attempts to launder their reputations must be met with determined resistance.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
