From January 1st 2025, street advertising for fossil fuels will be banned by law in the Netherland’s third largest city. Climate News reported that a notice had already been published on the Dutch city’s website of 13th of September 2024, reporting that a number of cities worldwide had already began cracking down on publicity for fossil fuels and all high emissions sectors.
Just as tobacco advertising has been widely banned due to its harmful effects on health the report highlighted, it was as well argued that advertisements for products or services that have the likelihood of contributing significantly to climate change should be banned as they are also harmful to the planet.
Disclosing that The Hague’s Municipal Council had on Thursday voted to approve the new rules for outdoor advertising, which will apply from January to billboards and freestanding advertising screens. This ban is also expected to support The Hague’s goal of becoming a climate-neutral city by 2030.
“The city council of The Hague adopted two proposals to ban fossil advertising in outdoor spaces,” council spokesman Jordy Kruse was quoted as saying.
“The first proposal informs advertising agencies that fossil fuel advertising is not permitted while the second bans all fossil fuel advertising in public spaces,” Kruse said.
Leonie Gerritsen, a Hague council member for the Party for Animals who initiated the proposal was also reported to have told a local news agency.
“We believe that adopting binding laws to ban fossil fuel advertising through local legislation is a world first. We hope that this law will also give a signal to other cities to do the same to fight climate change.”
The step according to the report was coming four months after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on every country in the world to institute a ban on advertising from fossil fuel companies, which he’d referred to as “the godfathers of climate chaos”.
Source: Climate News