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Calls to restrict TV ads for ‘gas guzzlers’ due to climate emergency

The federal government is facing calls to restrict advertising for so-called ‘gas guzzling’ vehicles like utes and SUVs amid warnings that sales are soaring, despite a need to decarbonise transport.

Advocacy group Comms Declare published a report on Friday showing ads for SUVs and light commercial vehicles, such as utes, have increased by 200 per cent over the past decade.

Over the same period sales of such vehicles have risen 80 per cent, from 42 per cent of the entire market in 2011 to an astonishing 77 per cent in 2021.

Comms Declare founder Belinda Noble accused car manufacturers such as Toyota of greenwashing by pushing highly polluting vehicles to customers while sponsoring sustainable initiatives like National Tree Day.

“Carmakers are taking us for a ride, pushing sales of the largest, most profitable vehicles while ignoring the health, safety and climate impacts,” Ms Noble said.

“Restricting advertising of these supersized gas guzzlers would help to reverse this dangerous trend.”

The findings come amid warnings from the International Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency that demand for high emissions vehicles is a key obstacle on any pathway towards net zero.

Local research by the Grattan Institute has similarly found that Australia must stop selling petrol vehicles entirely by 2035 to have any hope of decarbonising transport in time for net zero by 2050.

University of Technology Sydney Associate Professor Robin Smit said that if Australians had only driven small cars in 2019 for personal use, then transport emissions would already be about 15 per cent lower than they are today.

“The reduction in emissions from simply shifting to smaller cars is similar to emissions from domestic aviation and domestic shipping combined,” he said.

“Importantly, light-weighting cuts emissions for all kinds of vehicles.”

Huge SUV ad budget

While vehicle manufacturers have increasingly been running ads about electric vehicles (EVs) in recent months, the ad budget is still dwarfed by that of petrol vehicles – particularly the popular SUVs.

Figures published by Comms Declare show car makers spent $105.7 million advertising SUVs in Australia last year, up from $78 million in 2011.

Additionally, $91.6 million was spent on advertising light commercial vehicles, compared to just $22 million a decade ago.

Most of the money is being spent on television ads, which are the most popular among car manufacturers across the board, though an increasing portion of the budget has been committed to digital advertising in recent years, including paid social media posts.

“What the advertising data shows is that the popularity of SUVs and utes in Australia is not a mistake – it has been deliberately created with tens of millions of dollars of advertising and sponsorships over 10 years,” Ms Noble said.

Double the emissions

Kate Wylie, executive director of advocacy group Doctors for the Environment, said large SUVs are responsible for more than double the carbon emissions of smaller sedans.

Dr Wylie said that larger vehicles are also a bigger contributor to air pollution, and so should carry a health warning instead of being promoted as a “lifestyle” by vehicle manufacturers.

“High emitting vehicles add more to climate change and are dumped on Australia because, unlike most of the world, we have no fuel efficiency standard which would compel manufacturers to advertise vehicles with lower emissions,” she said.

“We can all help by walking, cycling and using public transport.”

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