Download report: Help! How to resist something that everyone loves?
The new report from Klimakultur explores how to build awareness and engagement against something that many perceive as positive in Norway: Fossil fuel sponsorships of community events and children activities, culture, sport and education.
An important learning point for Klimakultur has been to realize how wide the specter of climate disinformation is. From the algorithms of large technology companies to local community events in Harstad, a small town in Northern Norway. It has been an eye-opener to understand the local context of oil sponsored community events and what it takes to resist the disinformation tactics of Big Oil.
Insights gathered from courageous local voices resisting Big Oil's greenwashing, coupled with lessons from countries that have successfully curbed the industry’s influence, underscored a critical necessity: the need to build support systems around those creating resistance.
Three action points based on the learnings of this report
1. Connect the dots.
Build awareness about how the fossil fuel industry uses these sponsorships to slow down climate action.
2. Push forward to implement fossil fuel ad bans.
Get inspired and learn how to succeed with thorough descriptions by World Without Fossil Ads.
3. Build community and support systems.
Support the local voices and mobilise regional and national interest groups and organisations.
What's in the report?
Klimakultur has followed big oil company Equinor’s petroganda from small coastal communities in Norway to their sponsorships of major cultural institutions in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil.
We have learned that Equinor has exported their PR strategies from Norway to other countries, like Brazil. And that other big oil companies, e.g Shell and BP, are doing the exact same thing. We also see how companies like Petrobras in Brazil have adopted these methods.
The fossil fuel industry all uses the same playbook, developed and fine tuned for over a hundred years. This report could as well be about ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total or Repsol.
Contributors and perspectives
Klimakulturs inhouse social anthropologist Erlend Eggen uses classic gift theory to describe Equinor sponsoring community events (folkefester) - and how these “gifts” makes it so much harder to resist the oil industry.
18 year old Kimi Nie Nilssen from Harstad explains:
"Many people feel there is a shortage of family events and things that can create a good atmosphere downtown…when you try to shed light on the negative aspects of Equinor's operations, it comes across as whining”.
The Brazilian journalist Juliana Aguilera reflects on why there is so little opposition against fossil fuel sponsorships. She shows how the Brazilian state is encouraging them through tax incentives, and that lack of public cultural funding makes it hard to oppose these revenues.
Aguilera writes about how Shell, together with the Ministry of Culture, launched the “Rouanet Youth Program,” an initiative to promote cultural engagement among Brazilian youth.
Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes reflects that even though she understands the need for funding, a lot of these sponsorships aimed at doing good are “fundamentally immoral”.
Calum Macintyre from Folk Mot Fossilmakta shows how disruption has been an effective tool for creating attention and mobilising against fossil fuel sponsorships of sports and culture in Norway.
In October 2025 Klimakultur arranged the very first, and very informal, Petroganda Prize in Oslo. The award brought attention to 32 nominees in 8 different categories who had promoted the interests of the fossil fuel industry in Norway. Jury leader Ketan Joshi writes about how Equinor sponsoring Red Cross’ work to save human lives from disasters (funded by a company that only profits by making them worse) can be compared to grim tragicomic fiction like The Big Short or This is Spinal Tap.
Klimakultur has found some much needed help and inspiration from the Netherlands and the UK - where ngo’s and engaged citizens have been resisting these sponsorships for a lot longer, and on a bigger scale, than what we have in Norway (and Brazil, as it seems).
Through examples from Shell sponsoring the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave and arranging the children's festival Generation Discover in the Netherlands; to BP sponsoring the National Portrait Gallery and its BP Portrait Award and Shell sponsoring the Science Museum in the UK, we learn how others have mobilised with great success.
The scope of these sponsorships are enormous. Equinor has spent 833 million NOK (appr 83 million USD) on sponsorships in five years - including sports, culture and stem/education. Most of these have been spend on a population of only 5,5 million people in Norway (the population of Brooklyn and Queens together).
Some of the money is going abroad, to Brazil as we have learned here, and to the UK where “Oil giant funds computer game EnergyTown that promotes fossil fuels to schoolchildren”.
The most important learning point for Klimakultur has been to realize how wide the specter of climate disinformation is. From the algorithms of big tech to community events in Harstad. Understanding the local context brave voices like Kimi are living in, is key to building resistance against the greenwashing of Big Oil.
The topic of climate disinformation and its connection to banning fossil fuel advertising and sponsorships have been almost non-existing in Norway so far. Klimakultur are learning out loud why and what we can do about it. And we are bringing you with us. Thanks for the help.
The report was support by CAAD (Climate Action Against Disinformation).
Design: Ania Rzymyszkiewicz
Front page illustration: TYV
