A bomb remnant retrieved following Israel’s October 25, 2024 attack on a compound housing journalists in southern Lebanon. (Photo: Anoir Ghaida via Human Rights Watch)
“Israel’s use of U.S. arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel,” said a researcher from Human Rights Watch.
A leading international human rights organization said Monday that Israel’s deadly bombing of a Lebanese residential compound housing journalists last month was carried out using a munition guidance kit supplied by the United States.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its investigation determined that the October 25 strike in southern Lebanon, launched in the early hours of the morning as most of the journalists staying in the compound slept, was “most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
The group’s investigators visited the Hasbaya Village Club Resort, the target of the strike, and found no evidence that the compound was being used for military activity, undercutting Israel’s initial claim that it hit a building from which “terrorists were operating.”
HRW also said it reviewed information indicating that Israel’s military “knew or should have known” that journalists were staying in the compound. Journalists who were at the compound when Israel’s strike hit said the Israeli military did not issue a warning ahead of the attack.
“All the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime.”
The airstrike killed at least three journalists and injured several others. Remnants from the scene of the strike collected by the targeted resort’s owner were “consistent” with Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) that the U.S. has provided to the Israeli military.
One fragment, according to HRW “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a U.S. company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions.” Boeing, a major U.S. military contractor, assembles and sells JDAMs, which are attached to bombs with the stated goal of making airstrikes more precise.
Other remnants HRW reviewed were consistent with materials from a 500-pound bomb equipped with a JDAM.
A bomb remnant retrieved following Israel’s October 25, 2024 attack. (Photo: Anoir Ghaida via Human Rights Watch)
Richard Weir, a senior researcher at HRW, said in a statement Monday that “Israel’s use of U.S. arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel.”
“The Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media,” said Weir. “As evidence mounts of Israel’s unlawful use of U.S. weapons, including in apparent war crimes, U.S. officials need to decide whether they will uphold U.S. and international law by halting arms sales to Israel or risk being found legally complicit in serious violations.”
The Guardian conducted a separate investigation of the Israeli strike and reached conclusions mirroring HRW’s, reporting Monday that “Israel used a U.S. munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three.”
“On 25 October at 3:19 am, an Israeli jet shot two bombs at a chalet hosting three journalists—cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, as well as cameraman Wissam Qassem from the Hezbollah-affiliated outlet al-Manar,” the newspaper observed. “All three were killed in their sleep in the attack which also wounded three other journalists from different outlets staying nearby. There was no fighting in the area before or at the time of the strike.”
Nadim Houry, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, told The Guardian that “all the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime.”
“This was clearly delineated as a place where journalists were staying,” Houry said.
The findings were published just days after the U.S. Senate voted down an effort led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block new sales of American weaponry to Israel. One of the resolutions put forth by Sanders would have blocked the imminent transfer of over $260 million worth of JDAMs to Israel’s military.
In a fact sheet, Sanders’ office pointed to six examples in which Israel’s military used JDAMs in deadly attacks on civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, including children.
“The United States is complicit in these atrocities,” Sanders said in a floor speech ahead of last week’s vote. “That complicity must end.”
Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee northern Gaza under Israeli attack on October 12, 2024. (Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images)
“Such dehumanization cannot help but trigger our associations with scenes depicting the Nazis loading Jews into cattle cars.”
Much alarm has been raised over the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” an ethnic cleansing proposal for northern Gaza that has reportedly garnered attention in the highest reaches of the Israeli government.
But Israeli scholar Idan Landau argued in a column published in English by +972 Magazine on Friday that what the Israeli military is actually doing in northern Gaza “is even more appalling” than the plan outlined by a group of retired generals. Landau argued that focus on the details of the Generals’ Plan has served to obscure the “true brutality” of Israel’s deadly operations in northern Gaza, which has been rendered a hellscape of death and destruction by the military assault and siege.
Landau, a professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, opened his column—first published in Hebrew on his blog—by pointing to two photos: one showing a celebratory event at a camp built by an Israeli settler organization just outside of the Gaza Strip, and the other showing displaced Palestinians lined up at gunpoint amid the ruins of northern Gaza.
“These photos tell a story that is unfolding so rapidly that its harrowing details are already on the brink of being forgotten,” wrote Landau. “Yet this story could start from any point during the past 76 years: the Nakba of 1948, the ‘Siyag Plan‘ that followed it, the Naksa of 1967. On one side, displaced Palestinians with all the belongings they can carry, hungry, wounded, and exhausted; on the other, joyful Jewish settlers, sanctifying the new land that the army has cleared for them.”
The Israeli military’s dehumanization of the people of Gaza, Landau wrote, “cannot help but trigger our associations with scenes depicting the Nazis loading Jews into cattle cars.”
On the left, Israeli settlers gather at an event celebrating Sukkot near the Gaza Strip. On the right, displaced Palestinians line up at gunpoint in the ruins of Jabalia refugee camp. (Photos via +972 Magazine)
Landau wrote that what the Israeli army has been implementing in northern Gaza in recent weeks is “not quite” the Generals’ Plan, which entails giving Palestinians still in the region a week to leave before declaring the area a closed military zone—and designating everyone who remains a militant who can be denied humanitarian assistance and killed.
The actual strategy Israeli soldiers have been deploying in northern Gaza is “an even more sinister and brutal version” of the Generals’ Plan “within a more concentrated area.”
“The first, most immediate distinction is the abandoning of provisions for reducing harm to civilians, i.e. giving residents of northern Gaza a week to evacuate southward,” Landau wrote. “The second departure concerns the real purpose of emptying the area: while portraying the military operation as a security necessity, it was, in fact, an embodiment of the spirit of ethnic cleansing and resettlement from day one.”
“As opposed to the picture painted by the army, implying that residents in the northern areas were free to move south and get out of the danger zone, local testimonies presented a frightening reality: Anyone who so much as stepped out of their home risked being shot by Israeli snipers or drones, including young children and those holding white flags,” Landau noted. “Rescue crews trying to help the wounded also came under attack, as well as journalists trying to document the events.”
The scholar cites one “particularly harrowing video” in which a Palestinian child is seen “on the ground pleading for help after being wounded by an airstrike; when a crowd gathers to help him, they are suddenly hit by another airstrike, killing one and wounding more than 20 others.”
“This is the reality amid which the people of northern Gaza were supposed to walk, starved and exhausted, into the ‘humanitarian zone,” Landau wrote. “Since the Israeli army began its operation in northern Gaza, it has killed over 1,000 Palestinians. The Israeli Air Force usually bombs at night while the victims are sleeping, slaughtering entire families in their homes and making it more difficult to evacuate the wounded. And on October 24, rescue services announced that the intensity of the bombardment left them with no choice but to cease all operations in the besieged areas.”
The deadly military assault, Landau stressed, has been accompanied by a “starvation policy” that has severely hindered the flow of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza.
The heads of prominent United Nations agencies and human rights organizations warned Friday that conditions on the ground in the region are “apocalyptic” and that “the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence.”
Landau noted that on October 16, following pressure from the Biden administration, the Israeli government reportedly allowed 100 aid trucks to enter northern Gaza.
“But journalists in the north were quick to correct the record: Nothing at all had entered the besieged areas,” Landau wrote. “On October 20, Israeldenied a further request by U.N. agencies to bring in food, fuel, blood, [and] medicines. Three days later, in response to a request for an interim order by the Israeli human rights group Gisha, the state admitted to the High Court that no humanitarian aid had been allowed into northern Gaza up to that point. By this time, we are already talking about a three-week-long food siege.”
Addressing the question of “what is left for us to do” in the face of such a catastrophe, Landau wrote that “the consensus concerning the war of extermination poisons Israeli society and blackens its future so profoundly that even small pockets of resistance can proliferate stamina and hope to those who have not yet been carried away by the currents of madness.”
“We can also look for partners in this fight abroad, where the critical lever of pressure is the pipeline of American weapons,” he added. “The struggle to end this intensifying war of extermination and transfer in Gaza, particularly in the north, is first and foremost a human fight. It is a fight for life, both in Gaza and Israel: for the very chance that life can continue to exist in this blood-soaked land. Nothing could be more patriotic.”
+972 Magazine published Landau’s column a day after Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, warned in a statement that “time is running out” to stop the far-right Israeli government’s attempt to “erase the Palestinians from their own land and allow Israel to fully annex Palestinian territory.”
“Genocide and a man-made humanitarian catastrophe are unfolding in front of us and in Gaza,” said Albanese. “I regret to see so many member states are avoiding acknowledging the suffering of the Palestinian people and instead look away.”
Journalist Richard Medhurst addresses supporters of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside 10 Downing Street following the second day of his final extradition appeal on February 21, 2024 in London. (Photo: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)
“I criticized the Terrorism Act before getting on the plane, then got arrested under the Terrorism Act upon landing.”
Richard Medhurst, a Syrian-British independent journalist who defends Palestinians’ right to resist Israeli apartheid, occupation, and other crimes, said this week that he was recently arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport and held for nearly 24 hours for allegedly running afoul of a highly controversial anti-terrorism law critics say is used to silence legitimate dissent.
Medhurst—who is known for his work opposing U.S., British, and Israeli war crimes in the Middle East and for his advocacy for formerly imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—said on social media Tuesday: “I criticized the Terrorism Act before getting on the plane, then got arrested under the Terrorism Act upon landing. Can’t make this up.”
In a nearly nine-minute video posted Monday night on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, Medhurst said that “on Thursday, as I landed in London Heathrow Airport, I was immediately escorted off the plane by six police officers who were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft.”
“They arrested me—not detained—they arrested me under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 and accused me of allegedly ‘expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a prescribed organization,’ but wouldn’t explain what this meant,” he continued.
If you thought Britain's draconian terrorism laws were intended simply to stop terrorism, think again.
They're also there to stop us learning about how our own government spreads terror.
Independent journalist Richard Medhurst gives shocking details about his arrest under the… https://t.co/A0SDKn20UI
The controversial law criminalizes anyone who “invites support for a proscribed organization” or “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive” of such a group. Violators can be punished with up to 14 years’ imprisonment and a fine.
As Laura Tiernan explained Tuesday at World Socialist Web Site:
Introduced by [former U.K. Prime Minister] Tony Blair’s Labour government, the act is a legal dragnet. In Medhurst’s case, it appears that commentary defending the right of Palestinians under international law to resist foreign military occupation and genocide is being defined as support for terrorism.
Hamas is among the organizations proscribed as terrorist by the U.K. government. While its military wing was proscribed in 2001, Hamas was banned in its entirety in 2021, aimed at criminalizing support for the Palestinian people. The political wing of Hamas won elections held in Gaza in 2006 and the organization also oversees charitable work.
Medhurst said: “I categorically and utterly reject all the accusations by the police. I am not a terrorist. I have no criminal record. Prior to this incident, I’d never been detained in my entire life.”
“I’m a product of the diplomatic community, and I’m raised to be anti-war,” he explained. “Both of my parents won Nobel Peace Prizes for their work as United Nations peacekeepers. They had a tremendous effect on my worldview and outlook and instilled in me the importance of diplomacy, international law, and peace.”
Medhurst said he was searched, handcuffed, and taken in a police van to a station where he was searched again, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in solitary confinement. His phone and work equipment were seized. When he questioned why he’d been arrested, “the police would say something like: ‘Well, we’re just the arresting officers. We don’t really know.'”
“No one in the world knew what had happened to me or where I was,” he said. “I had to ask like four or five different guards for several hours until I finally received a call. In total, I spent almost 24 hours in detention. At no point whatsoever was I allowed to speak to a family member or a friend. After waiting 15 hours, I was finally interviewed by two detectives.”
I am being politically persecuted by my own government, so unfortunately I am unable to speak freely or do my job as a journalist it seems.
I thought I'd seen it all in court with Julian's case, but this is really something.
“I felt that the whole process was designed to humiliate, intimidate, and dehumanize me and treat me like a criminal, even though they must’ve been aware of my background and that I’m a journalist,” Medhurst alleged. He contended that his arrest was “done on purpose to try and rattle me psychologically,” and noted that “many people have been detained in Britain because of their connection to journalism.”
He named Assange—who was freed in June following a plea deal with the U.S. government—as well as Scottish author Craig Murray, Grayzone correspondent Kit Clarenberg, and Glenn Greenwald’s late partner, Brazilian politician David Miranda, as people who have been targeted for their political beliefs and expression.
“Freedom of the press, freedom of speech really are under attack,” Medhurst warned in the video. “The state is cracking down and escalating to try and stop people from speaking out against our government’s complicity in genocide.”
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice over its 320-day assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, wounded at least 93,000 others, starved hundreds of thousands more, and obliterated the coastal enclave.
“We cannot call ourselves a democracy as long as reporters are dragged off of planes and detained and treated like murderers,” Medhurst concluded. “I am disgusted that I am being politically persecuted in my own country.”
The broadcaster’s in-house content studio has been paid to promote fossil fuel firms and petrostates with a history of persecuting journalists.
The BBC has produced dozens of films and articles for oil and gas companies, agricultural giants, fossil fuel states, and high-emission transport firms in recent years, DeSmog can reveal.
Experts say the BBC has been “greenwashing” the image of companies and countries contributing to global emissions by trumpeting their dubious climate credentials and promoting their favoured solutions to the crisis.
The content was produced by BBC StoryWorks, a studio that produces videos, podcasts, and articles paid for commercial clients, which it publishes on BBC channels outside the UK.
On its website, BBC StoryWorks boasts that it leverages the reputation of the BBC – “our century-long pedigree as the world’s most trusted storytellers” – to create content for commercial clients “that moves and inspires curious minds, across platforms and across the globe”.
BBC StoryWorks produces traditional adverts for its clients, as well as content “with an editorial style” (known as “branded” or “native” content).
Branded content appears outside the UK on the BBC website – the most viewed news platform in the world – and on its non-UK broadcast channels, in a similar format to normal editorial output. However, branded content promotes the paying client and typically features interviews with the client’s senior executives. It is only distinguished by a disclaimer that it has been paid for by an external organisation.
BBC Studios – which includes StoryWorks – generated £1.8 billion of sales in the year 2023/24, according to the broadcaster’s annual accounts. The BBC‘s financial deficit is projected to reach nearly £500 million next year, with the licence fee – its primary funding source – having been frozen for several years by the last Conservative government.
In recent months, the BBC has created content for a number of oil and gas companies, including the French fossil fuel company Engie, which owns a number of coal-fired power plants and relies heavily on gas for its energy production.
BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for liquified natural gas (LNG) companies, and has touted the energy source as a cleaner alternative to other fossil fuels. This is despite experts warning that the booming LNG industry could contribute more heavily to the climate crisis than the ongoing use of coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.
Agriculture accounts for 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and BBC StoryWorks has produced films for some of the world’s biggest food and farming firms, including Nestlé and Bayer, often promoting the disputed green technologies backed by the industry. As previously revealed by DeSmog, BBC StoryWorks has produced dozens of documentaries sponsored by the pesticide giant Corteva, publicising the technologies developed and sold by the firm.
Petrostates with a history of human rights abuses – including the imprisonment of journalists – have also been promoted by BBC StoryWorks.
An investigation by DeSmog and Drilled previously revealed that many of the world’s most trusted English-language news outlets regularly promote the fossil fuel industry’s narratives on climate-related topics. Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, and the Washington Post all have internal commercial studios that create advertising content for fossil fuel firms.
The BBC is committed to science-led climate reporting and in 2021 signed the Climate Content Pledge, promising to do “more and better climate story-telling on screen across all genres.”
However, critics say that BBC StoryWorks is using the broadcaster’s reputation – including its role as a public service broadcaster – to make money from commercial content that often flouts its editorial values.
“The contracts to make this sort of content are won on the back of the BBC’s reputation as an honest and impartial broadcaster,” Patrick Howse, the BBC’s former Baghdad bureau chief, told DeSmog. “Accepting money from sources like this, to make content like this, risks undermining the BBC’s own hard-won reputation and will ultimately put it on the wrong side of history.
“This is a huge disservice to the BBC’s audiences, and a betrayal of the many brave and conscientious BBC journalists around the world who see holding power to account and telling the truth as their raison d’etre.”
Last year was the warmest year since global records began in 1850. The world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has said that “immediate and deep emissions reductions” are needed “across all sectors” to limit global warming to 1.5C – the global target established by the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In June 2024, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that advertising agencies had “aided and abetted” the fossil fuel industry, “acting as enablers to planetary destruction”.
“Fossil fuels are not only poisoning our planet – they’re toxic for your brand,” he said.
A BBC StoryWorks spokesperson said that the studio “operates entirely separately from the BBC’s editorial operations” and that its output “is clearly labelled as commercial content”.
However, content labelling doesn’t always help readers and viewers to understand that it has been paid for by a commercial client. A 2018 Boston University study found that only one in 10 people recognised native advertising – which includes branded content – as advertising rather than reporting.
The BBC StoryWorks spokesperson added that, “BBC StoryWorks operates under robust and established governance and is required to comply with the BBC’s guidelines as set out in the publicly available Advertising and Sponsorship Guidelines.
“Central to these guidelines is a commitment to factual accuracy in any piece of content. All of the content cited in this article was approved as compliant with the BBC’s advertising guidelines prior to its publication.”
Fossil Fuel Firms and False Solutions
In April and June, BBC StoryWorks published two articles paid for by Engie, a global energy company with annual revenues of $60 billion, which is part-owned by the French state. The articles promoted Engie’s green credentials, claiming it has a mission “to accelerate the energy transition”, despite the firm’s extensive fossil fuel interests.
Though ENGIE has ambitious renewable development objectives, it plans to expand its LNG terminals in Europe, is one of the top European developers of gas power plants globally, and has agreed to import American shale gas beyond 2040.
Between 2016 and 2022, the firm sold 16 of its coal plants – a 60 percent reduction in its coal capacity. However, Engie chose to sell these assets rather than close them down. This transferred the polluting plants to different owners, meaning that the plants will still contribute to global emissions.
The BBC StoryWorks articles didn’t provide information about the company’s existing polluting activities, or the global need to rapidly scale-down oil, gas, and coal production.
Professor Peter Newell, an academic at the University of Sussex specialising in environmental politics, told DeSmog: “Because branded content looks like regular BBC journalism which the public trust as independent, it compromises the integrity of the organisation and its public role, including to help society respond seriously to the climate crisis.”
In 2021, the broadcaster launched a “Humanising Energy” series “presented by” the World Energy Council, a global forum for sustainable energy development, followed by a second series in 2023.
The two series featured dozens of five-minute films paid for by individual firms, showcasing their supposed climate solutions. These films typically involved one-on-one interviews with people either creating or benefiting from these green innovations, as well as cinematic shots of the technologies being deployed.
A screenshot of a BBC StoryWorks film from its ”Humanising Energy“ series. Credit: BBC
Sponsors of films in the two Humanising Energy series included the fossil fuel companies Engie Brazil, Gasum (the largest distributor of LNG in the Nordic countries), CLP Holdings (which has said it won’t phase out its coal assets before 2040, and hasn’t committed to phasing out its gas assets), Mabanaft, and Invenergy, the energy services firm Voith, and the engine manufacturer Cummins.
All of these films touted the supposed climate credentials of the featured companies, without examining their contribution to global emissions or the viability of the featured technologies.
In January 2024, Cummins agreed to pay a record $1.7 billion fine – the second largest environmental penalty ever in the U.S. – after facing charges that it equipped roughly one million vehicles with devices that bypassed emissions sensors. The company didn’t admit wrongdoing.
Just a few months earlier, BBC StoryWorks produced a film for Cummins boasting of the firm’s efforts to help decarbonise commercial vehicles.
The Invenergy film focused on its construction of an LNG plant in El Salvador. While the content attempted to show how the plant was providing energy and jobs to the local community, it also tried to tout the environmental benefits of natural gas.
During the film, an Invenergy spokesperson suggested that natural gas generates 30 percent less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels, neglecting the fact that natural gas is composed largely of methane, which is over 80 times more potent than CO2 across a 20 year period. Even relatively small methane leaks during the process of extracting, shipping, and processing natural gas contribute significantly to global emissions.
One of the films in the Humanising Energy series – “The evolution of home energy” – promoted the role of hydrogen in supplying home heating. Yet, while green hydrogen is widely accepted as necessary for decarbonising heavy industry and other sectors where alternative renewable energy sources are unworkable, it is not considered viable for heating homes.
A peer-reviewed assessment of over 50 independent studies in 2024 concluded that hydrogen use in domestic heating is inefficient, costly and resource-intensive compared to other low-carbon options such as heat pumps.
The BBC StoryWorks film was paid for by DNV, a Norwegian company that claims to be “the world’s leading resource of independent energy experts and technical advisors”, including the oil and gas sector. DNV says on its website that it “delivers broad technical expertise and experience to enable hydrogen to play a key role in the energy transition”.
A DNV spokesperson said that, “While DNV does work with oil and gas companies and organisations across renewable energy production, it is not involved in the direct production or distribution of energy… Our approach to energy solutions is rooted in comprehensive research and rigorous testing, and our position as an independent third party is a central part of our identity and our work.”
The Humanising Energy series also featured twofilms advocating for the development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) – one paid for by the aviation giant Boeing, and one paid for by the energy and chemicals company Sasol alongside the gas company Linde.
A screenshot of a BBC StoryWorks film, sponsored by Boeing, from its ”Humanising Energy“ series. Credit: BBC
SAFs have been criticised as being environmentally damaging and currently economically unviable. The Advertising Standards Authority this month banned a Virgin Atlantic advert for making the “misleading” claim that it had developed a “100 percent sustainable aviation fuel”.
In August 2022, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) said that the amount of money invested by airlines in SAFs was “insufficient” and that it seemed as though the technology was simply “about burnishing airlines’ images” by inflating their environmental credentials.
Sasol told DeSmog that its SAF initiatives were not an example of greenwashing and that it believes SAFs hold the “promise to be an enabler of our own decarbonisation and contribute to decarbonising aviation.”
Aviation contributes approximately 2.5 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, yet BBC StoryWorks has produced content for a number of airlines in recent months and years, including Uzbekistan Airways (March 2024), China Southern Airline (2022), and Korean Air (2017).
BBC StoryWorks has also worked extensively with other polluting transport companies.
It produced an advertising campaign for the shipping and cruise company Cunard that appeared on BBC StoryWorks social media pages in July 2024. Europe’s 218 cruise ships emitted as much sulphur oxides as one billion cars in 2022.
BBC StoryWorks has also produced brandedcontent for the car company Hyundai, as well as for Lexus, Volkswagen, and Jaguar. In addition, the studio has produced a six-part series paid for by the Indian multinational motorcycle company Royal Enfield.
Transport contributes roughly one quarter of all energy related greenhouse gas emissions, while outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause more than 3.2 million premature deaths worldwide every year.
“This important investigation reveals that BBC StoryWorks has been doing the greenwashing work of major polluting firms driving the climate crisis by obscuring their role and promoting their preferred ‘solutions’, however discredited by science,” Professor Newell told DeSmog.
Greenwashing is when a company falsely brands something as eco-friendly, green or sustainable. In 2017, the BBC itself produced a guide to the “seven ways to spot businesses greenwashing”.
Big Ag Polluters
BBC StoryWorks has also been paid to produce content for major agricultural polluters and their lobbyists. This content has often promoted the technological hacks that food and farming giants claim will reduce the sector’s emissions, rather than the more fundamental changes in production and consumption that scientists say will be crucial in limiting Big Ag’s climate impact.
In 2023, BBC StoryWorks produced an advertising campaign for the pesticides giant Bayer, the world’s second largest crop chemicals company, boasting of the firm’s efforts to facilitate “scientific breakthroughs”.
In addition, as part of a branded content series in late 2023 entitled “The Climate and Us”, BBC StoryWorks was paid by Bayer to produce a film on the digital apps helping farmers to monitor and reduce their emissions.
The film, which featured an interview with Bayer’s vice president of digital farming operations, promoted the firm’s technologies with no additional comment from experts on its efficacy, or Bayer’s stance on climate change.
A screenshot of a BBC StoryWorks film, sponsored by Bayer. Credit: BBC
According to the Pesticides Action Network, over a third of Bayer’s sales derive from products that are highly hazardous to the environment, animal or human health. (The methodology for this classification is strongly disputed by Bayer on the grounds that it uses different criteria to internationally accepted rules).
Bayer told DeSmog that it is “committed to ambitious sustainability goals and has a positive track record while recognising the ongoing challenge.”
Experts say that the overuse of chemical pesticides is harming the future of food production. Biodiversity is in sharp decline across the world, and numbers of birds and pollinators are plummeting in Europe.
Bayer, which makes almost $10 billion in agrochemical sales every year, has also faced millions of dollars in lawsuits over health issues allegedly related to its products, including from farmers.
In 2023, DeSmog revealed that BBC StoryWorks had produced three documentary series and 26 articles – viewed at least 65 million times – sponsored by Corteva, one of the world’s largest pesticide firms.
The BBC said that the Corteva-sponsored content, which focused on sustainable food production, was editorial in nature and not influenced by its corporate client. However, experts said the documentaries gave a “totally biased” picture of global food problems, while the content promoted a number of the technologies developed by Corteva.
BBC StoryWorks also produced two articles in 2023 paid for by Australian Dairy – the country’s industry trade group.
The first article promoted the supposed contribution of milk and dairy to a healthy diet, while the second advocated for “precision farming” – in other words, using technology to ensure that resources are used efficiently and to track climate impacts.
Scientists and health professionals agree that dairy products are not necessary for a healthy diet, and they agree that for people who are able to have a varied diet, lower meat and dairy consumption is healthier than diets higher in milk and dairy.
Experts also doubt that precision farming can be rolled out widely enough to meaningfully reduce agricultural emissions. The environmental group Friends of the Earth has said that: “Faced with global climate and biodiversity emergencies, better ‘optimisation’ of existing production processes cannot possibly go far enough to meet the challenges we face.”
According to a March 2024 Harvard Law paper, which surveyed more than 200 environmental and agricultural scientists, meat and dairy production must be drastically reduced – and fast – to align with the Paris Agreement. The report concluded that global emissions from livestock production need to decline by 50 percent during the next six years, with “high-producing and consuming nations” taking the lead.
Sophie Nodzenski, a senior campaign strategist on food and agriculture at Greenpeace International told DeSmog: “Tinkering with the status quo is no longer an option. Meat and dairy companies are climate killers. The livestock sector is one of the leading sources of human-made methane emissions, which move us faster and further past the 1.5C threshold, worsening global heating.
“Meat and dairy companies must stop misleading the public with pseudo solutions and focus on reducing their livestock herds drastically to bring down emissions instead. This reduction can give us a fighting chance against climate chaos.”
In 2023, BBC StoryWorks also produced content for the world’s largest food and drink company Nestlé, boasting of the company’s efforts to support sustainable farming through “regenerative agriculture”.
The film failed to acknowledge that Nestlé – whose 87.5 million tonnes of annual emissions are similar to those of Chile – spent 14 times more on “marketing and administration” in the last year than it did on regenerative agriculture over the previous five years combined.
A screenshot of a BBC StoryWorks film, sponsored by Nestlé. Credit: BBC
“Nestlé’s strong focus on using regenerative agriculture to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming – one of Nestlé’s main strategies to achieve net zero – is not backed by robust scientific evidence,” Nodzenski said.
“Increasing carbon storage in soils, as well as forests and other vegetation, is necessary, but should not replace a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming – one of the main sources of Nestlé’s emissions.”
The Nestlé film was part of a “Food for Thought” series backed by the trade body FoodDrink Europe, whose members feature major polluters including Cargill, Coca-Cola, and Unilever.
A Nestlé spokesperson said: “We continue to invest in and deliver on our net zero roadmap. By the end of 2023, we had reduced our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 13.5 percent in absolute terms since 2018. Our GHG reduction targets are third-party approved by the Science Based Targets initiative and include a 20 percent absolute cut by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030 covering all sources of agricultural emissions in our supply chain.
“We continue to ramp up our climate efforts using world class research and development, including via the Nestlé Institute for Agricultural Sciences.
“Nestlé has committed to invest $1.2 billion to pay premiums to farmers for ingredients grown using regenerative agriculture practices, provide technical assistance and support investment.”
Petrostates
Over recent years, BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for some of the world’s leading fossil fuel states, many of which have a poor record on human rights and press freedom.
This year’s flagship COP29 climate summit will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. The country is a petrostate with oil and gas production accounting for roughly half of its GDP and over 90 percent of its exports. The country, run under an authoritarian system with little effective political opposition, plans to increase fossil fuel production by a third over the next decade.
Azerbaijan’s government has also been accused by of a media crackdown by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch ahead of November’s summit, arresting 25 journalists and activists in the past year.
However, since November 2023, BBC StoryWorks has produced several adverts promoting Azerbaijan as a place to visit, while greenwashing its image.
For example, in December 2023, the studio released an advert paid for by the country’s space agency Azercosmos, attempting to show “How digitisation is changing the game for Azerbaijan’s quest for renewable energy.”
The advert was accompanied by an article claiming that Azerbaijan plans to transition “from an oil- and gas-based economy into a thriving modern hub.” The article did not mention the country’s plan to expand fossil fuel production, which contravenes globally agreed efforts to limit rising temperatures.
A screenshot of a BBC StoryWorks advert, sponsored by Azercosmos. Credit: BBC
BBC StoryWorks has also produced content promoting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the host of the 2023 COP28 climate summit and another petrostate with a poor human rights record.
In 2023, the studio produced a branded content podcast series on behalf of Abu Dhabi Tourism, featuring five 20-minute episodes each “highlighting the message that Abu Dhabi [the capital of the UAE] is a destination for every kind of traveller”.
The series was shortlisted for a 2023 World Media Award and, in the award submission, the BBC said it “challenged preconceived notions and [positioned] the city as a cultural gem worth exploring”. The series was downloaded 115,000 times, according to the BBC.
The UAE derives roughly 40 percent of its income from oil and gas, and this isn’t the only time that BBC StoryWorks has produced content promoting the petrostate.
The story stated that the UAE is “planning to increase oil production to more than five million barrels a day by 2030”, but said that the country “has been looking toward more sustainable energy sources”. It went on to say that “Clean energy projects are coming of age” in the UAE, “from record-breaking solar parks and green hydrogen to waste-to-energy plants”.
The UAE’s overall climate action has been rated as “critically insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project that monitors government climate action and measures it against the Paris Agreement.
Weeks before COP28, the country’s national oil company, ADNOC, awarded contracts worth $17 billion for the development of new offshore gas fields.
The Gulf state also has a poor record on human rights and press freedom. The UAE continues to arrest and imprison activists, academics, and lawyers who speak out against its monarchic rulers. UAE authorities also continue to discriminate against women, LGBTQ communities, and migrants.
According to Reporters Without Borders, “The government prevents both local and foreign independent media outlets from thriving by tracking down and persecuting dissenting voices.”
“The rise of renewable energies in oil-rich regions” article also attempted to promote the ways in which “women are playing an increasing role in the renewable energy sector”. The story cited the fact that women are leading green initiatives in Kuwait, and Jordan.
However, many Gulf states routinely discriminate against women. In Kuwait for example, the country’s personal status laws discriminate against women in matters of marriage, divorce, and child custody.
Despite this, BBC StoryWorks has frequently promoted the country. In December 2023, the studio published an advert from the Kuwait Fund, the country’s state-run development agency, boasting of its efforts to help “disadvantaged regions, women and minorities”.
Reporters Without Borders states that Kuwait’s censorship laws prohibit journalists “from criticising the government, the emir, the ruling family, its allies or religion”. In particular, it is “difficult for journalists to tackle migrant worker rights, women’s rights and corruption.”
Oil and gas revenues account for roughly 60 percent of Kuwait’s GDP.
BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for the petrostate Qatar, promoting the country as a tourist destination despite its record of discriminating against women and minorities.
BBC StoryWorks has a history of working for repressive regimes, including China. The U.S. publication Deadline reported in December 2022 that BBC StoryWorks had partnered with at least nine Chinese state-affiliated bodies, including a media outlet banned from broadcasting in the UK.
“Those commissioning and paying for this content are deliberately using the BBC’s brand to greenwash or whitewash their own reputations. It’s an exercise of cynical manipulation,” the BBC’s former Baghdad bureau chief Patrick Howse told DeSmog.
“Commissions like this are lucrative and therefore attractive to a corporation that has been deliberately and severely financially squeezed by the UK government over a long period. This has forced the BBC to seek money from wherever it can find it, and this poses a risk to its editorial independence and honesty, which will ultimately undermine the trust of the BBC’s audience.”
