Outgunned: Five fossil fuel lobbyists spent $553,000 on Meta ads in August, the renewables industry just $3,090

Fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists in Australia are spending significant sums of money on advertising on social media, completely overwhelming the paltry efforts of the renewable energy industry, which is leaving community groups and NGOs to use their limited resources to push the case for the green energy transition and climate action.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger and the Twitter-like Threads, now publishes a report showing which organisations are spending what on “social issues, elections or politics”, albeit only since August 2020 and excluding any spending it deems outside that category.

The data shows few renewable energy companies, network and organisations spent anything on advertising that Meta deemed political in the 90 days to August 28.

In August, Australian Energy Producers, the Minerals Council of Australia, Shell, and Farmers Fightback spent a total of almost $553,000 on political advertising, the Meta ad library shows. In contrast, the renewables energy industry spend just a tiny fraction of that amount, less than one per cent.

Greenpeace Australia was the only top 20 spender in the Meta’ ad library report on issues-specific ads to put money into pro-renewable energy ads, allocating almost $18,000 of its total budget for August on the social media giant to this issue.

Tom Quinn, the managing director of research and advisory group Springmount Advisory, says the lack of a visible ad presence on social media from the renewables industry is an abject failure.

“Clean energy has taken social licence for granted for too long and relied [too much] on NGOs to do [marketing for them],” Quinn told Renew Economy.

“But this is the work. It has an obligation to genuinely engage and partner with communities of big infrastructure.”

Belinda Noble, founder of climate communications groups Comms Declare says the fossil fuel sector realised years ago that social licence was one of its biggest business threats and began advertising “relentlessly.”

One example is the $48.45 million it spent on advertising just in the first quarter of 2026 to fight a tax on gas exports and perpetuate the story that the economy needs fossil fuels.

“My opinion is that the relatively small investment in communication by the renewables sector and government is leaving information gaps that are all too easily filled with misinformation, resulting in community backlash and political opportunism that is undermining the clean energy transition,” Noble told Renew Economy.

This is who is spending

The Meta data shows that in August, Australian Energy Producers – a business group that represents the major generators and retailers – spent almost $200,000 on ads talking up the jobs and industries the sector supports. 

The Minerals Council of Australia, a prominent advocate for the fossil fuel industry, spent a similar amount, the majority in its own name and a smaller portion on a campaign called “Hands off our fuel,” which opposed the abolition of diesel rebates. 

Researchers have named these two groups among the “loudest” opponents to climate and clean energy initiatives since the 1990s.

The Meta data also shows that Shell spent $136,000 on burnishing its low-emissions technology credentials, even as it divested another low-emissions portfolio company, and general advertising.

Even the deeply conservative Christian Family First party, which is getting a boost from opposing the Southern Ocean offshore wind zone near Portland, Victoria, outspent the whole renewables sector last month with a total of $3,800.

Even taking in account the ebb and flow of social media advertising and the fact that Meta is just one advertising channel of many, the renewables sector is being outgunned by its opponents on the most powerful social media platforms in Australia.

According to Meta’s ad library, between July 30 and August 28, Acciona AU & NZ spent $1,500, Iberdrola spent $874, and the Clean Energy Council spent $716. 

That’s a total of $3,090 on political advertising on the social media giant.

Expanding those dates to the last 90 days, and Vicgrid, Westwind and Snowy Hydro creep into the list of organisations that put money into political advertising on Meta.

Renew Economy tallied another 18 renewable energy-related organisations that have created politically-aligned advertisements on Meta in the past, but did not do so in August. 

Others, such as major developers Ace Energy, GE Vernova, Vestas and Res Australia whose projects depend on community acceptance, did not appear as Meta advertisers at all in Australia, be it political or not, according to the company’s ad library.

The public report isn’t a perfect proxy for who is spending where – Squadron Energy and the Clean Energy Council both ran ads that Meta didn’t include – but the sums still pale before the wave of money sunk every month by oil and gas lobbyists.

That the renewable energy industry simply isn’t spending on marketing itself is well documented in the US: in 2023 the Climate Investigations Centre found a single fossil fuel trade organisation, the American Petroleum Institute, spent more than six times on advertising what four prominent renewables trade bodies spent combined.

Quinn says Western Australia is “percolating” in positive ads for the gas industry, and even around Ballarat – near where he lives – he says he has never seen a wind industry ad saying what it is doing for the community.

There are billboards near the Bulgana wind farm and battery in western Victoria saying “Let’s rethink renewables”, but nothing to counter that message from owner Illuma Energy or the state government which signed a deal to support it in 2017. 

The lack of voices countering the wash of anti-renewable energy astroturfing, misinformation, disinformation, and general opposition campaigns is a real problem, found the recent parliamentary inquiry into climate and energy misinformation and disinformation.

Multiple submissions detailed coordinated “astroturfing” campaigns, including fake social media accounts impersonating real Australians to manufacture opposition to renewable energy projects, alongside widespread use of misleading political advertising.

Experts warned that digital platforms are amplifying false and distorted claims through opaque algorithms, while the rapid rise of artificial intelligence is accelerating an explosion of deceptive content.

But at least in the advertising world, the industry remains largely fragmented and silent. And the silence comes as Victorian farmers burned an effigy of a transmission tower at a Farmers Fightback event over the weekend, and as the tone of opposition groups on social media – particularly Meta-owned Facebook – reaches feverish levels. 

Where does Farmers Fightback get its money

Farmers Fightback is the newest addition to the big anti-renewable energy spenders and has come out of nowhere to be one of the noisiest protest groups in the country.

Unlike other so-called community groups, it has big money to blow on Facebook ads. 

Based in the Wimmera in Victoria, it’s now among the biggest spenders in Meta’s monthly report, splashing $33,000 on ads in August opposing new transmission projects in Victoria.

It spent just over $70,000 in the three months to August 28 and almost $90,000 for all time, according to Meta. The top spending locations were NSW, followed by Queensland and then Victoria.

The group has recently been running big fundraisers – the effigy-burning took place at a $50 a head event on Saturday, which the group claims attracted more than 1,000 people. But what is unclear is where the initial funds for the swathe of media sites and events came from, or who is bankrolling the organisation.

The group, and founder Ben Duxson, have not responded to several requests for an interview.

The organisation’s website says it’s funded by donations only.

Farmers Fightback emerged out of the Wallaloo Gre Gre Alliance Facebook group, which started in September 2023.

Since February it has not only changed its name but added Tik Tok, Youtube, Instagram, and X accounts, as well as a formal website. 

In contrast, noisy New South Wales opposition group Voice for Walcha has a defunct website, a little used Instagram, and has not spent money on Meta ads. 

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