Climate Activists Say Big Oil Is Taking Cycling Fans for a Ride
Sports sponsorships have emerged as a major battleground in the push to ban fossil fuel companies from advertising their brands.
Protestors from Extinction Rebellion during the Santos Tour Down Under 2023 bicycle race in Adelaide, Australia, on Jan. 14.
Photographer: Tim de Waele/Getty ImagesIt was around noon on Sunday and the crowds had gathered in Adelaide for the first day of Australia’s Tour Down Under. As the cyclists whizzed past, a group of elderly women turned their backs and pulled down their skirts.
Beneath their naked bottoms, six big letters spelled out Santos — the oil and gas company sponsoring the first major race on the professional cycling calendar — to chants of “we got rid of Big Tobacco, we’ll get rid of Santos too.”
Santos did not respond to a request for comment. But the Australian protest sets the stage for a year of radical action by climate activists who are pushing to end advertisements and sponsorships they say allow fossil fuel companies to burnish their reputations while profiting from products that heat up the planet. The campaign is beginning to gain traction as extreme weather, from floods to droughts, keeps climate change in the headlines.