Pop stars like Blackpink and Taylor Swift can shape fan behaviour. What about on climate change?

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This week:

• Pop stars like Blackpink and Taylor Swift can shape fan behaviour. What about on climate change?
• The fossil fuel contingent at COP28
• Hard hit by climate change, Indigenous leaders want strong voice at COP28

Pop stars like Blackpink and Taylor Swift can shape fan behaviour. What about on climate change?

When King Charles hosted the president of South Korea and his wife during a state visit to the United Kingdom in November, the monarch also name-checked a few other guests: K-pop royalty Blackpink.

"I applaud Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé, better known collectively as Blackpink, for their role in bringing the message of environmental sustainability to a global audience as ambassadors for the U.K.'s presidency of COP26, and later as advocates for the UN sustainable development goals," Charles said at a banquet in Buckingham Palace.

"I can only admire how they can prioritize these vital issues, as well as being global superstars." The King later presented the K-pop quartet with honorary member of the Order of the British Empire medals.

In 2021, Blackpink released a video speaking about their own journey of learning about climate change as COP26 ambassadors. They also called on world leaders to honour the 2015 Paris Agreement commitments and limit global warming to 1.5 C above preindustrial levels.

"We, Blackpink, and 'Blinks,' our fans, our generation, our world, will be watching and hoping," they said. "Let's work together for our planet and take climate action in your area."

The video got more than 13 million views. But CedarBough Saeji, who teaches Korean and East Asian studies at Busan National University, is skeptical that one such message from Blackpink can lead to meaningful change.  

"Most of their advocacy, most of their requests to their fans … to take climate [action] has been rather vague," Saeji said. "And I wonder if that's enough."

She told What On Earth that in recent years, Blackpink has released other videos about climate change. In 2020, for example, group member Rosé raised awareness on social media about ongoing wildfires in Australia, where she grew up. 

But Blackpink are also ambassadors for luxury fashion brands such as Celine, Chanel, Saint Laurent and Dior. And the K-pop industry as a whole seems to embrace excessive consumption by encouraging fans to collect multiple versions of the same album and other fan merchandise, said Saeji.

Blackpink received the honorary member of the Order of the British Empire medals less than a week after a Taylor Swift fan died in sweltering heat during a show in Rio de Janeiro. Saiji said that tragedy should prompt Swift and other celebrities to not only speak out about climate change but also reduce the carbon footprint of their tours — to start, by flying less.

Last year, marketing agency Yard published a report about celebrities and private jet usage — Swift was the worst offender. A Swift representative responded: "Taylor's jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect."

In addition to addressing their own carbon footprint, Saeji says it's time more artists put pressure on concert venues to be more climate conscious, by using LED lighting and low-flow toilets and eliminating single-use plastic. Celebrities who are greening their tours include Coldplay, Billie Eilish and Massive Attack, which just announced a one-day festival that will be powered entirely by renewable energy.

"There are so many different ways in which major, major superstars like Blackpink or Taylor Swift actually have leverage to push venues to create environments that are safe for fans and also more environmentally sustainable," Saeji said.

As climate advocates who are also part of a high-emitting celebrity culture, Saeji believes Blackpink could have a bigger impact by demonstrating the changes they're making to live more sustainably.

"On a larger scale, artists — whether it's Blackpink or not — could discuss important issues like over-packaging or industrial waste to educate their fans about environmental impacts of different industries," she said.

"I think greenwashing has taught too many people to only think about the environment in terms of personal actions like recycling. But we need to learn more about which industries are most destructive, and that will allow us to call on those industries to change their practices."

One group of fans said that Blackpink's COP26 video was enough to inspire them to start the advocacy group Kpop4Planet in 2021.

Rather than pushing their idols to resist consumption, Kpop4Planet launched a campaign this year called Unboxed: High Fashion, High Carbon.

The campaign called on the four fashion houses that Blackpink endorses to decarbonize their production and to be more transparent about the type of fuel they use to manufacture luxury goods. 

"K-pop [fans] really care about their favourite idols — what they speak, what they eat, what they wear," campaigner Dayeon Lee told What On Earth. "Even one speech about the climate crisis and urging them to take bolder climate action motivated us."

— Vivian Luk

Old issues of What on Earth? are here. The CBC News climate page is here. 

Check out our podcast and radio show. This week: we dive into this year's hot ticket at the UN climate talks in Dubai: fossil fuels. From Alberta's case for its oil and gas to the words of the COP28 president and a decades-old industry "playbook" – not to mention an emissions cap you can wear. What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app, or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET, 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Watch the CBC video series Planet Wonder featuring our colleague Johanna Wagstaffe here.

Reader feedback

Marie-ève in Squamish, B.C., wrote in to respond to a comment from a fellow reader about plastic use and criticism of an Alberta ad campaign that pushes misinformation about federal clean-electricity regulations:

"It gives me hope that there are people like me out there, who think we can do so much better to reduce our overall consumption, our (plastic) waste and shine a light on Alberta's delusional rhetoric. It also gives me hope that the more people push against this silly status quo of consumerism-economy, the more we will see change at higher levels. Which is much needed if we want to have a bigger positive impact on our kids' future and the following generations on planet Earth."

Write us at whatonearth@cbc.ca. 

Have a compelling personal story about climate change you want to share with CBC News? Pitch a First Person column here.

The Big Picture: Fossil fuel interests at COP28

Given the state of the environment, it seems fair to say climate summits now operate with increasing urgency. But given who attends these events, it also seems fair to ask: increasing urgency about what — reducing carbon emissions or protecting the oil and gas industry?

This year's COP28 in Dubai, U.A.E., is the largest gathering in the history of the event — an estimated 84,000 people registered this year, compared with 30,900 for COP27 in Egypt in 2022. At the outset of the event, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres (again) stressed the enormity of the climate crisis, saying, "this is a sickness only you, global leaders, can cure."

But one of the most noteworthy facets of this year's event is how many lobbyists with ties to the fossil fuel industry have been granted access. According to a report prepared by the coalition Kick Big Polluters Out, 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists registered for this year's event, compared with 636 in 2022. It's clear that Big Oil wants a say in any decisions made about reducing emissions.

Sultan Al-Jaber, who is the head of the U.A.E.'s national oil company as well as COP28 president, contends that fossil fuel companies must be part of the solution in reducing greenhouse emissions. But Al Gore, the former U.S. vice-president and ardent climate campaigner, was blunt about such statements.

Oil and gas companies are "much better at capturing politicians than they are at capturing emissions," he said.

Hot and bothered: Provocative ideas from around the web

• Scientists are celebrating after finding a South African animal that hasn't been seen for 86 years and was thought to be extinct: De Winton's golden mole.

• At COP28 this week, the federal government unveiled stricter methane regulations for the oil and gas industry. The industry now has to plug leaks of the powerful greenhouse gas, and will be banned from "flaring" it (that is, burning it off).

• When fires break out in the presence of an EV, there's often a rush to blame the EV battery. But in many cases, it wasn't the source of the fire, IEEE Spectrum reports in an article that takes a closer look at the "hype" around EV battery fires.

• Amid the cost of living crisis and threats to the climate, many young people are pledging to consume less and spend sustainably.

• India is building a controversial renewable energy park as big as Singapore. It's so big that it's expected to be visible from space.

Hard hit by climate change, Indigenous leaders want strong voice at COP28

From disappearing salmon stocks and caribou herds to wildfires and a changing landscape, Indigenous leaders are sharing their impressions at the UN climate summit in Dubai of how a warming planet is impacting their communities and way of life.

They're also pushing to have a stronger voice in how countries and the UN tackle climate change.

"It literally impacts everything we do," said Dane de Souza, the climate change policy adviser with the Métis National Council.

There is no amount of money that can compensate communities for the loss and damage from climate change, said de Souza, who made the trip from Manitoba to Dubai to take part in COP28.

"It impacts how we gather at the table as a family, it impacts how we pass on our knowledge and our memories to our children from our grandparents and beyond. It impacts how we live. It impacts how we exist and it impacts how we enjoy life in Canada," he said, while speaking on stage at COP28.

There are several dozen Indigenous representatives from Canada at the climate talks, including youth, elders and business leaders. 

There is not enough time in the day to fully explain how much damage has been caused by climate change, said Lorraine Netro, an elder from the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Yukon, who fought back tears while speaking at an event focused on Indigenous perspectives and experiences.

"It's really emotional when we talk about our homelands and when we talk about loss and damage, because everything that is alive keeps us as First Nations people in our traditional territory alive," said Netro.

To be in the United Arab Emirates for COP28 is a homecoming of sorts for Raylene Whitford. She lives in Alberta, but spent some of her career in finance in the U.A.E. She's proud to see so many Indigenous voices at the UN summit.

"Historically, we've been excluded from these types of conversations. So it's so great to see Indigenous people from so many different countries here at the conference," said Whitford, a director with the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board.

The climate conference is an opportunity to share ideas, collaborate and find new opportunities in managing important issues, such as the environment, energy and economic prosperity, said Karen Ogen, chief executive of the First Nations LNG Alliance and a member of a group called Energy for a Secure Future.

"In Canada, we have economic reconciliation, but at the same time, too, we have climate initiatives that we need to be very cognizant of," she said. 

"Our First Nations are continuously having to manage poverty and we want to be able to start to manage prosperity," said Ogen (pictured above).

In October, the Assembly of First Nations released a national climate strategy, which included seven main areas, such as prioritizing First Nations knowledge and ensuring First Nations are equipped to mitigate, prevent, respond and recover from all emergencies.

During the first day of COP28, countries agreed on a tentative deal to create the world's first climate damage fund. The agreement is designed to help developing countries cope with the impacts of climate change such as floods, drought and rising sea levels.

While communities in Canada wouldn't qualify for the fund, Indigenous leaders say they want their voices and experiences to be heard, as there is a growing international spotlight on the issue of loss and damage from climate change.

"We have to be the voice for the water. We have to be the voice for the land," said Myrle Ballard, director of Indigenous science at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

— Kyle Bakx

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Editor: Andre Mayer | Logo design: Sködt McNalty