“THAT’S THE WAY TO GREENWASH IT” MR. PUNCH VISITS UNOC 2025 IN NICE
10.06.2025
⬆️ That’s the way to greenwash it. Punch and Scrubby surprise children and adults at the la Place Masséna, Nice. Photo by Guy Reece.
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On the first day of the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC 2025), UN delegates and Heads of State were surprised to encounter a puppet show.
The show contained familiar faces from the cruise ship industry selling even more familiar Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) lies (or greenwashing if you want to be polite). Greenwashing which will give LNG a free pass to avoid any UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO) plans to regulate shipping pollution – making LNG the go to fossil fuel for cruise lines (while still accelerating dangerous emissions and obscene profits for the fossil fuel and shipping industries).
⬆️ The ‘UN IMO Police’ enter stage left, but they don’t seem to be able to arrest or change anything. Photo by João Daniel Pereira.
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The show, using traditional ‘Punch and Judy’ staging, tells a new tale of how Punch, now a fossil fuel CEO, has issues hiding methane spillages in his LNG supply chain, a chain that leaks methane all the way from its extraction to the cruise ships it is used in. Punch has “got rid of nagging ol’ Judy” and replaced her with more pliable ‘Scrubby’ the Greenwashing Sponge, who is always at hand to help ensure LNG appears to be the fossil fuel for ‘The Future of Shipping’. Punch, violent as ever, makes sure there’s lots of collateral damage as he pursues his greenwashing agenda, including turning innocent bystanders into sausage meat. Even the UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO, a sponsor of UNOC 2025)makes an appearance as the environmental Police of the sea – a role it shirks – much to Punch’s delight!
⬆️ Bonjour, marionette? Photo by Guy Reece.
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Throughout the performance delegates and passersby were treated to Scrubby puppets served by a surly French usherette.
⬆️ Thwack!!! A protestor calling for Macron to save the Ocean is unceremoniously bashed and turned to sausage meat. Has Punch been getting Police training? Photo by João Daniel Pereira.
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The performance celebrates the rampant puppetry at large in UNOC meetings. Meetings dominated by the interests of the shipping, cruise and fossil fuel industries and their intent to adopt dirty LNG as their fuel of choice. This is despite recent research which has exposed the lies of industrial lobbying platforms like SEA/LNG. The peer reviewed research reveals that LNG extracted and exported from the US is 33% more polluting than coal. Methane leaks occur throughout the LNG extraction and supply process causing health problems and the destruction of areas and coastal communities wherever an LNG plant appears. These same leaks continue onboard LNG powered vessels, helping accelerate climate collapse. To cover up this uncomfortable truth the industry trumpets ‘biomethane’ and ‘e-methane’ products that are only 6% of the EU market and even less worldwide (and both still leak methane throughout their supply chains). The industrial scale of LNG greenwashing has converted UNOC into a puppet for the fossil fuel industry.
LNG is 33% more polluting than coal
⬆️ The second show gathered a large audience as more tourists were drawn to the spectacle. The crowd booed Punch and the IMO! Photo by João Daniel Pereira.
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THE SUCCESS OF LNG GREENWASHING
SEA LNG has been very successful, so successful that companies like Royal Caribbean, MSC and CMA CGM have been promoting their LNG ships as ‘green’ and selling this lie to the general public. What’s more the UN IMO is convinced by this lie and is doing nothing to stop LNG becoming the fossil fuel of choice for shipping – in the EU alone the consumption of LNG by ships has doubled from 2.2 million tonnes (Mt) in 2018 to 4.4 Mt in 2022. Methane emissions have more than doubled between 2018 and 2023 in the EU, making up 26% of the transport sector’s total methane emissions in 2022—a surge largely attributed to the growing use of LNG as a marine fuel, according to an EMSA report.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation used to make you doubt your own perceptions and sanity, often by distorting facts or reality. LNG fans are employing gaslighting tactics, like funding research and selectively citing studies that support their narrative while discrediting researchers highlighting LNG’s risks. They are also undermining dissenting community voices and opinion leaders by labelling them as “alarmists” or “obstructionists.”
Enterprises like these, engaging in gaslighting while making sustainability claims, may be violating their legal responsibilities to shareholders and risk litigation if such material risks, including the litigation risk, are not properly reflected in their audited accounts. Likewise, credit rating agencies which fail to detect this greenwash are also failing to give accurate sustainability readouts to their subscribers in the financial sector, risking their own credibility and business models.
Not to mention any failure of ethical responsibilities to wider stakeholders to avoid collapsing climate, nature and society by means of fugitive methane and fossil carbon emissions that result from LNG. Far from clean, LNG is one of the dirtiest fuels there is. Touting it as a clean fuel is a technological lie. Using it in shipping is a monumental step backwards. Thank goodness it’s profitable, even if the rest of us pay the price.
⬆️ The Scrubbies formed a neat line across the pavement. Photo by Guy Reece.
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Ocean Rebellion says: “This is an emergency. Our greenhouse gas emissions are setting off a chain of events tipping our environment and societies towards climate chaos. Every moment we fail to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and commodities we threaten the resilience of nature. With every day we fail to act, we approach dangerous tipping points with cascading knock-on impacts. There’s no time to waste, we must act now.”
Ocean Rebellion demands:
1. Methane emissions are considered as a greenhouse gas and included in any global plans to levy a carbon tax on shipping, weighted by fugitive methane’s excess climate forcing capacity.
2. The Member States of the UN recognise LNG as a fossil fuel and stop listening to the SEA LNG lobbyists, locking them out of the IMO instead.
3. The UN to promote efficiency and the use of slow steaming, capacity reduction and, sail and electrically powered vessels by incentivising uptake in the shipping sector, empowering and upskilling workers and introducing fairer shipping routes.
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If the UN IMO does not act Ocean Rebellion demands:
The UN must form a new, transparent, and representative body to govern the Ocean for the benefit of ALL life. This new body must have the restoration and replenishment of the Ocean as its only measure of success. It should replace corporate power with people power. And it should represent the many forms of marine life who actually make the ocean a home.