The Hague, the third largest city in the Netherlands, is mainly known as the seat of the United Nations International Court of Justice. Now The Hague is in the news for another reason, becoming the first city in the world to pass a law banning advertisements for dirty energy and other highly polluting industries, Electrek reported.

The ban, which will mainly apply to outdoor advertising such as billboards, bans ads for things like gas suppliers, gas-powered vehicles and airline and cruise vacations.

“The Hague wants to be climate neutral until 2030. It is then inappropriate to allow advertising for products from the fossil industry. Fortunately, the local council now recognizes this,” said Leonie Gerritsen of the Party for Animals, who first proposed the ban.

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While the move may seem symbolic on some level, Electrek rightly pointed out that similar advertising bans have been highly effective in reducing the consumption of certain products – in particular, cigarettes and other tobacco products. Comprehensive advertising restrictions on tobacco advertising were shown to significantly reduce smoking.

The dirty energy the industry spends massive amounts of money every year – fittingly a studythe sports industry alone currently has $5.6 billion in sponsorship deals from dirty energy companies — try to convince people not only to use their products, but also that the products themselves are not harmful to the planet and that the companies themselves care about our environment. This is untrue and an example of greenwashing.

Eco-conscious Electrek commenters were delighted by the news.

“Excellent,” he wrote a commentator. “They should ban sponsored content and even op-eds by those with known ties to oil lobbying efforts in publications that want access to their national networks as well. Also, content producers known to receive funding from all the lobbies and think tanks sponsored by the oil and gas industry.”

“Wow, that’s big. Very good, Hague!” he wrote another. “I’m not convinced this will be very effective unless it’s adopted more widely (for practical reasons, probably limited to inner-city billboards), but hopefully this will inspire other municipalities/counties/ etc. to adopt similar measures”.

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