Latino environmental group launches climate campaign

A top Latino environmental group is launching a series of bilingual ads on Monday, highlighting climate change as an issue that disproportionately affects Hispanics.

Climate Power en Acción will spend $5 million on video ads, billboards, search ads, a new website, as well as radio and a video series in collaboration with Spanish-language newspaper El Tiempo Latino.

“For Latinos, the climate crisis isn’t abstract; it’s hitting them now and more severely than most Americans,” said Antonieta Cádiz, deputy executive director of Climate Power En Acción.

“These educational ads make clear that climate action is synonymous with economic prosperity for Latinos. The ads show what the Biden administration has done to combat not just the climate crisis but also to improve the health and economic wellbeing of Latinos and all Americans.”

An UnidosUS poll of Hispanic voters from November found that only 6 percent of Latinos believe climate change is not real, compared to about 15 percent of the general population, according to a February research paper from the University of Michigan.

According to the UnidosUs poll, 48 percent of Latino voters said climate change is a serious problem, though only 9 percent listed it as a top issue for officials to address.

Historically, environmental issues have polled well among Latinos, in large part because many Hispanic population centers tend to be near very polluted areas, or in places threatened by extreme weather.

The bilingual campaign also adds an economic element to the issue, with ads touting the creation of green energy jobs.

A sample billboard in Spanish goes after big oil, blaming high gasoline prices on “oil multimillionaires” — “they win, you pay,” reads the billboard.

In radio segments this month, the campaign will also highlight the dangers of extreme heat.

The campaign’s main target audiences are 18 to 34-year old Hispanic men, and Latinas under 50, in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Other ads will also run in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.