PRESS RELEASE: Anti-nuclear campaign gives fossil fuels a free pass
- WePlanet Australia
- May 1
- 4 min read
Updated: May 1
This election wasn’t a victory for climate action. It was a win for the fossil fuel industry.
EXCLUSIVE polling, commissioned by WePlanet Australia, shows that 73% of Australians either support or are indifferent to using coal, oil, or gas to generate electricity beyond 2050.
That’s not a public endorsement of fossil fuels—it’s the result of the comparative silence of traditional environmental organisations and politicians. While nuclear has been endlessly attacked, fossil fuels have escaped scrutiny.
New polling released by WePlanet Australia reveals a troubling shift: support for clean, emissions-free nuclear energy has dropped from 55% in February 2025 to just 42% in April. This is the lowest level in years, and a clear sign that a well-funded, fear-driven misinformation campaign led by anti-nuclear groups had its intended effect in the lead up to this election.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on social media ads alone, and we estimate the total spend to be millions of dollars, spent demonising one of our only scalable clean energy options — while fossil fuels continue to fly under the radar.
In recent months, Australians have been bombarded with a wave of misinformation about nuclear energy—false claims about cost, water use, earthquake risks, construction timelines, and even unfounded links to nuclear weapons. It’s been a shameful campaign of fear, not facts, designed to confuse the public and stall progress on clean energy.
At WePlanet Australia, we’re committed to telling the truth—even when it’s uncomfortable. That’s why we’re releasing the full polling results, despite a clear drop in support for nuclear energy. We won’t hide data that doesn’t suit our narrative. This decline reflects the serious damage disinformation can inflict when fear is allowed to drown out facts. If this can happen to nuclear energy, it can—and is—happening to renewable energy too. This is a warning, not just for the nuclear debate, but for the future of all clean energy.
Australia’s traditional environmental organisations must drop their counterproductive opposition to nuclear energy and join the fight against the real threat—fossil fuels.
WePlanet Australia’s Lead National Campaigner, Tyrone D’Lisle, said:
“This is exactly what fossil fuel companies want: a public misled into fearing nuclear more than the very thing cooking our planet. While renewable energy lobby groups, activists and politicians waste time and money attacking nuclear, the fossil fuel industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
Despite the climate crisis worsening year by year, both major parties have failed to provide a plan to phase out fossil fuels. Instead of holding them accountable, public debate has been hijacked by anti-science campaigns that ignore the urgency of the moment.
Australians are being robbed of the full picture. Nuclear is not a threat to our future. Fossil fuels are. But unless we redirect our focus, we risk locking in another generation of pollution, rising emissions, and extreme weather.”
WePlanet President Andrea Leong added:
“If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese returns to government, he cannot pretend this election settled the nuclear debate. It didn’t. What it did show is that misinformation works when it goes unchallenged. And that fossil fuels win when we let them.
The science is clear. We need to phase out the burning of fossil fuels for energy. That means investing in clean energy, including nuclear. The longer we delay, the higher the cost to our health, economy, and climate.
We have a simple ask of Mr Albanese: lift the ban on nuclear energy and stop treating energy policy as a political football.”
Media inquiries: Tyrone D'Lisle Lead National Campaigner
0433631693
Polling results
The results come from a fortnightly omnibus conducted by Essential Research with data provided by Qualtrics. The survey was conducted online from 24th to 27th April and is based on 2,241 participants.
The weighting efficiency applied to the results at a national level is 82%, which gives an effective sample size of 1,847. The maximal margin of error at this effective sample size is ±2.3% (95% confidence level).
We mean it when we say we're committed to the truth. That's why we're sharing the full poll results -- unlike many campaign groups, we'll own it when things don't go our way.
Full polling results:
A newly released tracker of Meta (Facebook and Instagram) advertising data reveals which organisations spent money on ads opposing nuclear energy. While not all ad spend from these organisations during the tracked period was focused on anti-nuclear messaging, a significant portion clearly targeted nuclear power—highlighting a coordinated and well-funded effort to undermine public and political support for this clean energy source.
Data snapshot from 11:22 on 1 May 2025. The data includes spending over the past 90 days across META platforms. See real-time data with Meta's Spending Tracker. For transparency and comparison, we have included WePlanet Australia.
WePlanet Australia is the Australian chapter of WePlanet, a grassroots, non-partisan movement of scientists and citizens campaigning for radical, science-backed solutions to global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty.