Despite Google vowing last year not to allow advertisements on videos that spread environmental misinformation, hundreds of videos can still be found on YouTube.

The Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), a coalition with over 50 nonprofit organizations, released a report today citing more than 100 advertisements hosted by Google on videos that violate the company's own terms of service on climate change misinformation.

“Google is supporting the climate disinformation they say they want to stop ... Disinformation persists because it’s profitable, and Big Tech needs to remove that incentive,” Erika Seiber, climate disinformation spokesperson at the nonprofit Friends of the Earth said in a press release.

As of April 17th, 2023, the 200 YouTube videos analyzed in the report gained 73.8 million views, featuring ads from large brands such as Costco, Nike, and Hyundai. Researchers found the videos by searching terms such as “climate hoax” and “climate scam."

One such video from conservative organization The Heartland Institute claims that “climate hysteria is just another rebrand, a Trojan horse for anti-white anti-Western communist tyranny.”

Google's terms of services, updated in October 2021, state that the company “prohibits ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change. This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.”

Callum Hood, head of research at nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate told The New York Times that what was found in the report is only "probably the tip of the iceberg," and that it "really begs the question about what Google’s current level of enforcement is."

Claire Atkin, co-founder of advocacy group Check My Ads, also noted that the organizations pushing misinformation receive a considerable cut of profits from YouTube.

“What makes YouTube especially dangerous is that they profit share per video,” she explained. “When someone posts this information to Facebook, they don’t make money, but when someone posts a video to YouTube, they have the opportunity to make a full salary on disinformation.”

Atkin added: “The fact that they haven’t changed that, that they are still funding — not promoting, funding — by sending advertisers to sponsor climate change disinformation is yet another proof point of their ineptitude.”