\n Published on 08\/12\/2025 – 12:25 GMT+1
\n \u2022Updated
\n 09\/12\/2025 – 9:00 GMT+1\n <\/p>\n
A popular museum is under growing pressure to cut ties with fossil giant Shell after being accused of misleading children about the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
An investigation by climate advocacy group Comms Declare found that Queensland Museum in Australia has accepted more than $10.25 million AUD (around \u20ac5.84 million) from Shell\u2019s QGC gas business since 2015.<\/p>\n
In a new report, researchers say this has given the oil and gas company \u201cpotential influence\u201d over curriculum-aligned programs and \u201cwidespread exposure\u201d in education materials used by school children.<\/p>\n
Despite the museum insisting it has \u201cfull independence\u201d, Comms Declare found Shell-branded school materials delivered under the Museum\u2019s authority had \u201csystematic omissions and distortions\u201d which downplay fossil fuels\u2019 role in climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n What the Shell-funded materials don\u2019t teach children<\/p>\n The report analyses multiple booklets issued to children under Queensland Museum\u2019s Future Makers program, to check for any bias.<\/p>\n It found that fossil fuels were not cited as the primary driver of global warming andocean acidification<\/a> \u2013 despite overwhelming scientific consensus suggesting otherwise.<\/p>\n The UN describes burning coal, oil and gas as the \u201clargest contributor\u201d toclimate change<\/a>, accounting for around 68 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and almost 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. Ocean acidification is mainly caused by CO2 in the atmosphere dissolving into the ocean, lowering the water\u2019s pH.<\/p>\n However, in the resource \u2018Introduction to Ocean Acidification\u2019, students were actually asked to focus on designing their own carbon capture and storage<\/a> (CCS) technology rather than discussing coal, oil and gas combustion. <\/p>\n \u201cBy removing fossil fuels from the casual chain and highlighting CCS as a \u2018solution\u2019, the resource reframes a fossil-fuel-driven crisis as a neutral scientific challenge,\u201d the report states. \u201cIt effectively provides corporate greenwashing in the guise of STEM learning.\u201d<\/p>\n In the resource \u2018States of Matter: Our Warming World\u2019, researchers found no link between global warming and fossil fuels<\/a> \u2013 with the phrase only being used once in a teacher note, and not as part of any core learning outcome.<\/p>\n The report also argues that Shell “shifts responsibility\u201d from systemic causes to individual behaviour or invention, minimising corporate and policy accountability. <\/p>\n Should Queensland Museum\u2019s resources be axed?<\/p>\n Comms Declare\u2019s founder Belinda Noble says the findings raise \u201curgent concerns\u201d for Queensland parents that their children are being taught \u201cbiased, half-truths\u201d about climate change and the energy future<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is climate obstruction dressed up as education,\u201d Noble adds. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t let Big Tobacco sponsor teaching materials. Fossil fuel companies shouldn\u2019t shape how kids learn about the climate.\u201d<\/p>\n Queensland Conservation Council campaigner Charlie Cox argues most Queensland families would be \u201calarmed\u201d to see how \u201cheavy-handed and misleading\u201d Shell\u2019s influence has been on the state museum for the last decade.<\/p>\n \u201cThese fossil fuel-funded materials leave our kids without the scientific foundations they need to navigate the world they\u2019re inheriting,\u201d she says. \u201cScience should inform politics, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n