Also: The fossil fuel contingent at COP28
When King Charles hosted the president of South Korea and his wife during a state visit to the United Kingdom in November, the monarch also name-checked a few other guests: K-pop royalty Blackpink.
"I applaud Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé, better known collectively as Blackpink, for their role in bringing the message of environmental sustainability to a global audience as ambassadors for the U.K.'s presidency of COP26, and later as advocates for the UN sustainable development goals," Charles said at a banquet in Buckingham Palace.
"I can only admire how they can prioritize these vital issues, as well as being global superstars." The King later presented the K-pop quartet with honorary member of the Order of the British Empire medals.
In 2021, Blackpink released a video speaking about their own journey of learning about climate change as COP26 ambassadors. They also called on world leaders to honour the 2015 Paris Agreement commitments and limit global warming to 1.5 C above preindustrial levels.
"We, Blackpink, and 'Blinks,' our fans, our generation, our world, will be watching and hoping," they said. "Let's work together for our planet and take climate action in your area."
The video got more than 13 million views. But CedarBough Saeji, who teaches Korean and East Asian studies at Busan National University, is skeptical that one such message from Blackpink can lead to meaningful change.
"Most of their advocacy, most of their requests to their fans … to take climate [action] has been rather vague," Saeji said. "And I wonder if that's enough."
She told What On Earth that in recent years, Blackpink has released other videos about climate change. In 2020, for example, group member Rosé raised awareness on social media about ongoing wildfires in Australia, where she grew up.
But Blackpink are also ambassadors for luxury fashion brands such as Celine, Chanel, Saint Laurent and Dior. And the K-pop industry as a whole seems to embrace excessive consumption by encouraging fans to collect multiple versions of the same album and other fan merchandise, said Saeji.
Blackpink received the honorary member of the Order of the British Empire medals less than a week after a Taylor Swift fan died in sweltering heat during a show in Rio de Janeiro. Saiji said that tragedy should prompt Swift and other celebrities to not only speak out about climate change but also reduce the carbon footprint of their tours — to start, by flying less.
Last year, marketing agency Yard published a report about celebrities and private jet usage — Swift was the worst offender. A Swift representative responded: "Taylor's jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect."
In addition to addressing their own carbon footprint, Saeji says it's time more artists put pressure on concert venues to be more climate conscious, by using LED lighting and low-flow toilets and eliminating single-use plastic. Celebrities who are greening their tours include Coldplay, Billie Eilish and Massive Attack, which just announced a one-day festival that will be powered entirely by renewable energy.
"There are so many different ways in which major, major superstars like Blackpink or Taylor Swift actually have leverage to push venues to create environments that are safe for fans and also more environmentally sustainable," Saeji said.
As climate advocates who are also part of a high-emitting celebrity culture, Saeji believes Blackpink could have a bigger impact by demonstrating the changes they're making to live more sustainably.
"On a larger scale, artists — whether it's Blackpink or not — could discuss important issues like over-packaging or industrial waste to educate their fans about environmental impacts of different industries," she said.
"I think greenwashing has taught too many people to only think about the environment in terms of personal actions like recycling. But we need to learn more about which industries are most destructive, and that will allow us to call on those industries to change their practices."
One group of fans said that Blackpink's COP26 video was enough to inspire them to start the advocacy group Kpop4Planet in 2021.
Rather than pushing their idols to resist consumption, Kpop4Planet launched a campaign this year called Unboxed: High Fashion, High Carbon.
The campaign called on the four fashion houses that Blackpink endorses to decarbonize their production and to be more transparent about the type of fuel they use to manufacture luxury goods.
"K-pop [fans] really care about their favourite idols — what they speak, what they eat, what they wear," campaigner Dayeon Lee told What On Earth. "Even one speech about the climate crisis and urging them to take bolder climate action motivated us."
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