Warnings should be included on advertisements for high-emission vehicles such as SUVs.
That's according to John Gibbons, environmental journalist and commentator.
He was speaking as Ireland could be set to introduce tobacco-style health warnings on car adverts under new proposals.
Similar rules are already in place in France.
John told Newstalk Breakfast this is the same way tobacco advertising went.
"I think it's on the way.
"I'm just about old enough to remember when you went to the cinema, there were ads promoting cigarettes.
"One particular brand, Consualte, apparently it was 'As smooth as a mountain stream'.
"Unfortunately the advertisers didn't mention that 50% of the customers for these cigarettes were being killed by the product.
"And it took years for the tobacco industry to be beaten down... they were never banned.
"But the marketing and glamourising of these products was eventually banned".
He says cars are being marketed to consumers in a similar way.
"I did, and many of my generation, smoked for years - and whatever damage [was] done, because of the way cigarettes were marketed to us.
"As 'harmless, glamourous, exciting' - does that sound familiar? Because that's exactly how we're currently promoting high-emissions things like air travel... and high emissions vehicles - particularly SUVs".
'We've been misled'
He believes the message around cars is wrong.
"These are promoted as freedom, they're about personal choice and so on.
"In fact, these are products that are every bit as dangerous to us as individuals, but more importantly to us collectively, as cigarettes ever were".
And he says people in larger cars have been 'fooled'.
"We've been fooled, we've been misled.
"And I think many people sitting in their expensive cars... are there, not necessarily because that's their choice - but because we haven't invested strongly enough in public transport alternatives.
"And of course... there's an incredibly powerful car lobby that is advertising probably between every break - telling us that the way forward, the glamorous way is the private car."
He adds that in an era of "climate breakdown", Ireland "can no longer afford - in any sense of the word - to have two million private cars cramming up our roads".
