Policies and People | Climate misinformation: A clear and present danger

There is clear evidence of the challenge, and the failure to stem mis- and disinformation online has allowed junk science, climate delayism, and attacks on climate figures to become mainstream. Governments, regulators, and the media must stem the tide.

In the last few years, newsrooms worldwide have ramped up reportage on climate and the environment. The aim is to help citizens understand the implications and impacts of the climate crisis and push political representatives to devise robust public policies to tackle the threat. This development is unsurprising because the climate crisis is the big story of our times, changing our lives on a daily basis.

To solve the climate crisis, we must also tackle the information crisis. (Shutterstock)

However, there is one more critical reason why more well-researched news and analysis about the climate crisis is essential: To counter climate-related misinformation, a threat that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledged in a recent report.

In February, citing mis- and disinformation and the “politicisation of science” as key barriers to action, the IPCC for the first time, stated that rhetoric from “vested economic and political interests… undermines climate science” and, in turn, has driven “public misperception of climate risks and polarised public support for climate actions”. The diagnosis is built on a growing body of evidence produced across the environmental and research sectors in recent years: To solve the climate crisis, we must also tackle the information crisis.

The misinformation threat is real

Drawing on research compiled over the past 18 months, and especially in the margins and aftermath of the Conference of the Parties in Glasgow at end-2021, a new report from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (Deny, Deceive, Delay: Documenting and responding to climate disinformation at COP26 and Beyond), says that there clear evidence of the challenge at hand: The failure to stem mis- and disinformation online has allowed junk science, climate delayism and attacks on climate figures to become mainstream. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to safeguarding human rights and reversing the rising tide of polarisation, extremism and disinformation worldwide.

ISD’s analysis has shown how a small yet dedicated community of actors boast disproportionate reach and engagement across social media, reaching millions worldwide and bolstering by legacy print, broadcast and radio outlets. However, far from helping mitigate this issue, tech platform systems appear to amplify or exacerbate the spread of such content. Moreover, the taxonomy of harm relating to climate mis- and disinformation has been poorly defined to date, providing an inadequate basis for a response, warns the report.

Produced by ISD, CASM Technology, and the Climate Action Against Disinformation alliance (CAAD), this essential read is a data-driven examination of the landscape, actors, systems, and approaches that are combined to prevent action on climate.

Why does climate mis- and disinformation matter?

Many large-scale polls - including a 2021 study by UNDP and the University of Oxford that surveyed 1.2 million people in 50 countries - show there is now a strong public mandate to address the climate crisis. Outright climate denial still exists in many corners of social and legacy media, but it has largely been confined to the margins of public debate.

In its place, the report adds, however, narratives have emerged discrediting any proposal for mitigation, adaptation and transition. Even with broad consensus on the reality of the climate crisis, there is a long road ahead and a shrinking window of opportunity to achieve policy change, in line with IPCC warnings and the goals of the Paris Agreement. This makes attempts to delay action through mis- and disinformation potentially as damaging as earlier claims which denied the very existence of the climate crisis. By focusing efforts on that gap - between recognition, buy-in and policy - those who oppose climate action can prevent progress without resorting to the more taboo, denialist narratives of the nineties and early 2000-09.

What do we know about climate opposition online?

1. Climate mis- and disinformation on social media appear to outperform verified content, even when platforms themselves promote the latter.

2. By far, the most prominent anti-climate content stemmed from a handful of influential pundits, many with verified accounts on social media. Covid-19 and climate sceptic accounts also overlapped both structurally and in the content they share

3. Other key influencers fit into a broad contrarian set, sometimes branded as the ‘Intellectual Dark Web.’ While their focus is on social wedge issues, the climate crisis also plays a role in broader ‘anti-woke’ messaging.

4. A small group of repeat offenders can disproportionately affect seeding and pushing malicious content.

5. Repeat offenders have often spread mis- or disinformation on multiple topics.

6. Accounts are repeatedly fact-checked without any meaningful response from platforms.

7. Media outlets are vital to the mis- and disinformation ecosystem for climate change online.

8. Misleading content often lacks platform labelling, alerts or any form of added context.

9. Viral disinformation often spreads via image-based content, whether videos, memes or decontextualised still photos.

10. Paid advertising, including from fossil fuel companies and their front groups, continues to increase the reach of greenwashing and other delayer narratives.

Stem the tide

To stem this misinformation campaign, the report has several suggestions for governments, regulators and multilateral bodies:

1. Implement a unified definition of climate mis-and disinformation within key institutions (e.g. UNFCCC, IPCC, COP Presidency); and reflect these criteria in tech company Community Standards and/or Terms of Service

2. Limit media exemption loopholes within legislation (e.g. the EU Digital Services Act, UK Online Safety Bill and other proposals)

3. Enforce platform policies against repeat offender accounts.

4. Improve transparency and data access for vetted researchers and regulators on climate misinformation trends, as well as the role played by algorithmic amplification.

5. Restrict paid advertising and sponsored content from fossil fuel companies, known front groups and/or other actors repeatedly found to spread disinformation that contravenes the definition above

6. Ensure better platform labelling on ‘missing context’ and the re-posting of old or recycled content

7. Enable API image-based searches to support research on viral disinformation.

“Inoculation or prebunking”

A survey by The Conversation, a unique collaboration between academics and journalists that publishes research-based news and analysis, has another suggestion: “Inoculation or prebunking” to tackle climate misinformation. “Just as vaccines train cells to detect foreign invaders, research has shown that stories which pre-emptively refute short extracts of misinformation can help readers to develop mental antibodies that allow them to detect misinformation on their own in the future,” writes Jo Adetunji, editor, The Conversation UK.

The platform’s research has also identified several ingredients for trustworthy science communication. For example, reliably informing people (don’t persuade), offering balance but not false balance (highlight the weight of evidence or scientific consensus), verifying the quality of the underlying evidence, and explaining sources of uncertainty.

Separating climate fact from climate fiction isn’t always easy, but, as Sujatha Bergen, NRDC health campaigns director, correctly points out, “we need climate information and climate commitments to be real, if we’re going to have any hope of stopping the worst of global warming”.

The views expressed are personal