It was reported in the Guardian that a new report had suggested that the spread of climate misinformation is turning what is a crisis into a catastrophe. The report found that false and misleading information stemming from right-wing politicians, fossil fuel companies, and some nation states were leading to climate action being obstructed and delayed. It was said that 300 studies had been systematically reviewed for the report, from the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE).
It was noted that “the researchers found climate denialism has evolved into campaigns focused on discrediting solutions, such as the false claims that renewable energy caused the recent massive blackout in Spain”.
The researchers also noted that false narratives have been amplified by online bots and trolls which played a key role in promoting climate lies. It was also reported that civil servants, regulatory agencies, and political leaders are increasingly being targeted in order to delay climate action.
The report
The report itself states that research indicated that media and communications, instead of changing climate related attitudes and behaviours in the short term, tended to influence public opinion and policymaking over time and in multiple steps.
It is noted that, “studies have found that conspiracy theories and other misleading information have undermined public trust in climate science and other key social institutions, a pattern calling for continuous monitoring. A second strategic juncture to be addressed in further research is the interchange between public opinion and policy development, which orients decisions and actions that end up affecting human livelihoods and the living conditions on Earth”.
Policy recommendations
The report published a series of policy recommendations as to how governments can deal with the epidemic of climate misinformation spreading through the internet and other outlets.
The authors of the report rightly argue that anthropogenic sources, human use of fossil fuels and other actions, are the key to the accelerating climate crisis and that, crucially, there is a near-universal scientific consensus saying that that is so.
The authors go to say that, “to respond to this existential risk it is essential that citizens, publics, policymakers, and political establishments around the world have access to and act on the findings of climate science. As documented in the present Synthesis Report, however, the integrity of the information representing climate science in a wide variety of public and private contexts of communication, has been and is being challenged and disrupted”.
Information integrity about climate science
The report also calls for a systematic review of all the evidence relating to the effects of climate misinformation.
The authors suggest four criteria of information integrity, to build on earlier theoretical and empirical contributions introduced. Each of these criteria has been found in research to be circumvented, undermined and disregarded:
- “Accuracy – publicly available and politically influential information about climate change is, to a significant extent, inaccurate by the established standards of climate science.”
- “Consistency – widely disseminated information about the causes and consequences of climate change is inconsistent across time, place, and means of communication”.
- “Reliability – substantial portions of the available information about climate change is unreliable as a guide to individual and collective climate action”.
- “Transparency – the senders, interests, and sources of funding behind much of the available information about climate change is not transparent to its recipients”.
In response to these issues, the report goes on to state that studies have identified four ways of repairing and maintaining climate integrity about climate science in the interest of humanity and biodiversity.
Legislation and regulation
There needs to be robust legislation which can represent “collectively agreed rules of social and human coexistence, including principles and procedures governing the exchange of information and the expression of opinion. While digital platforms and other media of communication, to an extent, regulate themselves internally and in dialogue with their users, the record regarding information integrity about climate science, as documented in this report, indicates the need for enhanced governance in the public interest”.
Litigation
The authors also consider litigation which is seen as “the possibility of taking legal action in response to, for example, a violation of rights or a breach of contract”. The authors concede that litigation regarding information integrity about climate science is still relatively limited, but also argue that, “studies have pointed to the potential for a range of actors, from governments and prosecutors to NGOs and individual citizens, to bring lawsuits, so far primarily against private companies engaging in greenwashing”.
Education
The authors argue that people need to be able to access, process, and apply accurate information about climate change, which will empower them to respond both to the crisis of information integrity about climate science and to the climate crisis as such. As a result, it is important that education is used as a broad-based and long-term strategy to facilitate this enabling.
The report also notes that ”research has indicated the need to cultivate, at once, science literacy and media literacy among citizens at large, so that they may secure conditions of survival and flourishing (eudaimonia) for themselves and others”.
Counterpublics
Counterpublics constitute a way of dealing with the alliances built by powerful economic and political stakeholders to obstruct and delay. They are made up of ad hoc and shifting alliances of strategic and tactical collaboration, among peoples, communities, and political and civil-society entities at local and global levels. The authors argue that, “research has suggested that counterpublics can contribute to challenging and disrupting the challengers and disruptors of information integrity about climate science”.
Comment
This report will sadly come as no surprise to anybody who has been involved in climate crisis alleviation work in recent years. Just as tobacco companies and other powerful vested interests used misinformation to delay serious action regarding the dangers of tobacco smoking, so climate change deniers are using the same playbook today.
In the end of course, the truth did come out regarding smoking and many governments have been able to take measures which have seen dramatic declines in numbers of smoking and improvements in public health. It is to be hoped that similarly the truth about the Climate Crisis will also come out. But there is a very dangerous difference between the two issues. The decline in cigarette smoking has meant that future generations can lead healthier tobacco-free lives. The truth regarding the Climate Crisis might only finally win out when it is too late for human civilisation to continue.
Already we have seen that the 1.5oC limit in temperature rise since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution agreed to at the Paris Climate Conference merely ten years ago has been breached. And we must be under no illusions that we are on a very dangerous path towards a three or four degree rise, which could see the end of human civilisation as we know it and that misinformation about Climate Change is largely responsible for this.
At a time when the government is facing increasing calls for a total abandonment of the Net Zero targets by 2025 and pressure from the rise of the right-wing Reform UK party, it is vital that they face these calls down and implement the kinds of policies recommended in the report.
Given the record of the government so far, I won’t hold my breath.
