A Summer of Disasters and Disinformation
The scenes are simply devastating. Catastrophic flooding in Pakistan has killed more than 1,100 people and destroyed millions of acres of crops. One third of the country stands underwater following a monster monsoon ten times heavier than usual. More than 6.4 million need aid.
Pakistan’s misery is just the latest climate disaster in a year that has seen record heatwaves, drought, storms and wildfires around the world. This is what our changing climate has in store for more and more people as the atmosphere heats up. Yet still there are those seeking to delay action.
This is nothing new. Decades of denialism by the fossil fuel industry have left their mark on a die-hard minority of climate change deniers. Aggressive efforts to sow doubt have eroded trust in climate science, and even facts in general. COVID showed us just how scarily widespread this is.
But climate disinformation has long moved on from straight-up denial. Now the ‘inactivists’ use a host of tricks to delay and distract, from targeting activists with smear campaigns, to funding think tanks to elevating fringe theories that are then repeated by media in a misguided bid for balance.
Yet the climate disasters are getting harder to ignore, and more people are demanding action. In response, the lobbyists have dialed up the heat, co-opting the culture wars, identity politics, reproductive rights, and vaccine debates, to belittle and undermine activists in the public eye.
Research shows these narratives present activists as elitist, and efforts to reduce emissions and decarbonize economies as unworkable, costly, or impractical. The cost-of-living crisis is particularly fertile ground, with bad actors spreading disinformation falsely blaming renewables for soaring energy costs or job losses.
And all the while, time is running out. The science is clear: the world must cut global emissions by 45 percent this decade to keep the 1.5°C limit agreed in Paris within grasp. We need everyone on board to succeed. We just can’t afford to keep letting bad actors undermine our efforts.
During the COVID pandemic, my team and I at the United Nations worked on ways to fight back against disinformation, encourage conscious sharing, and flood news feeds with reliable, accurate information in shareable nuggets. These methods can also be applied to the climate issue.
We are also consulting widely on the issue of disinformation, talking to experts and civil society groups, states, regulatory bodies, and the tech giants. We’re seeking changes to social media platforms so that they stop hosting harmful content such as that aimed at delaying climate action.
We must get better at holding those intentionally spreading harmful lies to account, and push for better enforcement of pledges by big tech companies to ban or flag climate disinformation on their platforms. We need platforms to unequivocally abandon all profits from ads denying climate change.
And we communicators must keep raising awareness. We all need to be able to debunk conspiracy theories, spot false content and identify tell-tale signs of disinformation, to counter the drive to deflect, deny, and delay climate action. Around the world, the cost of doing nothing is clear to see.
