Climate conspiracy theories flourish ahead of COP28
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A campaign group that analysed thousands of posts on social media platform X said the denialist hashtag ClimateScam trended on X after New York authorities issued a smog warning due to smoke from wildfires in Canada.
PHOTO: AFP
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PARIS - Climate conspiracy theories are flourishing, with lifestyle influencers joining in the misinformation war and scientists hounded on social media, researchers say, as pressure rises on leaders at the COP28 summit.
“Mis- and disinformation about the climate emergency are delaying urgently needed action to ensure a liveable future for the planet,” the United Nations said in a policy brief in June.
“A small but vocal minority of climate science denialists continue to reject the consensus position and command an outsized presence on some digital platforms.”
At the UN’s last COP summit, officials and campaigners called for delegates and social media giants to adopt a common definition of climate disinformation and misinformation, and work to prevent it.
Conspiracy theories thrive
Wildfires and heatwaves struck around the world in 2023, fuelling false claims that the disasters were brought about by humans
Unfounded conspiracy theories surged about “15-minute cities” – urban-planning initiatives aiming in part to reduce traffic emissions – with commenters branding them a plan by global elites to keep populations captive
AFP fact checks debunked numerous claims sparked by the deadly wildfires that ravaged Maui, Hawaii, in August. Among them, one TikTok video claimed the blazes were started on purpose in a “land grab” to “get people into 15-minute cities”.
Conspiracy theories have a “choke hold... on all conversations around public policy” on climate and emissions reductions, said Ms Jennie King, head of climate research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think-tank.
The Centre for Countering Digital Hate, a campaign group that analysed thousands of posts on social media platform X, said the denialist hashtag ClimateScam trended on X after New York authorities issued a smog warning due to smoke from wildfires in Canada.
Health influencers spread misinformation
With the decline of the Covid-19 pandemic and the numerous conspiracy theories it spawned, some “wellness” and New Age spiritualist influencers now post false claims about climate change, said analysts at non-profit Climate Action Against Disinformation in a report.
They analysed posts by health influencers including bodybuilders and yoga teachers.
“Arguments are intimately linked to concerns around bodily integrity, including a common accusation that climate policies are a pretext to make people unhealthy,” they wrote.
AFP fact checks have debunked claims that the World Economic Forum wanted to make people eat insects or that cities in the United States planned to ban meat and dairy foods under climate policies.
Scientists targeted online
With governments pushing reforms to reduce carbon emissions, 2023 has seen online attacks on public figures over climate reforms – from state officials to journalists to meteorologists.
“All of those are seen as targets for this sort of information warfare,” said Ms King, signalling “the increasing scapegoating of anybody who is associated with climate policy or climate action”.
During a heatwave that started in April, Spain’s State Meteorological Agency said its employees received threats from people who believed the widely debunked theory that the authorities were creating weather disasters through aeroplane “chemtrails”.
Researchers, meanwhile, documented cases of scientists abandoning Twitter for alternative social networks as insults and threats from climate change deniers surged on the platform
Dr Peter Gleick, a climate specialist with nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 that he would no longer post on the platform because the “intensity of abuse has skyrocketed”.
Professor Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and a prominent analyst of climate disinformation, said he believed the rise was “organised and orchestrated” by opponents of reforms.
An analysis of posts on Twitter carried out by computational social scientists at City, University of London in January 2023 found that the number of tweets or retweets using strong climate-sceptic terms nearly doubled in 2022, to more than a million.
Since then, Mr Musk’s move to restrict researchers’ access to the platform’s analytical data has made the trend harder to measure, said City researcher Max Falkenberg. AFP
