<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/climate-misinformation-turning-crisis-into-catastrophe-ipie-report>
"Rampant climate misinformation is turning the crisis into a catastrophe,
according to the authors of a new report.
It found climate action was being obstructed and delayed by false and
misleading information stemming from fossil fuel companies, rightwing
politicians and some nation states. The report, from the International Panel on
the Information Environment (Ipie), systematically reviewed 300 studies.
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.
Online bots and trolls hugely amplify false narratives, the researchers say,
playing a key role in promoting climate lies. The experts also report that
political leaders, civil servants and regulatory agencies are increasingly
being targeted in order to delay climate action.
Climate misinformation – the term used by the report for both deliberate and
inadvertent falsehoods – is of increasing concern. Last Thursday, the UN
special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, called
for misinformation and greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry to be
criminalised. On Saturday, Brazil, host of the upcoming Cop30 climate summit,
will rally nations behind a separate UN initiative to crack down on climate
misinformation.
“It is a major problem,” said Dr Klaus Jensen, of the University of Copenhagen,
who co-led the Ipie review. “If we don’t have the right information available,
how are we going to vote for the right causes and politicians, and how are
politicians going to translate the clear evidence into the necessary action?
Unfortunately, I think the [bad actors] are still very, very active, and
probably have the upper hand now.”
Jensen added: “We have about five years to cut emissions in half and until 2050
to go carbon neutral. Without the right information, we’re not going to get
there. So the climate crisis being translated into a climate catastrophe is
possible, unless we handle the climate information integrity problem.”
Morgera said in her report last week that countries must “defossilise”
information systems, after decades of misinformation from the powerful fossil
fuel industry.
She said states should “criminalise misinformation and misrepresentation
(greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry” and “criminalise media and
advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil
fuel companies”. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called in June
2024 for a ban on advertising by fossil fuel companies, calling the firms the
“godfathers of climate chaos”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
