Major tech firms continue to be major spreaders of climate disinformation and misinformation, a new report by Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) has claimed.
As COP29 gets underway, CAAD has said that the digital information landscape is ‘dangerously polluted’, which in turn is delaying the ‘urgent action we need to protect our future’.
‘Super spreaders’
CAAD claims that major tech firms continue to allow a number of ‘super spreaders’ to spread debunked claims attacking renewable energy and electric vehicles, with renewable energy increasingly framed as a ‘tool for social control’.
When it comes to extreme weather events, CAAD notes that disinformation campaigns around events such as wildfires are fuelling opposition to climate policies, and have even led to threats of violence against emergency response personnel.
CAAD also claims that fossil fuel companies are using digital advertising on platforms such as Meta to ‘launder their image’. According to CAAD, fossil fuel firms paid Meta at least $17.6 million for over 700 million impressions over the past year.
‘The adverts we analysed greenwash by pushing fossil-fuel oriented approaches; presenting fossil fuels as essential components of the needed energy transition; and lobbying for changes in policy at the federal or state level in the US,’ it added.
Tacking disinformation
As CAAD notes, addressing these issues is possible, with initiatives and legislations such as the UN Global Principles, the Global Digital Compact and the EU Digital Services Act having the potential to transform our information ecosystems, and present a more honest picture of the dangers of climate change.
‘However, such levers must focus on the profit motives for content creators that disinform, the tech platforms who take a cut, and, crucially, the polluters who rake in revenue year-on-year exploiting this system,’ CAAD states.
‘We cannot fixate on litigating post-by-post, but must address the systems behind them and the actors they reward, whether corporate, state-sponsored, political or individual. Better information alone – through more scientific data, fact-checks or storytelling alone – will not achieve the change we need if we do not also address the core, architectural problems at play.’ Read more here.
