This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Climate policy is being dragged into the culture wars with misinformation and junk science being spread across the internet by a relatively small group of individuals and groups, according to a study. The research, released on Thursday, shows that the climate emergency—and the measures needed to deal with it—are in some cases being conflated with divisive issues such as critical race theory, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion access, and anti-vaccine campaigns.
The study, published by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition, found that although outright denials of the facts of the climate crisis were less common, opponents were now likely to focus on “delay, distraction, and misinformation” to hinder the rapid action required.
“Our analysis has shown that climate disinformation has become more complex, evolving from outright denial into identifiable ‘discourses of delay’ to exploit the gap between buy-in and action,” said Jennie King, head of climate disinformation at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
The most prominent anti-climate content came from a handful of influential pundits.
The report looked at social media posts over the past 18 months and particularly around the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow last year. It found that the urgent need for wide-ranging mitigation and adaptation strategies were continually downplayed or condemned as unfeasible, overly expensive, disruptive or hypocritical. And it identified a number of specific “discourses of delay,” including:
