How can media react to disinformation, climate change?

Recent reports from a variety of institutions, including the World Economic Forum, say the world is currently facing two challenges, both of which can be considered extremely urgent for humanity.

One is disinformation, when false images and deliberately inaccurate information, often known as fake news, are deployed to undermine democracy and deepen social divisions. The other is climate change, which is devastating the environment and will eventually see parts of the planet become uninhabitable. The former is mostly considered a short-term problem, the latter a long-term one.

What happens when the two collide?

Answers to this question were discussed at several sessions of DW's annual Global Media Forum (GMF) held this week in the western German city of Bonn.

Disinformation about climate change is a huge problem, said Isabelle Schläpfer, research manager at the US-funded media development organization Internews. In early June, her organization published a report on journalism and climate change, Covering the Planet, which surveyed over 700 journalists.

There were fears that farmer protests against new EU rules may have been motivated in part by far-right disinformationImage: Yves Herman/REUTERS

"Over 45% of journalists say [disinformation] has increased, mostly due to social media," Schläpfer told DW on the sidelines of the Global Media Forum. "It distorts the conversation about climate change. It takes attention away from what matters and what it means for ordinary people's lives."

Experts widely agreethat climate change must be countered by government policies. But in order to effectively put them into action, it is important that citizens and voters buy into them. This is where growing levels of disinformation, which contributes to undermining citizens' trust in their government, can become so problematic.

The 'new denial' of climate change

At times, disinformation on climate change can be instrumentalized in political campaigns, or arguments made by particular interest groups, such as farmers' groups opposed to tough new European Union environmental regulations.

Others might use disinformation to outright deny that climate change is happening, with some even insisting droughts or extreme weather events are simply part of the earth's normal seasonal cycle.

However, as researchers at the British nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reported in January, there's also a new form of climate-change denial emerging that journalists need to be aware of. They call it the "new denial." Other researchers at the London School of Economics have described it as climate change "delayism."

Journalists attending the GMF2024 discussed how to cope with disinformation in all its formsImage: Björn Kietzmann/DW

"'New denial' claims now constitute 70% of all climate denial claims made on YouTube, up from 35% six years ago," the CCDH researchers wrote in January. It is a "substantial shift from denial of anthropogenic climate change to undermining trust in both solutions and science itself … [and] seeks to undermine solutions and delay political action."

"Disinformation is shifting from outright denial to challenging arrangements for doing something about climate change," said Anna Nanu, a delegate at the GMF. Nanu is a communications officer for the Brussels-based Cool Heating Coalition, a group of organizations promoting sustainable, renewable, and affordable heating and cooling systems in Europe.  

Her organization has recently seen a rise of disinformation about using hydrogen to heat homes, despite an abundance of scientific advice against it. "It's a false solution," Nanu told DW. "We actually already have the technology we need."

Gaea Katreena Cabico, a reporter from the Philippines who specializes in environmental and social justice stories, gave the audience at her GMF session another example of climate change delayism, recounting how a local influencer back home had been asked to promote a liquid natural gas (LNG) company.

Environmentalists contend that LNG is a harmful pollutant, challenging conventional narratives that it may be a sort of "diet fossil fuel"Image: Stefan Sauer/dpa/picture alliance

The influencer was told that LNG was "good for the environment," Cabico said. Although LNG may produce fewer polluting emissions than, for instance, brown coal, it is still a fossil fuel. "And she didn't seem to know that, but the LNG company that tapped her [to promote it], certainly did," Cabico noted.

Pere Bosch, a reporter and presenter at Catalonia's public broadcaster TV3 who spoke at the GMF, also confirmed there was disinformation surrounding the Spanish region's devastating drought. "In February, when water was at its lowest, every day you'd open up social media and see people posting pictures of the so-called 'chemtrails' that were supposedly preventing rain," Bosch told DW.

There were also other examples of new kinds of climate-change denial, he added. There are those "who don't openly deny the problem, but they want these unlikely solutions, like big desalination plants," Bosch explained. "Even though these are hugely expensive and also polluting."

Catalonia has seen hardly any rain for four years. In February this year, authorities declared an emergencyImage: Jordi Boixareu/ZUMA Press Wire/picture alliance

What can be done?

At this year's GMF, journalist and experts working in relevant fields recommended drawing upon science and facts when telling stories about climate change. Some also suggested ensuring that explanations were well-researched and couched in simple, easy-to-understand language.

Others, who had seen audiences scared off by nonstop crisis reporting on the environment, suggested a solutions-based approach to storytelling, and encouraged writers to ensure their stories weren't all negative, all the time.

Mitali Mukherjee, the director of journalist programs at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, suggested a more immediate or personal focus could also help. During a study conducted in countries of the so-called Global South, her institute asked local media workers how climate change was impacting them and their communities. Many were not sure.

Around one fifth of air pollution in Delhi comes from the industrial sectorImage: MONEY SHARMA/AFP

"But when we asked them if it was impacting their health, then they said, yes, it was happening," she recounted. They talked about air pollution or how extreme heat threatened newborns and the elderly, Mukherjee added. "The health impact felt like it was here and now," she told delegates at the GMF.

"We cannot forget there are people at the heart of all this," Nanu agreed.

"We should be talking about this more," Schläpfer added. "There are people who might lose their jobs because they're working in a sector that is going to change. They need to know what a certain policy measure might mean for them personally. It's important for journalism to respond in an honest and sincere way."

Edited by: Maren Sass