Data point: trust issues

Fake climate news can spread faster than a California wildfire. Climate disinformation—or false information disseminated with the intent to mislead on certain climate policies and sustainability solutions—is often linked to wider disinformation movements intentionally seeking to breed distrust. Existing scepticism of politicians and those considered corporate and media “elites”, compounded by climate disinformation, could be one reason why trust in government, business and news institutions to act on climate is dangerously low. 

A survey of more than 14,000 people found that 76% were worried about climate change in 2021—unsurprising given the ‘‘code red’ warning issued by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as a response to the latest IPCC report. If 2021 was the year that sustainability issues entered the mainstream, 2022 must be the year to start implementing bold, scalable solutions.

The question of what bodies will drive forward necessary climate action is of vital importance. The same research detailing the mounting concerns of the public around climate also found levels of trust in institutions to be staggeringly low. Out of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governments, businesses and the media, only NGOs were broadly trusted to enact climate-change action. This means that governments, businesses and the media—the institution that scored the lowest—are broadly distrusted to take necessary climate action. 

A separate survey by the European Investment Bank found that, beyond distrust of institutions, roughly half of citizens in the EU, the UK and the US believe that the difficulty in solving the climate crisis is because of government inaction.

Climate-change disinformation and misinformation—misleading information that is created and spread, regardless of whether there is intent to deceive—severely undermines the credibility of all institutions, especially the media. Leading to scepticism and denial, climate misinformation can confuse the public, contribute to political inaction, and stall support for effective climate policy. A variety of actors are responsible for spreading misleading information about climate change, with several potentially harmful advertisements appearing across the Facebook platform before and during the COP26 negotiations.

Yet both a heightened awareness of the phenomenon and an increase in tools to combat it and effectively disseminate accurate information about climate change are causes for optimism. Several organisations such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and InfluenceMap are dedicated to studying climate disinformation and identifying sources seeking to stall progress. However, institutions must continue to be held accountable, and until regulations are more stringent, climate-change disinformation could continue to undermine public trust in the implementation of climate-change solutions. 

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