The fossil industry spent 4 million on “climate misinformation” at COP27

The gas industry and Petroleum spent close to US$4 million posting messages on social media “misleading or likely to mislead” on climate crisistheir impacts and their solutions, within the framework of the climate summit of the UN (COP27) which was held in November in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.

This is stated in a report that the Climate Action Network Against Disinformation (CAAD, for its acronym in English) has published this Thursday, and in which the campaigns supported on Facebook and Instagram that encouraged “false or tendentious” speeches on the climate crisis in the context of the international meeting are analyzed.

The study, coordinated by the Institute for Strategic Dialoguewas jointly produced by the organizations ACT Climate Labs, CASM Technology, Climate Nexus, Code for Africa, Conscious Advertising Network, DeSmog, Dewey Square Group, the E3G think tank, Friends of the Earth USA ., Graphika, Media Matters for America, Purpose Asia Pacific, Purpose Climate Labs, Greenpeace, Union of Concerned Scientists, the University of Exeter and SEDA Lab.

With “climate misinformation”the organizations refer to the dissemination of content that diminishes the severity of climate change and its consequences, that directly denies the phenomenon or that presents as positive efforts to stop global warming that contradict the scientific consensus on what is necessary to stop the increase in overall temperature.

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The authors of the document identified the fossil fuel industry and its derivatives -oil companies, plastic manufacturers, think tanks that promote the use of these polluting energies (which are the main causes of global warming)- among the largest payers of announcements during the climate summit in Egypt.

Between September 1 and November 23, 2022, the analysis found 3,781 ads – most driven by the group Energy Citizensassociated with the American Institute of Petroleum – on the social networks Facebook and Instagram (belonging to the Meta company) with messages that “delay” climate action, denounces the report.

The “narrative manual” of disinformation, judging by the publications evaluated, consisted of “exploiting the cost of living crisis and avoiding concerns about greenhouse gases”, casting doubt on the reliability of clean technologies and defending the use of fossil fuels as “necessary and reliable” energies, among other outstanding techniques.

During COP27, where nearly 200 states pledged to create a loss and damage fund – whereby rich countries, the biggest historical polluters, will help pay developing economies for their extreme weather disasters – those Paid content on networks favored a “misleading framing” to present the fund as “climate repairs,” the study alleges.

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“This research shows that climate misinformation is not going away and is, in fact, getting worse. During the COP, the Twitter search engine put #ClimateScam among the early results, without any justification from the supporting data.”said in the statement the spokesperson for climate disinformation of Friends of the Earth USA, Erika Seiber.

“Until governments hold social media and advertising companies accountable, and until companies hold professional misinformers accountable, crucial conversations about the climate crisis will be in jeopardy. For starters, Twitter should offer an explanation of how this inexcusable trend of climate denialism came to be.” Seiber added.

The UN climate group of experts, on the other hand, warns in its latest report that the “The spread of scientifically misleading information by organized counter-movements has fueled polarization, with negative implications for climate policy.”

Also the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterreshas charged against this phenomenon on multiple occasions, and he did it again this week in the Davos Economic Forumwhen he recalled that the producers of fossil fuels -in reference to the oil company ExxonMobil- “they were fully aware in the 70s that their main product was baking our planet”said.

Source: EFE.