Climate Science
Scientific consensus
The definite source on climate science: https://www.ipcc.ch/
- Cook et al. (2016); Lynas, Houlton, and Perry (2021)
- https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change
Information integrity
Information Integrity about Climate Science: A Systematic Review
IPIE, Elbeyi et al. (2025)
Extreme Weather: How a storm of false and misleading claims about extreme weather events spread unchecked on social media putting lives at risk
Center for Countering Digital Hate (2025)
See also: https://thebulletin.org/2025/09/ai-misinformation-is-threatening-emergency-communications-heres-how-to-fix-that/#post-heading
New climate denial
In the late 2010s to early 2020s, climate misinformation has shfited from denial of anthropogenic climate change to denial of solutions (Center for Countering Digital Hate 2024; Elbeyi et al. 2025).
In recent months, the United States (U.S.) has witnessed an unprecedented contraction in its federal climate-health infrastructure. […] Together, these developments signal a shift from climate inaction to active climate erasure.(Jacobs and Khan 2025)
At the turn of the century, the main contrarian claim was that temperatures are not rising. A sequence of record-breaking global temperatures during the next two decades forced a shift in the narrative of climate sceptics: yes, temperatures are rising, but human activities are not a primary cause of it. Over time, new elements were added to the spectrum of arguments: that climate change will be benign, that the issue has been exaggerated or that known mitigation methods are ineffective. (Hornsey and Lewandowsky 2022)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02505-x
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/01/trump-epa-climate-change-report
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/04/eight-of-the-top-10-online-shows-are-spreading-climate-misinformation/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/22/us-thinktank-climate-science-deniers-working-with-rightwingers-in-eu-parliament-heartland-institute
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/20/global-financial-sector-dropping-key-green-pledges-as-trump-takes-office
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/04/far-right-using-climate-crisis-as-bogeyman-to-frighten-voters-and-build-higher-walls
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/31/debunking-climate-misinformation-is-becoming-a-full-time-job-but-you-can-help-defend-the-facts
Extent of denial and scepticism
For example, in Australia (a world-leading exporter of coal) and the United States (the second biggest carbon emitter in the world) roughly one-third of the population maintains that climate change is not predominantly caused by humans. Surveys from South America indicate wide variability in levels of scepticism across nations, but 40–50% of respondents in Honduras, Dominican Republic and Ecuador agreed with the statement “Climate change is not a problem”. (Hornsey and Lewandowsky 2022)
Countering misinformation
Journalist Field Guide: Navigating Climate Misinformation
Information Integrity about Climate Science: A Systematic Review
IPIE, Elbeyi et al. (2025)
Recommendations to restore climate information integrity:
- legislation to ensure standardized carbon reporting and labelling,
- litigation to ensure enforcement of the standards,
- coalition building across stakeholder groups,
- education of policymakers and the public.
A toolkit for understanding and addressing climate scepticism
Hornsey and Lewandowsky (2022)
Six strategies for reducing the damaging effects of climate scepticism:
- Appealing to sceptics through value-based frames
- Appealing to sceptics through co-benefits
- Leveraging climate-friendly actors within the conservative movement
- Establishing norms
- Consensus messaging
- Embedding climate-friendly actions in social practice
Debunking
- Evidence-based refutations of climate misinformation: https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php (site launched by John Cook)
- Debuking Handbook 2020 (Lewandowsky et al. 2020)
Calls to action
UN: Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change
For the first time, the issue of information integrity has been included in the COP Action Agenda, at the initiative of the COP30 Brazilian Presidency, acknowledging the importance of addressing climate disinformation to boost support for urgent climate action at a time when scientists are warning that the world is running out of time. As President Lula stated at the G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024, “climate action is also deeply affected by denialism and disinformation. Countries cannot solve this problem alone. This initiative will bring together global efforts to ensure access to reliable information and foster concrete action towards COP30.” Launching the Global Initiative at the G20 Leaders’ Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for strengthening action against “coordinated disinformation campaigns impeding global progress on climate change, ranging from outright denial to greenwashing to harassment of climate scientists”.
Interested parties may respond to the call with existing actions in areas such as:
- Research on disinformation and other threats to climate information integrity;
- Tools and methods to promote climate information integrity;
- Communication strategies and campaigns;
- Support for environmental journalism;
- Protecting scientific data and data sets related to climate change;
- Transparency in the advertising supply chain;
- Media, information and digital literacy related to climate change
PLOS Climate: Submit to our Focus Topic on Misinformation and Disinformation
Potential topics include (but are not limited to):
- Real-world field or case studies of misinformation in different countries (with policy relevance)
- Different topics that are subject to climate misinformation (e.g., climate science, impacts, policy, funding, geoengineering)
- Social media data and novel computational approaches
- The role of artificial intelligence in climate misinformation
- Behavioural or other measures that go beyond self-reports
- Linking of self-reported survey with population-level data (e.g., via spatial, historical, administrative, economic, health, or other records)
- Formal theoretical models (including agent-based simulations)
- Interventions that can reduce or mitigate the impact of climate misinformation
- The main agents of the climate disinformation and misinformation galaxy and their strategies and tactics
- The role of the fossil fuel industry in climate misinformation
- Gender dynamics of misinformation
Regional differences
One consequence of the broad acceptance of climate science across the European mainstream is that explicit denial groups are more marginalized. This marginalization has softened somewhat since the recent electoral successes of far-right parties across Europe, which has created space for the public expression of climate scepticism. […] Intriguingly, the key players engaged in lobbying against climate-friendly policies (such as feed-in tariffs) tend to nominally embrace the reality of climate change and limit their arguments to politics and policies. (Hornsey and Lewandowsky 2022)
Further resources
- DeSmog (blog)
- Verified for Climate (UN initiative)