Online wave of climate change denial tries to undermine green solutions, study says

Attacks on renewable energies make up the majority of false claims on sites such as YouTube, research shows

A new wave of denial about climate change is on the rise even as there is greater acknowledgment of human-caused global warming, a study of more than 12,000 videos by a disinformation campaign group warns.

The “new denial” seeks to undermine confidence in green energy solutions, as well as climate science and scientists, the research led by a group of academics and the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows.

These forms of denial made up 70 per cent of falsehoods related to climate change in videos published on sites such as YouTube and X over a six-year period, said the report, which was published on Tuesday.

Videos that were identified as containing climate denial claims received more than 325mn views in total, based on research that used artificial intelligence tools to sort and classify the assertions in content uploaded from 2018 to 2023.

The academics led by Travis Coan from the UK’s Exeter university found older forms of denial about climate change had fallen to one-third of the disinformation. Fewer instances highlighting cold weather or a coming ice age were found, for example, as meteorological evidence of global warming increased.

Instead, the majority of claims focused on three new main categories: that the consequences of global warming were either harmless or even beneficial; that climate science was unreliable; and that climate solutions offered would not work — the most predominant theme.

Examples of this included that electric vehicles produce three times as much toxic pollution as internal combustion engines when mining of the rare earth materials involved in making the vehicle are taken into account.

In fact, the US Environmental Protection Authority and many scientists are clear that over an EV’s lifetime the total greenhouse gas emissions are typically lower even when accounting for manufacturing.

Another claim, made by the Heartland Institute, a conservative and libertarian US policy think-tank, was that the shift to wind power would involve razing half of the world’s forests, wildlife habitats and open plains and would be more destructive than even the worst-case climate change scenarios.

It is estimated that, in fact, the shift to wind and solar would use an area comparable to the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint.

The study identified TheBlaze, a media company with 1.95mn YouTube subscribers founded by Glenn Beck, the former Fox News host. Beck posted on X that climate change played no role in Maui’s wildfires this summer “or ANY wildfires”, despite the evidence of multiple scientific studies.

In a video published in July 2022 and watched 71,000 times, Beck claims the Biden administration is using climate change as cover for greater government control and a “great reset” — a theory which claims that a global elite is trying to dismantle capitalism and create a new social order.

Imran Ahmed, CCDH chief executive, said the study showed institutional and government leaders needed to communicate more effectively on how to mitigate the effects of climate change.

YouTube already barred monetisation and amplification of climate denial content, but CCDH said the new forms of denial were able to escape this policy.

The platform confirmed that it prohibits ads from running on material that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.”

“Debate or discussions of climate change topics, including around public policy or research, is allowed,” YouTube added. “However, when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we stop showing ads on those videos.”

It also noted that it displayed information panels under relevant videos to provide “additional information and context from third parties.”

CCDH noted that newer forms of climate scepticism were emerging that might not be reflected in the taxonomy used by the AI model to recognise claims in video transcripts. Only YouTube channels that used climate related keywords in their titles or descriptions were included in the study, it added, excluding those belonging to fossil fuel companies.

Michael Mann, a climatologist who was not involved in the study, has written that climate deniers have shifted from outright denial and towards “inactivism”, defined as attempts to undermine action through what he calls the five Ds: deflection, delay, division, despair and doomism.

Cover photo: New forms of climate denial include claims that electric vehicles are more polluting than combustion engine vehicles © Bloomberg/AFP/Getty Images