Climate Change Information Fact-checking Initiative

This is a translation from a French article. To read the original, click here.

Since 2018, a group of scientists specializing in climate change has been working on fact-checking climate-related information circulating in English-speaking media. An uphill battle in the age of fake news and social media.

Questioning the climate crisis, disavowing human’s activity impact on the climate… While the internet has enabled significant progress in terms of access to and sharing of information, it has also contributed to the explosion of fake news, particularly through social media.

In France, however, several media outlets have acknowledged this problem and have developped tools to help internet users distinguish between fact and fiction. These include Le Monde with Décodex, AFP with Factuel, and Libération with the Checknews service.

In the English-speaking world, initiatives have also proliferated. Beyond the media, verification tools have been launched by IT specialists, such as Snopes, but also by scientists, such as Climate feedback, created in 2018.

A scientific initiative

Wha makes it unique? It sifts through information about climate change. A recognized member of the International Fact-checking Network, this tool draws on a pool of climatologists from around the world, such as Emmanuel Vincent, founder of the site and doctor in Oceanography and climate at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, and Professor David Archer of the University of Chicago, who specializes in the carbon cycle.

Each week, scientists select the most widely shared media articles on social media. These are then analyzed and commented on by specialists to fix eventual inaccuracies and add context to the information. The articles are then published on their website and shared with the publisher who originally produced the information, who can decide to modify it to reflect these contributions. To date, 150 articles have been screen by Climate Feedback.

The scientific tool currently focuses solely on English-language articles produced by traditional media outlets. Recently, it analyzed a list of false statements published in the Washington Times, which denied the principle of “climate emergency,” arguing that additional CO2 emissions were beneficial to the environment.

Climate change among the primary targets of misinformation

The Climate Feedback initiative highlights the importance of combating misinformation related to climate change, a topic that has become increasingly divisive since it rose to prominence.

The role of the media and journalists is therefore all the more necessary, according to the organization Reporters d'Espoir. In its guide entitled Médias et Climat (Media and Climate), the organization recommends that journalists not only relay information related to climate change, but also make it understandable to the general public, develop a critical approach to this information, and highlight initiatives in favor of ecological transition.

The issue of regulating social media giants is also central to this topic. A 2018 study published in the journal Science showed that fake news spreads 1,500 times faster than real news on Twitter.

One of the main reasons for this is the platforms' algorithms, which favor news that provokes more intense emotional reactions from users, encouraging them to share false information.

In a report published in August 2021, the British think tank Influencemap revealed that Facebook had taken no action to remove a disinformation campaign by the oil industry to influence the 2020 US presidential election debates.