Organizations spreading climate misinformation

The Real Enemies of Progress: How Industry Associations Are Driving Us Towards Environmental Catastrophe In the same way that history condemns those who defended slavery, colonialism, and apartheid, we must recognize any modern-day institutions that are obstructing our efforts to combat climate change. These associations are not just resisting progress—they are actively pushing us towards environmental disaster. * American Petroleum Institute (API): The ultimate fossil fuel lobby, API has spent decades denying climate science and lobbying against clean energy, cementing its role as a major barrier to progress. * American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM): AFPM is relentless in its defense of fossil fuels, opposing emissions reductions and clean energy alternatives at every turn. *U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Once a respected business organization, the Chamber now prioritizes the interests of the wealthiest members, obstructing essential climate legislation and promoting the status quo. * National Mining Association (NMA): A staunch defender of coal, the NMA works to undermine environmental regulations, prolonging our dependence on the dirtiest energy source available. * BusinessEurope: This EU lobby group fights against ambitious climate policies, putting short-term profits ahead of long-term survival and betraying future generations. * Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP): Representing the oil sands industry, CAPP aggressively pushes for expansion, making Canada a major offender in the global climate crisis. * German Automotive Association: The group resist the shift to electric vehicles and stringent emissions standards, blocking essential progress in reducing Europe’s carbon footprint. * California Chamber of Commerce: Even in progressive California, the Chamber opposes environmental regulations, putting corporate profits above the state’s environmental goals. * Federation of German Industries (BDI): BDI fights against ambitious climate policies in Germany, arguing against regulations that would drive sustainability. * International Air Transport Association (IATA): Despite being a major contributor to global emissions, IATA lobbies against efforts to regulate or reduce the aviation sector’s environmental impact. Based on InfluenceMap, these associations are top defenders of a system that prioritizes profit over people, corporate interests over community well-being, and short-term gains over long-term survival. Where that is true, It’s time to call out these organizations for what they are: the enemies of progress, standing in the way of a sustainable and just future. Where that is true, future generations will look back on these associations and their leaders and members with contempt. The stakes are global, and the costs of their obstructionism are existential. If we are to save the planet, we must confront all those powerful players who are determined to keep us on a path to destruction. #leadership

🌍 Ten Years After Paris: is the Climate Crisis a Disinformation Crisis? In 2015, the world made a historic promise: to keep global warming well below 2°C, and ideally below 1.5°C. We committed to major emission cuts by 2030, and net-zero by 2050. The Paris Agreement marked a new era of global climate cooperation. But ten years on, we're still struggling with cooperation while the World Meteorological Organization tells us that the Earth’s average temperature exceeded 1.5°C over a 12-month period (Feb 2023–Jan 2024) for the first time. Why? 🔍 A groundbreaking new study, led by 14 researchers for the International Panel on the Information Environment, reviewed 300 studies from 2015–2025. The findings are alarming: powerful interests – fossil fuel companies, populist parties, even some governments – are systematically spreading misleading narratives to delay climate action. 🧠 Misinformation isn't just about denying climate change. It’s now about strategic skepticism – minimizing the threat, casting doubt on science-based solutions, and greenwashing unsustainable practices. 📺 This disinformation flows through social media, news outlets, corporate reports, and even policy briefings. It targets all of us – but especially policymakers, where it can shape laws and delay critical decisions. 💡 So what can we do? 1️⃣ Legislate for transparency and integrity in climate communication. 2️⃣ Hold greenwashers accountable through legal action. 3️⃣ Build global coalitions of civil society, science, and public institutions. 4️⃣ Invest in climate and media literacy for both citizens and leaders. 5️⃣ Amplify voices from underrepresented regions – like Africa – where more research is urgently needed. We must protect not only the planet’s climate, but the integrity of climate information. 🔗 Read more on how disinformation is undermining climate progress – and what we can do about it: https://lnkd.in/eDN9hKAJ 🕰️ The window is small. But with truth, science, and collective action, we can still turn the tide.

The current energy shock makes the case for renewables more obvious than ever. It also generates the windfall profits and public anxiety that the architects of delay reinvest into manufactured doubt. As I argued in an earlier post, our information systems are structurally vulnerable to disinformation, mostly because of economic incentives. To fix that, we should apply the "polluter pays" principle to the information environment. There is a growing body of evidence showing how legitimate concerns are deliberately amplified and distorted by private and state actors whose revenues depend on prolonging fossil fuel dependence. Last week, a WindEurope report mapped 573 accounts spreading anti-wind power disinformation across Europe: 42,000 posts reaching tens of millions. Wind projects worth billions have been delayed or cancelled, sometimes violently, on the back of false claims. A recent DeSmog / POLITICO Europe investigation uncovered a Paris PR firm running fake Facebook accounts for a gas trade group, discrediting heat pumps with fabricated stories and AI-generated images. Sometimes so clumsily that even group members began questioning whether the accounts were real. Earlier this year, Clean Creatives documented 1,217 active contracts between ad agencies and fossil fuel companies in 2025. EUvsDisinfo and NATO have analysed how Russia, whose revenues remain tied to fossil fuel exports, is a major driver of climate disinformation in Europe. For Europeans, the consensus is there; people are not confused. 88% support more renewables, 81% back climate neutrality by 2050 (EU Commission). But when misleading narratives are produced and distributed on an industrial scale, even informed citizens struggle to know what is true. The energy transition involves real trade-offs that can only be navigated honestly in an information environment that is not deliberately distorted. Just as individual carbon footprint is sometimes used to shift the climate burden onto people rather than systems, we now risk shifting the burden of disinformation onto individual media literacy. The problem starts with an unregulated supply chain of falsehoods. The Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, signed by 27 countries at COP30, provides a framework. Governments and the private sector must now act on it. Funding independent journalism; taxing windfall profits that fund delay; and regulating the intermediaries such as PR firms, platforms, even media outlets when they produce and distribute false narratives, are essential steps to take.

I've been covering climate disinformation for a very long time and something that's been stuck in my craw the past couple of years is the fact that people often talk about it as something that happened in the past. But with so many of the climate "solutions" the fossil fuel industry proposes, the exact same issues are continuing to play out: they know these aren't really solutions, they know that they will never scale, and that is why they push them. It's part of the "discourses of delay" that social scientists talk about, or what Alex Steffen calls "predatory delay." The industry spends billions of dollars a year to fund university research, lobbying, advertising, and PR campaigns that create the illusion that its preferred "solutions" will work, even as its own scientists and technologists are telling it they won't. They hire management consultancies to draw up charts and graphs that lend credibility to these "solutions" too, and then those consultancies can throw up their hands and say "we just did the analysis they asked for, we didn't know they were going to use it to obstruct climate action!" Over the course of this summer we'll be running a new investigative series at Drilled Media digging into these efforts. Loads of both web and audio stories coming your way, but first up, a deep dive from me and Andy Rowell on how U.S. LNG producers are trying to position liquefied natural gas—a fossil fuel—as a climate solution, and use that "green" cred to lobby both EU and US politicians on increasing U.S. LNG exports to Europe. https://lnkd.in/gbFWNpcb

When we see CEOs earning tens of millions of dollars—sometimes hundreds of times more than their employees—it forces us to question what and who we truly value as a society. Teachers, social workers, and others who dedicate their lives to building stronger communities often require advanced degrees, yet many struggle to earn a living wage. Meanwhile, some of the wealthiest CEOs are leading companies that contribute to pressing issues like wealth inequality and environmental harm, raising serious ethical concerns about the systems we’ve created. I'll be highlighting the companies listed on the AFL-CIO Highest Paid CEOs Watchlist which you can find at https://hubs.li/Q037Vl0N0. Darren Woods is the CEO of ExxonMobil (Ticker: XOM), who took home $35.9 million in 2023 while leading a company that has spent decades actively misleading the public, stalling climate progress, and profiting off environmental destruction. ExxonMobil’s business model isn’t just about oil—it’s about deliberate deception, aggressive legal battles, and exploiting every possible loophole to maintain control. 🔹 Climate Denial, Then Greenwashing – Exxon knew about climate change as early as the 1970s, with internal research accurately predicting global warming. Instead of acting, the company spent decades funding misinformation campaigns to delay action while publicly pretending the science was “uncertain.” Now? They’ve pivoted to greenwashing, touting carbon capture projects that—shock—help them keep drilling. 🔹 Suing Shareholders Who Want Climate Action – Exxon just sued their own shareholders when they proposed a resolution demanding stronger climate action. They responded to them with a lawsuit to stop them from even bringing it to a vote. This is a blatant attack on corporate democracy, what little there is left of it. 🔹 Plastic Pollution and Recycling Lies – Remember when we were told recycling plastic would save the planet? ExxonMobil was one of the biggest pushers of that myth, despite knowing for decades that most plastic isn’t actually recyclable. California is suing ExxonMobil for misleading the public about plastic pollution while continuing to flood the planet with non-recyclable waste. 🔹 Government Handouts for ‘Climate Solutions’ That Keep Oil Flowing – ExxonMobil has secured billions in public subsidies for carbon capture and storage—but instead of using it to reduce emissions, they’re using it to pump more oil. Carbon capture allows them to inject CO₂ into oil fields to squeeze even more fossil fuels out of the ground, all while pretending they’re “part of the solution.” ExxonMobil isn’t just a problem—it’s THE problem. They're one of the worst actors in corporate America, and Woods is getting millions to keep it that way. #ClimateCrisis #CorporateAccountability #ExxonMobil #Greenwashing #FossilFuels #PlasticPollution #ExecutiveCompensation

#ClimateLitigationUpdate: Earlier today, the Judicial Court of Paris found TotalEnergies civilly liable for deceptive commercial practices due to false claims about its “ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050” and to be “a major player in the energy transition.” This landmark decision follows the legal action initiated in 2022 by Les Amis de la Terre France, Greenpeace France, and Notre Affaire à Tous, with the support of ClientEarth. The lawsuit notably targeted the Carbon Major’s communication campaign surrounding its 2021 name change from Total to TotalEnergies. According to the plaintiffs, it is the first time in the world that a court ruled against a major oil and gas company for misleading the public by greenwashing its image regarding its contribution to the fight against climate change. Among other points, the Court ordered the company to: ◾ to cease their false claims within one month, under penalty of a provisional fine of €10,000 per day of delay; and ◾ to publish the court’s decision on the homepage of their website in a clearly visible manner for 180 days. According to Justine Ripoll, Campaigns Manager at Notre Affaire à Tous: “By recognizing that Total’s communication misleads consumers, the French judiciary is finally tackling the fossil greenwashing impunity that Total had enjoyed until now. It sends a clear message: climate disinformation is not an acceptable business strategy. Citizens have the right to honest information, and fossil fuel companies must be held accountable for the true nature of their activities.” This precedent is expected to inform and influence judicial scrutiny over corporate net-zero claims well beyond France's borders. ➡️ Notre Affaire à Tous' press release: https://lnkd.in/dmvgNWkg ➡️ The Court's ruling: https://lnkd.in/d5KjNBfg https://lnkd.in/dcS2UKTa

📣 Major new U.S. climate litigation: The Justice Department of Puerto Rico is targeting 8 fossil fuel companies in a 1 billion dollar lawsuit. The Justice Department is drawing on civil, environmental and antitrust frameworks. Puerto Rico joins a growing list of cities, counties, and states in the U.S. that are suing big oil over its climate misinformation and climate impact. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞: ▶ It’s another case where it is alleged that fossil fuel companies have continued to cause pollution despite their decades-long knowledge of the devastating consequences of their operations. ▶ Even more so, the companies carried out disinformation campaigns to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change and create doubt in the minds of the general public. ▶ The lawsuit also refers to the greenwashing the companies allegedly engage in. Specifically highlighting (1) exaggerations of investments in certain low-carbon energy resources, without disclosing that these are negligible compared to their continued involvement in fossil fuels; and (2) marketing fossil fuel products as environmentally friendly despite being major contributors to climate change. ▶ The misinformation helped sustain the fossil fuel market which has caused devastating climate change impacts in Puerto Rico. ▶ The Justice Department wants the fossil fuel companies to compensate for the costs of damages caused by climate change, rather than the taxpayer having to carry the burden. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞: ▶ Fossil fuel companies love resorting to energy security and energy affordability arguments in climate litigation. This Puerto Rican lawsuit pre-empts these arguments by stating that it’s the companies’ own misinformation that has caused our dependence on fossil fuels. ▶ At least one of the defendants is a subsidiary that is mostly involved with the selling and marketing of fossil fuel products. This fits neatly within the trend of accountability for ‘advertised emissions’. *Everything here is alleged. #ClimateLitigation #BigOil #PuertoRico

The fossil fuel industry is spending millions to spread climate disinformation on social media—and it’s working. They fund misleading ads, fake “grassroots” campaigns, and influencers to downplay the climate crisis and delay real action. A 2021 analysis found that 16 major polluters, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, placed over 1,700 climate disinformation ads on Facebook—garnering 150 million views and funneling nearly $5 million into the platform. Their goal? To create confusion, sow doubt, and stall climate policies. Last year, ExxonMobil alone ran 350+ targeted ads to block legislation phasing out natural gas in New York. And social media algorithms, which boost emotional and controversial content, are only accelerating the spread of these posts. The fossil fuel industry thrives on division. The more they can confuse the public, the harder it is to pass climate policies that curb emissions and transition to renewables. Even well-meaning people can unknowingly spread disinformation—especially when misleading content is tailored to their biases. So, what can we do? ⁍ Question the source of climate information before sharing. ⁍ Support independent climate journalism and fact-based reporting. ⁍ Push for stronger regulations on mis/disinformation in digital spaces. #ClimateMisinformation #FossilFuels #SocialMedia #ClimateAction #RenewableEnergy #Misinformation #ClimateChange

Read this article in DeSmog to understand how fossil fuel interests used their sponsorship of cultural events to block climate action. "DeSmog discovered the documents by combing through thousands of internal memos, emails, and other communications subpoenaed by the Congressional investigation into climate disinformation by the fossil fuel industry, which published its report last year. Dated between 2015 and 2021, the documents show oil companies funding sponsorship programs meant not only to enhance their reputations as socially responsible corporations, but also to ward off anti-climate change regulations that might undercut their oil and gas business." https://lnkd.in/e4qyWYzu

"Under Raymond’s leadership, Exxon spent millions of dollars funding a shadowy network of think tanks and pseudo-scientific groups who published memos, briefings, and advertisements meant to cast doubt on climate change. As the journalist Steve Coll wrote in his book Private Empire, Under Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil had persistently funded a public policy campaign in Washington and elsewhere that was transparently designed to raise public skepticism about the science that identified fossil fuels as a cause of global warming. ExxonMobil ran some aspects of its campaign clandestinely; that is, it did not initially disclose the full scope and purpose of contributions it made. […] What distinguished the corporation's activity during the late 1990s and the first Bush term was the way it crossed into disinformation." https://lnkd.in/gC83sRFn