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We have a decision. For the first time in three decades of UN climate summits, the word
‘fossil fuels’ has made it into a COP outcome. The deal is still heavy with gaping loopholes, lacking climate finance and concrete timelines. The outsized influence of fossil fuels this year has undeniably had an impact, and you can see an analysis of the industry’s and OPEC disinformation strategy at the summit that we’ve put together here.
While we wait for further reactions, there’s one last finding we want to show you. TikTok has fast become one of the world’s most relevant platforms. It is a unique platform, used more than ever for regular news consumption and with over a third of its users aged between 18 and 24 worldwide.
The climate misinformation on TikTok is unique too. Before and during this year’s summit, we found such misinformation with views into the millions. This misinformation poses a growing threat to public understanding and discussions across a range of audiences.
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TikTok finally launched an official API this year, but access is currently restricted to academic bodies in the US and EU. Until that changes, it is impossible for us to analyse public posts in a systematic way and still comply with Terms of Service.
Instead, we used a manual method informed by previous research on the platform. This involves setting up feeds (unique accounts), displaying interest in certain narratives and then logging which content TikTok recommends over a certain engagement threshold. We conducted this work with a US-based location throughout.
Our last Special Edition included a deep dive on Chevron’s greenwashing, which we found through one feed. Three other feeds revealed the following:
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Climate conspiracy theories are very popularPrevious research exploring climate misinformation on TikTok points to a proliferation of climate conspiracy theories on the platform. What we found was no different. Partly driven by momentum around the “Great Reset” hashtag - which has half a billion views to date - climate has been brought into the orbit of other wild and unsubstantiated claims.
This includes the idea of so-called ‘history resets’ (times in the past where history was rewritten and hidden from citizens); and ‘free energy’ conspiracies (no-cost, clean energy technology already exists but is being suppressed by powerful groups to enrich themselves). One of the most famous ‘free energy’ narratives is a conspiracy from 1996 about a water-powered car.
Other conspiracy content claimed that natural disasters - such as extensive wildfires in Canada this summer - were proof of a religious apocalypse, and not a phenomenon exacerbated by human-caused global heating. This is a unique form of doomism and is rife across Christian fundamentalist networks. While there is a need to balance harms from climate misinformation with people’s rights to religious expression, the virality of these posts is incredibly high and a clear cause for concern.
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Left: A ‘free energy’ conspiracy theory with 128,100 views. Right: a post linking four extreme weather events in one week in the US to the biblical “end of
times” narrative, with 1.2 million views. Both were found right before COP28.
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‘Classic’ climate denial mixes with criticism of solutions and culture wars contentSome TikTok content portrays climate change as a hoax, mixing old narratives like “global cooling” with more recent ones, including claims that wildfires are caused primarily by arsonists or that EVs are bad for the environment. Some narratives misrepresent or attack the views of the climate movement itself (e.g. Greta Thunberg). “Green tyranny” frames are also rife, undermining climate solutions as “elitist plots”. This content positions climate action as a threat to viewers' agency and autonomy, by (for example) policing their freedom of movement or choice of foods.
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Left: A video posted during COP28 with half a million views falsely suggests that agricultural emissions (characterised as “cow farts”) are not an emissions problem compared
to burning tires. Right: a video, posted just before COP28 with 3.7 million views pushes skepticism over EVs, using an article from disinformation website Naturalnews.com.
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COP28 misinformation is not that common or popular#COP28, with 196.1 million views at time of writing, doesn’t seem that attractive a hashtag. For comparison, #GreatReset is at 583.1 million. This may be because international negotiations are difficult to bring to life in a TikTok format, as well as a general focus on the Israel-Hamas war since October 7.
We did find that when typing “COP” into the platform’s search bar, one of the first suggestions offered was “COP28 conspiracy”. The feeds we checked did not surface any COP-specific conspiracies, though.
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Action 1
In April 2023, TikTok announced updates to its Community Guidelines that included new wording on climate misinformation among other things. While by no means perfect, it was a
start. Unfortunately, an investigation from the BBC revealed the policy was not being enforced. Outright climate denial remained live despite flagging of content with in-site tools. This failure to implement policies is endemic across platforms.
Aside from that, we note that content moderation does not address system design. TikTok and the power of its recommender algorithms is a stark example of this. The barrier to creating viral conspiracist or misleading content is low, not least considering the platform’s expansive suite of creation tools.
Pursuing a removal-based approach is impractical and often counter-productive. Companies should consider focusing on the reach and impact of such content, as well as the incentives built into their systems through monetisation, amplification and user engagement.
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Action 2
Given the increased numbers of people using TikTok to learn about the world and key events, efforts in ‘pre-bunking’ and inoculation could go far. TikTok has already supported initiatives like #EduTok and is deeply connected to its
influencer community. Engaging them in climate literacy efforts may shift the dial in meaningful ways, and bring millions of people into a good-faith debate through engaging, creative communications.
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Emarat Petroleum takes over the Dubai skyline to sell oil. The company is putting on a 38-day drone show for Dubai Shopping Festival
before COP has even ended. The show includes a drone-constructed “save on fuel” QR code lighting up the sky. No, this isn’t satire. But the description speaks for itself. Also good to know, the head of Emarat Petroleum is also head of UAE’s energy ministry right now; and was previously president of OPEC.
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Keeping up with the sheer quantity of fossil fuel industry greenwashing can be tough. We’ve got you covered. In today’s
greenwashing tracker:
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Saudi Arabia invests a lot of time, energy and money into promoting their Green Initiative - pictured below in the country’s giant, multimedia pavilion at COP28. This is especially galling given yesterday’s news that Saudi has severely watered down this year’s negotiated outcome by blocking mentions of ‘fossil fuel phase out’ for a second year running.
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“Regenerative agriculture” is a phrase becoming increasingly popular among big agri-business. Syngenta is currently
running an ad in the US about its “60-year-old herbicide [that] can help you reach your sustainability goals”.
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POLITICO’s energy podcast is “supported” by Chevron, “the human energy company”. An ad at the end of the program boasts “energy in progress” by cherry picking its intention to produce “100,000 barrels of renewable fuel by 2030”.
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Repsol is running a competition in Spanish for anyone that can name a kitchen ingredient used in renewable fuels. It is accompanied by a picture of a plane.
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That’s it for today. You’ll hear from us in a few days with a COP28 wrap up bulletin. Until then!
If you have any investigative leads CAAD should explore, or want to find out more about our research and intel during the summit, please email contact@caad.info. We also have team members on the ground in the UAE who are available for interviews and side-events as useful.
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