The EU Is Moving To Silence Climate Skeptics
As the EU narrative collapses, desperate leaders are planning more tyrannical measures to keep it all from sinking
Currently, EU leaders are fuming that US officials would be so audacious as to accuse them of practicing censorship.
Yet, when it comes to suppressing open discussions and differing viewpoints on major issues, things are in fact worse than most people think. And, it’s about to get even worse.
A recent (indirectly EU-funded) report released earlier this year shows how the EU is planning to broaden censorship to include the topics of climate and energy science.
In the “Harmful Environmental Agendas and Tactics” (HEAT) report, published by EU DisinfoLab and Logically, its authors investigate how climate-related misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM) are strategically used to undermine climate policy in Europe, specifically in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
The report argues that climate ‘disinformation’ has moved beyond simple science ‘denial’ and has become a tool for broader political and social polarization.
Outright ‘denial’ of ‘climate change’, the authors claim, is being replaced by narratives focused on “climate delay.”
These often acknowledge climate change but attack the feasibility, cost, and fairness of solutions, e.g., they claim green policies will bankrupt households or destroy industries.
The report identifies four main pillars driving these agendas:
- The Conspiracy Milieu: Distrust of elites and “deep state” narratives (e.g., the “Great Reset”).
- Culture War/Partisan Discourse: Framing climate action as an authoritarian or elitist project.
- Hostile State Actors (HSAs): Significant involvement of Russian-linked networks (e.g., Portal Kombat) that use localized domains like Pravda DE to amplify divisive climate content.
- Big Oil Alignment: Narratives that align with ‘fossil fuel’ interests, even if direct corporate attribution is often obscured.
In Germany, for example, there are attacks on the Energiewende (energy transition) and the Building Heating Act.
In France, there are links between climate policy and the “Yellow Vest” movement, or anti-elitist sentiments. Meanwhile, the so-called “nitrogen crisis” has been reframed as “government land theft” in the Netherlands.
European leaders are convinced that their policies have nothing to do with all the failures going on. In their eyes, it’s all the fault of unruly citizens and their ‘disinformation’ campaigns.
The Report’s Key Recommendations
The authors call for decisive institutional and platform-level action to treat climate ‘disinformation’ as a structural threat and a danger to democracy. This all needs to stop!
The primary recommendation is for the EU to explicitly recognize climate ‘disinformation’ as a systemic risk under the Digital Services Act (a.k.a. by critics as the Digital Censorship Act).
This would force so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) to take proactive measures and conduct risk assessments.
The authors also call for mandating algorithm audits and public reporting on content moderation, specifically for climate content. It’s time to crack down on skeptics, they say.
Moreover, “independent researchers” are to be provided with access to disaggregated platform data to track how these narratives spread. Another recommendation is calling for the labelling and limiting the reach of “ideological or sponsored” climate ‘disinformation’.
The authors are also calling for greater monitoring of Russian-aligned and other hostile state operations that exploit climate debates to weaken EU democratic resilience.
Another step suggested to counter “climate disinformation” is the establishment of reporting channels for civil society organizations (so-called “trusted flaggers”) to flag coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) and ‘harmful narratives’ to regulators.
Also, “prebunking” campaigns aimed at proactively ‘educating’ the public on ‘disinformation’ tactics before they are exposed to them—especially in lower-educated rural and working-class areas that are frequently targeted.
For ‘prebunking’ campaigns read indoctrination campaigns.
See more here climatechangedispatch
Header image: The Conversation