Meeting in Warsaw (Poland) on Tuesday 29 April for an informal meeting, European ministers responsible for climate and the environment opened their working day with a session devoted to combating disinformation in these areas.
According to our sources, the discussions reflected a convergence of Member States in the face of the threats posed by the manipulation of information relating to climate and environmental data and policies. The European representatives therefore agreed not simply to respond to false information by shutting it down it, but also to construct a positive narrative.
The Polish Presidency of the EU Council has put climate disinformation on the European political agenda as a democratic risk.
“Climate disinformation is a major part of the disinformation Europe is suffering from. (...) It is often used to undermine confidence in the European institutions. We can no longer tolerate this”, declared Poland’s Minister for Climate and Environment, Paulina Hennig-Kloska, on her arrival.
Furthermore, as stated by the European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, Jessika Roswall, and the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, Leena Ylä-Mononen, disinformation is a systemic threat to both democratic stability and the implementation of green transition policies.
“It is extremely difficult to correct incorrect information once it has been published”, warned Leena Ylä-Mononen.
This calls for an alliance between surveillance and preventive communication, particularly through education, the media and digital platforms.
“It’s not just a matter of saying: ‘The Earth is not flat’”, summed up a source close to the issue. The aim is to explain that environmental policies have a positive impact on economic growth, that they create jobs and strengthen Europe’s energy security.
During the discussions, the Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian delegations (the Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Svitlana Grynchuk, was invited to take part in the discussions), raised the strategic dimension of disinformation campaigns, led in particular by Russia.
According to a European source, these delegations referred to the disinformation campaigns surrounding the disconnection of the Baltic States from the Russian electricity grid, to arouse fears of blackouts and call into question Europe’s energy transition.
As a result, they proposed that the climate issue should also be monitored by StratCom, the unit of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which, since 2015, has been responsible for combating foreign disinformation, particularly from Russia.
Strengthening digital tools and focusing on education. In addition, the Polish Presidency asked delegations about the use of the same technological tools as those used to disseminate misleading information, in particular artificial intelligence and big data technologies, in particular to detect weak signals of disinformation and construct communications based on solid scientific data.
The role of the European regulations in digital markets (DMA, Digital Markets Act) and digital services (DSA, Digital Services Act) was also mentioned by several Member State representatives, particularly with regard to the obligation placed on the major platforms to monitor and limit the circulation of misleading content.
The ‘Green Spiders’ network, which brings together communication professionals from national environment ministries and agencies, and from the European Commission, was also widely cited in the discussions.
According to our sources, several delegations called for its role to be strengthened.
At the press conference following the meeting, Ms Hennig-Kloska made it clear that the fight against disinformation should be the subject of multilateral cooperation, in particular with private platforms.
“It is imperative to communicate better what we are doing at European level and to highlight the concrete benefits of environmental legislation”, she said.
The Minister also spoke of the scale of the phenomenon. And with good reason: she claimed that Russia spends more than $2 billion a year on spreading disinformation in Europe, around 12% of which relates to the climate.
In response, a number of avenues have been explored: improving response times to false information, using more accessible language in official communications, creating reliable information platforms accessible to citizens and journalists alike, etc.
“Many countries, including Poland, are working on the creation of information portals to check the facts”, said the Minister.
Finally, media education has emerged as a major tool, following the example of the Finnish initiative, which teaches young people how to identify fake news. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)