Combatting Climate Disinformation

This project investigates communication strategies to prevent inaction to mitigate climate change caused by disinformation, which is particularly evident in the climate discourse. Climate change disinformation, disseminated for example by conservative think tanks or political parties, systematically questions the anthropogenic nature of climate change and confuses public debate in order to justify inaction to mitigate climate change. This is problematic since climate change is proven as anthropogenic in nature and can be mitigated by limiting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions. Hence, we investigate measures that counteract the negative impact of climate change disinformation on efficacy beliefs to mitigate climate change.

Investigators: Dr. Berend Barkela, Clara Christner, Prof. Dr. Hermann Jungkunst