Climate Misinformation and the Energy Transition, Insights from Durham Energy Institute’s Advisory Board

The era of distrust 

The presentation, delivered by Orsted at the March 2026 Advisory Board meeting, set out how falling public trust in institutions is creating fertile ground for false and misleading claims about climate change and the energy transition. Recent findings such as the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer show that around 70% of people now believe government officials, business leaders and journalists deliberately mislead the public with falsehoods or exaggerations. This erosion of confidence makes it harder for citizens to distinguish robust climate science from denial, doubt and distraction. 

At the same time, global risk assessments now rank mis and disinformation alongside extreme weather and biodiversity loss as leading threats over the coming decade. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks work and the UN’s Global Risk Report both highlight climate misinformation as a vulnerability where the world is highly exposed but poorly prepared. 

How climate misinformation works 

The talk outlined the anatomy of information manipulation, distinguishing between misinformation (false information shared without intent to harm), disinformation (deliberately fabricated or manipulated content), and malinformation (true information repurposed to mislead or damage). These techniques are increasingly used to sow confusion about the causes and impacts of climate change and to undermine confidence in low carbon solutions like wind and solar power. 

One framework discussed was the CARDS taxonomy (Computer Assisted Recognition of Denial and Skepticism), developed by researchers at the University of Exeter, Trinity College Dublin and Monash University. CARDS groups climate contrarian claims into recurring super claims, such as global warming is not happening, human greenhouse gases are not causing warming, climate impacts are not bad, climate solutions will not work, and climate science and the climate movement are unreliable. Within each of these sit more specific narratives, for example, that sea level rise is exaggerated, clean energy is too expensive or unreliable, or there is no scientific consensus on climate change. 

Attacks on the energy transition 

The Advisory Board heard evidence that disinformation is now targeting energy technologies and policies as much as climate science itself. Offshore wind was highlighted as a particular flashpoint, with well organised campaigns promoting false or overstated claims about impacts on whales and marine life, turbine safety, noise, health effects and property values. In some markets, misinformation fuelled community opposition has become one of the single biggest blockers to deploying new wind capacity, delaying or cancelling projects that are critical for decarbonisation. 

The presentation also showed how adversarial states, political actors and well funded networks of think tanks and front groups are amplifying polarising narratives around energy. These range from climate change denial and conspiracy theories to arguments that net zero policies will wreck economies, threaten national security or unfairly burden particular communities. Research using the CARDS framework has found that a growing share of contrarian content focuses on attacking the integrity of climate science and solutions rather than denying basic physics. 

What can be done 

The session concluded with a set of practical responses for industry, policymakers and researchers. Recommended actions for renewable energy companies included: 

• Investing in accessible myth busting and fact checking at project, national and international levels, and being transparent about trade offs and uncertainties. 

• Paying close attention to tone, acknowledging legitimate concerns, and co designing projects with local communities to build trust over time. 

• Working with independent experts and third party validators to communicate the strength of the scientific consensus on climate change and the effectiveness of clean energy solutions. 

• Escalating the issue from project teams to boardrooms so that tackling misinformation is resourced as a strategic risk, not treated as an afterthought. 

Industry bodies and civil society organisations were encouraged to coordinate science based rebuttals to common myths, press social media platforms to strengthen their climate misinformation policies, and support follow the money investigations that expose the funding behind hostile campaigns. 

Further resources 

ClimaVAR – “Your climate referee”: an open‑source tool developed by the University of Exeter’s Nature & Climate Impact Team that uses an AI “video assistant referee” model to flag climate claims as accurate, misleading or false and link users to underlying scientific sources, supporting rapid fact checking of climate and energy information in media and online debates.  https://climavar.com/app.