Climate Change

Disinformation narratives about climate change have evolved over time. For years, the discourse focused on denying the very occurrence of the phenomenon. In the face of mounting scientific evidence, new conspiracy theories emerged, claiming that certain extreme weather events are artificially manufactured by powerful groups in order to simulate a climate crisis. Nowadays, these stances coexist in a new wave of disinformation that questions measures and policies designed to address the climate crisis.

1. Narratives Against Renewable Energy

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For the last few years, disinformation on climate change has been shifting its focus—it is no longer a question of denying the phenomenon, but to attack its solutions. This “new denial” focuses on discrediting renewable energies and those who encourage their use, casting doubts on their efficiency, safety and financial viability. 

Some examples include arguments that falsely claim that renewable energies:

• Are not useful because they do not work if there is no sunlight or wind, although they omit that these energies have battery banks that store the energy produced and guarantee supply even without favorable weather conditions. 
• Are a fragile source of energy and are ineffective against large energy demands. This claim usually appears after massive power cuts, and points at “an excessive dependency on renewable energy” as a direct cause. However, wind or solar energy are just one part of a diverse energy mix that guarantees a stable supply. 
• Are the most expensive type of energy, although different reports and experts place them among the most inexpensive ones.
• Are responsible for some wildfires and other climate catastrophes, which would be intentionally caused to reshape the land and build wind farms or solar power plants. These arguments play a double role in disinformation: they link renewable energy with the destruction of the natural environment and divert attention from the actual impact of climate change on the intensification of these extreme events.
• Are a threat to traditional crops and natural landscapes. This rhetoric, most commonly found in Spain although with the potential to replicate in other contexts, uses real-life, but exaggerated, cases of photovoltaic facilities built in olive groves (see for example here, here, here or here) to claim that renewable energy represents an enemy for the environment and local traditions.

2. Narratives that Discredit Activists and Climate Scientists

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This wave of disinformation wants to discredit those who raise the alarm about the climate crisis, presenting their arguments as exaggerated, alarmist or sensationalist. One tactic involves falsely attributing ridiculous statements or proposals to counteract climate change to scientists and environmental activists (like burying your head in the sand to reduce CO₂ emissions, using “biodegradable missiles” or “vegan grenades“), or even extreme statements (like the planet would not endure humanity eating meat or having kids). 

These disinformative narratives tend to focus particularly on activist Greta Thunberg, but they also include activists and environmentalists that, within similar campaigns, are called “false environmentalists,” “criminals” or guilty of “slowing down the process.” In some cases, these claims have legal or physical consequences against those who oppose certain projects. These claims usually combine different strategies of discrediting (from claims about corruption or hidden interests to gender or racial attacks ) to plant the idea that people who report these projects are not trustworthy.

Another tactic aims to highlight a supposed hypocrisy in environmentalism by circulating images of areas covered in trash that are falsely presented as the result of climate protests or eco-friendly festivals.

3. Denialist Narratives

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They reject the idea that humans are responsible for climate change or outright deny the existence of the phenomenon.

Some examples are the disinformative claims that argue that:

• Earth is not getting warmer or, even, Earth is getting colder. To support these claims, data is taken out of context or distorted, measurements done in a specific region—like Greenland—are extrapolated to the behavior of the entire plant, or short periods of time—like a month or a season—are used to generalize long-term tendencies. 
• Another related line of argument says that “it has always been hot in the summer,” as a way of denying that global warming is linked to increasingly frequent, prolonged, and intense heat waves. This is done by using old temperature records, comparing old and current weather maps, highlighting incidental cases of cold weather in the summer and heat waves in the 20th century. 
• There is a lack of scientific consensus regarding human responsibility in current climate change. However, the analysis of thousands of published scientific studies and surveys to climate researchers show a consensus of over 99% regarding the human origin of the phenomenon, a finding also confirmed by successive IPCC reports.
• Sudden temperature changes are part of Earth’s natural “cycles.” According to this claim, these changes have occurred throughout the planet’s history and, therefore, are not a consequence of human activity. However, global warming rates recorded since the Industrial Revolution are exceptional in speed and magnitude: they are unprecedented in at least the last two thousand years and cannot be explained by the natural causes that this narrative typically invokes, such as cycles in Earth’s orbit or solar activity.

4. Conspiracy Narratives and Artificial Manipulation of the Weather

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These narratives claim that certain extreme weather events or events associated with climate change are artificially generated using climate-modification technologies, controlled by powerful groups. According to this narrative, the aim is to simulate a climate crisis to justify mitigation measures that would represent an “anti-development agenda” focused on population control. Other theories say that the goal is to cause direct harm through drought or floods to stop some countries’ development.

Some examples are:

• The conspiracy theory surrounding the HAARP project. According to this claim, the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is used by NASA and the US Army to artificially generate extreme weather events. This narrative usually appears in the middle of climate emergencies, like it happened during DANA in 2024 in Spain, the 2025 storms in Argentina, hurricanes Helene and Milton or the rains recorded in Iran in 2026. HAARP is even accused of non-weather events, like the earthquakes that happened in Russia in 2025 or Turkey and Syria in 2023. However, HAARP is a scientific program that studies the ionosphere, an upper layer of the atmosphere, and whose signals do not affect the lower layers, where weather phenomena originate, nor does it have the energy necessary to generate events such as cyclones or floods.
• The chemtrail conspiracy theory, which claims that the condensation trails behind aircrafts are, actually, chemicals being spread intentionally to manipulate the weather, cause droughts and other climate anomalies. This narrative also says that these alleged chemicals are used to make people sick for population control and economic purposes. But these contrails are caused by the condensation of water vapor released by engines as they burn fuel, which freezes upon contact with the cold air at high altitudes.
• The conspiracy theory regarding cloud seeding with silver iodide argues that this technique alters water’s natural cycle and prevents rain. Other versions claim the opposite; that it causes torrential rains and flooding. However, real operative programs want to modify the weather (not the climate) to disperse fog, stimulate rain or reduce the size of hail to protect crops. Its efficiency is very limited and, in the best of cases, it could increase precipitation by 20%, which is far from the extreme effects attributed to it by this theory.

These and other similar conspiracy theories tend to use the term geoengineering to refer to the technology behind this alleged modification of the weather and the climate. Geoengineering is a field of study that focuses on the possibility of counteracting global warming through an artificial cooling of the atmosphere on a planetary scale. Nonetheless, these ideas have been analyzed, but never put in practice, and have no relation whatsoever with the HAARP project or cloud seeding.

This conspiracy scheme is often linked to disinformation surrounding the 2030 Agenda, an action plan adopted in 2015 by the 193 countries that form the United Nations General Assembly, centered on 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In disinformation environments, this agenda is presented as a program by a global elite that seeks population control and the erosion of national sovereignty. According to these narratives, and under the pretext of a climate crisis, measures such as banning meat consumption, banning home gardens, forcing the population to eat insects, or implementing mass vaccinations would be imposed. The conspiracy theory extends to other disinformation narratives, such as the artificial creation of diseases and pandemics, the imposition of “15-minute cities” as a form of “lockdown,” or the implantation of population-control chips.

5. Para-Environmentalist Narratives: Engineered Cooling

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Unlike denialist narratives, there is a kind of disinformation that works in the opposite way: it claims that the climate crisis is worse than what is publicly known and that certain events (like snowfalls) are fabricated to confuse the population about the true consequences of the climate collapse. Those who spread them do not deny climate change; on the contrary, they are usually very concerned about it.

The most known example is the theory of false snow, which is shared along videos showing a person holding a flame close to a compacted snowflake that does not melt. However, this behavior is completely normal and is explained by known physical processes. This is a recurring piece of disinformation that goes viral in various countries whenever there is significant snowfall.