Study on disinformation: climate protection as a “culture war”

The AfD was particularly successful in the election campaign with polarizing contributions to the climate. That emerges from a study that tagesschau.de is available in advance. Accordingly, the party stylized the topic to the “Kulturkampf”.

A data analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) shows that the AfD in particular benefited from the climate debate during the election campaign in the social networks. As the only party that questions climate change and speaks out against protective measures, the AfD’s climate-related contributions did particularly well and were shared up to 237 percent more often than contributions on other topics. According to the ISD report, the most successful posts on Facebook were those that rated the climate protection measures negatively. This is where Facebook differs greatly from Twitter, where even stricter climate protection measures were predominantly called for.

Overall, disinformation about the climate became widespread when climate change was intensified due to important events such as the publication of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the major climate strike. With the Greens, every third contribution was related to the climate, with the AfD, despite its above-average reach, it was only seven percent.

Disinformation and enemy images

Actors from the right-wing spectrum had conjured up enemy images and fueled fears in order to cast doubt on climate protection measures. Climate protection activists were often referred to as “climate terrorists”, Greens were discredited as “climate hysterics” and climate protection measures were dismissed as “climate panic”. The debate had been declared a “culture war”, in particular by highlighting the alleged threat that climate protection measures would have on the “typical German lifestyle”.

To give disinformation more credibility, tabloid headlines in established media were shared by climate skeptics. Toralf Staud, specialist journalist for the knowledge portal klimafakten.de, explains that this is a typical strategy of climate skeptics: “From the vast amount of data, you pick the data points that support your own opinion and then highlight them. That is cherry-picking and setting a false image into the world, which is based on isolated, but in and of itself absolutely correct facts. ”

If facts are consciously distorted, taken out of context or consistently ignored, this would result in a clear rejection of climate protection measures, according to the ISD study, which tagesschau.de is available in advance. “This trend is worrying because such developments can delay urgently needed climate protection measures,” said Paula Matlach and Łukasz Janulewicz from the ITS.

Staud can confirm this. He is currently particularly aware of allegations that play down the risks of climate change, distract from the core of the problem or present measures as hasty and ineffective. “In research, such claims are referred to as ‘Discourses of Delay’. Such theses are of course poison for an effective policy that has to be very fast and very strong in order to still achieve the climate goals that are binding under international law”, explains Staud.

Not that bad?

A recurring claim by climate skeptics is that temperatures did not rise excessively and that there have always been fluctuations in weather. This can also be found in the AfD election program of 2021: “It has not yet been proven that humans, especially industry, are significantly responsible for climate change. The most recent warming is in the range of natural climate fluctuations, just like us know from the pre-industrial past. “

Silke Hansen, head of the ARD-Weather Competence Center, strongly contradicts this. The immense rise in temperatures around the world would never have happened like this before, the numbers of science clearly prove man-made climate change. The global warming that we are currently seeing is definitely not natural, but rather extraordinary.

A small proportion denies climate change

The categorical denial of man-made climate change, however, only plays a subordinate role. Staud now only perceives “bare denial” in a “tiny but vocal fringe group of society”. One Study by the European University of Flensburg in cooperation with the Technical University of Dortmund, comes to the conclusion that even among people who share right-wing populist views and are often skeptical of science, the proportion of climate deniers is low. “More often, however, specific climate protection policies or projects such as the energy transition are rejected – especially if it is expected that they will make life more expensive,” says the study.

In the rejection of climate and environmental protection policy, there was broad consensus in the scene. Right-wing populist parties like the AfD discovered this topic for themselves years ago. Alexander Gauland, former group leader of the AfD, said in the “Welt am Sonntag” in 2019: “The criticism of the so-called climate protection policy is the third big topic for the AfD after the euro and immigration”.

Change of strategy

The AfD’s tactics seem to have changed over the years, however. In the past, the AfD has repeatedly attracted attention with outrageous statements about climate change. Be it Alice Weidel, who makes the sun jointly responsible for climate change, Karsten Hilse, the climate researcher in the Bundestag as a “paid rental scientist” or Tino Chrupalla, who announced at the last AfD federal party conference that he would cut the funds in the fight against “so-called climate change” want.

In the meantime, the AfD seems to have recognized that climate denial does not meet with broad approval and is clearly more cautious. The group leader Tino Chrupalla said in the Deutschlandfunk In the late summer of this year there were doubts that there was a connection between the flood disaster and climate change. At the same time he also says: “Of course there is climate change and nobody denies it, but to what extent we can influence it and, above all, with what measures, that is a completely different paper.”

His party colleague Michael Kaufmann also relies on criticism of energy and climate policy, which “harm the country more than climate change itself,” instead of being skeptical about global warming. An unconditional fight against the climate is not needed, but one has to prepare for the coming climate changes.

The specialist journalist Staud sees this as a deliberate change in strategy: “The more the consequences of climate change catch the eye – be it from heat waves, droughts, heavy rain in this country or devastating fires in California or Australia – the more ridiculous the deniers of science make themselves. And they notice then even that this cannot be maintained and switch to other strategies of denial “.