The flood that swept through western Germany and eastern Belgium in 2021 claimed the lives of more than 200 people.
Gerd Schiffer is leading the reconstruction of the German town of Erftstadt, which was badly damaged by the flooding, and feels the spread of climate denial delays disaster preparedness.
“There are still many climate change deniers but if they themselves would be affected, they would certainly have a different perspective,” Schiffer told SBS News.
“It is a real risk that the population is not taking it seriously, with the attitude that ‘it won’t happen here or it won’t happen to me’.”
The sinkhole in the Blessem district of Erftstadt, Western Germany in July 2021. Source: AFP
The proliferation of misinformation, spread due to error or mistake, and disinformation, which is designed to deliberately mislead or influence, is on the rise globally.
Unchecked information can be disseminated through social media platforms, algorithmic recommendations and the growing influence of generative artificial intelligence, which can be used to create fake content.
Alexander Sängerlaub is the founder of Futur Eins, a think-and-do tank which looks at the future and resilience of digital spheres.
“We live in the age of information floods,” he told SBS News.
“Imagine you are on Instagram or Twitter, there’s a lot of information, information snippets … opinion-based things, fact-check based.
“We are basically overwhelmed to sort things in the right direction, to understand ‘is this good information, is this a lie?'”
Alexander Sängerlaub is the founder of Futur Eins. Credit: SBS News, Jennifer Scherer.
What’s being done to curb the problem?
Controlling the spread of misinformation and disinformation has been labelled by the United Nations as one of the most urgent tasks of our time.
Last year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres put forward a framework to promote a coordinated global response to safeguarding information spaces.
It encouraged the implementation of state-led regulatory frameworks to promote transparency while cautioning against infringing on rights including freedom of opinion and expression. It promoted the protection of free and independent media, urging stakeholders such as government, tech companies, advertisers and media to stop using or amplifying disinformation and hate speech.
Countries such as Germany have adopted legal frameworks to make big tech responsible for the spread of disinformation. The European Union’s Digital Services Act (2022) aims to address illegal and harmful content and the spread of disinformation by enforcing rules on online intermediaries such as search engines, social media platforms or online marketplaces.
In Australia, a bill to further crack down on misinformation and disinformation was quashed in November 2024, due to concerns around safeguarding freedom of expression
Sängerlaub says there’s too much responsibility on consumers and too little on platforms to educate the public on what disinformation is.
“Social media should do the work for us [and be] much more responsible in working together with fact-checking organisations or with systems that are helping people to understand how these platforms are working.”
On a global scale, Henning Wuester, the director of the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency, suggests data could be a useful antidote to misinformation, especially when driving collective action through mechanisms such as the Paris Agreement.
“Transparency is really the glue that holds everything together, it ensures that the decentralised action in countries comes together,” Wuester told SBS News.
“The biggest challenge is that many countries do not have data and do not have a framework to collect regularly the data that is required in order to plan their climate action in a meaningful way.
“As soon as you have the necessary and good quality data, that provides a basis for planning, you can deal with the misinformation.”
Spotting fake or false information
According to the Climate Social Science Network, there are extensive networks across Europe trying to obstruct climate action. In Germany, an increase in climate denial has been linked to the rise of far-right ideology.
Ahead of Germany’s federal election, far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) appears to be gaining traction, some opinion polls placing it in second place behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian CSU sister party coalition.
The AfD is the only large party to reject climate action.
A YouGov Deutschland poll placed the AfD in second place ahead of the German election.
“Climate denial will not stop the climate crisis,” Laura Schäfer from German Watch, an independent development, environmental, and human rights organisation, told SBS News.
“The physics are clear and also the impacts are clear.
“It is of course the Pacific, and other people and countries most vulnerable who are then feeling the impact of that.”
Debunking misinformation and disinformation online often relies on digital consumers to check the source and publisher of information.
According to Katharina Wecker from the Climate Journalism Network Germany, subtle disinformation which is aimed at delaying climate action is a “massive threat”.
“I think it’s part of media literacy that people need to learn, or even students and people at school should learn to fact check sources, to learn which sources to trust,” Wecker said.
When it comes to verifying images, footage or deep fakes, tips can include searching for media reports to support claims, paying attention to inconsistencies in the appearance of images or footage as well as conducting a reverse-image search to try to find the original source.
Laura Schäfer from Germanwatch, an independent development, environmental, and human rights organisation. Credit: SBS News, Jennifer Scherer.
Urgent action needed
The spread of climate denial content has also concerned experts who warn a weakening in public support for green initiatives could escalate the impacts of a changing climate.
“It is very unjust that those who have emitted greenhouse gas emissions like Germany and other industrialised countries, they are not the ones at the front[line] of consequences,” Mechthild Becker from the German Council on Foreign Relations told SBS News.
“Those in the Pacific, especially on small island and development states … some already have had to leave their homes, already planned relocations have taken place.”
Germany has committed to climate-related assistance abroad, including pledging aid to the Pacific. Both Germany and Australia have committed through the Pacific Islands Forum to support regional priorities, including pooling resources and helping with disaster preparedness and response.
Mechthild Becker is a climate and foreign policy research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Credit: SBS News, Jennifer Scherer.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Penitala Teo worries about the future.
“The current situation on the ground is quite desperate. We are witnessing day in, day out, the impact of sea level rise,” he told SBS News.
“The current predictions by scientists … are quite daunting and frightening. They are predicting that in 25 years, in 2050, more than 50 per cent of the land territory of Tuvalu will be regularly flooded by regular tidal surges.
“In another 50 years … more than 90 per cent of the land territory of Tuvalu will be suffering the same fate.”
In 2023, Tuvalu and Australia signed a treaty providing a migration pathway due to the impacts of climate change on the island nation.
Despite witnessing the impacts of climate change first hand, Teo says the Pacific is not immune to mis and disinformation.
“I think it’s incumbent on those developed countries, especially those that are responsible for this phenomenon, to ensure that misinformation and disinformation are addressed quickly,” he said.
“It’s a constant challenge for countries like Tuvalu where we don’t have robust cybersecurity infrastructure.”
In countries such as Tuvalu, Fiji and Samoa, 80 per cent of the population is online, with many turning to social media for news consumption.
“With the rise of access to things like social media, a lot of the narratives that rise within the diasporic communities, whether it’s in Australia or Aotearoa or the US, they also seem to find their way to filter into our islands,” Joseph Sikulu the pacific director for 350.org, an organisation promoting renewable energy, told SBS News.
“You hear some really conservative narratives now flourishing up within our island communities.
“Whether it’s social media, whether it’s within this coconut wireless of people talking to each other or whether it’s within our church, there is a lot of disinformation, misinformation that spreads amongst our people.”
SBS Reporter Jennifer Scherer’s story was part of a research trip hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with the National Press Club of Australia.
