Australia is flooded with climate misinformation
Australia is flooded with climate misinformation
Publish Date: 2026-03-24 23:58:00
Source Domain: theconversation.com
Australia is facing a wave of misinformation and disinformation on climate change and energy. This is being fuelled by the growth in artificial intelligence and allowed to spread freely on social media, according to the findings of a Senate inquiry.
This misinformation presents a threat to action on climate change, but also challenges the health of Australia’s democracy, the committee found. AI was even used to generate fake content in some of the submissions to the inquiry.
Drawing on 247 written submissions and 11 days of public hearings – including some extraordinary revelations I’ll get to shortly – senators from all sides of politics heard about the challenge our society faces to combat misinformation and disinformation.
Why does misinformation matter?
First, it’s important to understand why misinformation matters, and why about 74% of Australians are concerned about it.
Misinformation is the spread of false information, regardless of whether there is an intent to harm or mislead. But when an individual or organisation spreads misinformation with the intent to influence public opinion, this is known as disinformation.
Both are important. In democratic societies, public opinion is the link between what people want, their electoral behaviour, and what politicians do on their behalf. Democratic representation is therefore predicated on knowing and understanding public opinion.
If misinformation starts to warp or sever this link, our democratic societies can unravel. We only have to look across the Pacific to the United States to see what this looks like in real time.
The inquiry was told about previous misinformation examples, including anti-offshore wind campaigns that spread misinformation claiming turbines killed whales and would block out the sunrise – neither of which are true.
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What is happening in Australia?
The inquiry uncovered…
