HEAT: Harmful Environmental Agendas & Tactics - A look at France, Germany, and the Netherlands

This report presents the final findings of the HEAT (Harmful Environmental Agendas & Tactics) project, which investigated climate-related misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM) across Germany, France, and the Netherlands—three European Union (EU) member states strategically selected to reflect linguistic, political, and media-system diversity across the EU, as well as distinct disinformation threat profiles. Together, they capture a range of challenges confronting policymakers, civil society, and other actors engaged in climate policy communication. The research shows how false or misleading narratives about climate change are seeded, adapted, and amplified across digital ecosystems, undermining trust in science, policy, and democratic institutions.

Download the full report here.

Focusing on publicly available user-generated content X, Facebook, Telegram, and fringe sources, the project analysed climate disinformation through the lens of four pillars: Conspiracy Milieu, Culture War and Partisan Discourse, Hostile State Actors (HSAs), and Big Oil-aligned Campaigns. Key insights include:

• Conspiratorial narratives, especially around geoengineering and HAARP, were present and prominent across all three countries, often transcending political alignment and acting as gateways to broader distrust.
• Narratives framing climate action as authoritarian or elitist have overtaken outright science denial, resonating widely across polarised and mainstream spaces alike.
• Russia-linked media and Telegram ecosystems (e.g., Portal Kombat) played a documented role in amplifying content, often through localised rebranding and low-cost distribution tactics.
• While Big Oil corporate attribution was limited, some narratives aligned with fossil fuel interests, especially those in opposition to green transitions.

The HEAT project shows that climate disinformation undermines democratic resilience and evidence-based policymaking by fuelling distrust, polarisation, and resistance to climate action. This report urges EU institutions to recognise it under the Digital Services Act (DSA), either explicitly as a systemic risk or as part of existing risks to democracy, public health, and civic discourse. Platforms are currently exploiting this lack of clarity on the status of climate disinformation to avoid action. Very large online platforms must be held to the same standards of accountability with regard to this systemic risk as are applied to other systemic risks.

The findings reflect a shifting disinformation landscape where climate debates are increasingly entangled with conspiracy theories, culture war rhetoric, foreign influence, and systemic distrust. This report offers an evidence base for targeted responses and lays the groundwork for monitoring future campaigns around climate, energy, and democratic legitimacy in Europe.

NOTE: Logically Intelligence was used to enable the team identify key insights for the HEAT project. Explore Logically's AI platform here.