Most climate change misinformation comes from only a handful of sources. That’s according to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The organization found that ten publishers are responsible for 69 percent of all interactions with climate change denial content on Facebook. Included in the group, which the CCDH titled “The Toxic Ten,” are Brietbart, Russia Today and Media Research Center, which has ties to the fossil fuel industry.

The findings broadly mirror that of another report the CCDH published earlier in the year, which found that as much as 73 percent of vaccine misinformation on Facebook can be linked to only 12 individuals dubbed the “disinformation dozen.” That study has been widely cited by US lawmakers who have called on social media platforms to do more to address the “urgent threat” misinformation represents to public health.

As it did with the earlier disinformation dozen report, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, disputed the methodology the CCDH used to compile its latest study. “The 700,000 interactions this report says were on climate denial represent 0.3 percent of the over 200 million interactions on English public climate change content from Pages and public groups over the same time period,” a spokesperson for the company said. It also pointed to the recently announced expansion of features like the Climate Change Information Center as evidence of its commitment to tackling misinformation on the topic.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the CCDH, said the organization looked at approximately 7,000 articles published between October 2020 and October 2021. He called the sample “robust” and said there was enough data “to derive representative finds of trends.”

Additionally, the report examined the financial incentives involved in publishing climate change denial content. The CCDH estimates eight of the companies included in the Toxic Ten made $5.3 million in Google ad revenue over the last six months, with $1.7 million going to the search giant. "We recently announced a new policy that explicitly prohibits publishers and YouTube Creators from monetizing content that promotes climate change denial. This policy will go into effect on November 8 and our enforcement will be as targeted as removing ads from individual pages with violating content," a spokesperson for Google told Engadget.

“When you put it all together, you’ve got these two industries, Big Oil and Big Tech, and they are the two industries that pose the greatest threat to the survival of our species,” Ahmed told The Post.

The timing of The Toxic Ten report comes as delegates from around the world meet at the UN’s COP26 climate summit in Scotland in what’s been described as “the world’s last best chance” to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Without dramatic reductions, the planet is currently on track for a “catastrophic” 2.7 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures. With every additional degree of warming beyond the 1.5-degree target put forward by the Paris Agreement, there’s a greater risk of the planet passing specific tipping points that could lead to even more dramatic changes to the climate.

Meta (Facebook's parent company) has joined other major tech companies in making more climate change pledges as the UN’s COP26 summit commences. Along with taking measures to reduce its own carbon footprint, Meta is focused on "helping people find accurate, science-led information, while also tackling misinformation," according to Nick Clegg, Meta's vice-president of global affairs and communication.

The company says that when its fact-checking partners rate a piece of content as false, a warning label is added and the post pops up less often on users' News Feeds. There's a keyword detection feature that Meta switches on during "critical public events" to help fact checkers find relevant content faster. This will be enabled during COP26 to help fact-checkers in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, German, French and Dutch find and debunk climate misinformation more quickly.

The Climate Change Information Center, which debuted last year to provide users with knowledge from experts on the issue, is now being rolled out to more countries and it will soon be available in more than 100 territories. The hub will also show national greenhouse gas emissions alongside countries' targets and commitments to perhaps make governments more accountable. On top of that, in more than a dozen countries, Facebook is expanding its use of labels on climate change posts to direct users to the center.

The UN will soon update its ActNow chatbot on Messenger, Instagram and its website to suggest 10 more actions users can take to fight combat change. There are new camera stickers on Messenger, Instagram and Messenger Kids that aim to help users "strike up a conversation" about climate change.

In addition, Meta is starting up a program to help businesses that use its apps reduce their carbon footprint and adopt more sustainable practices. The Green Boost for Small Businesses project will start this month in the UK and Spain, primarily centered on food producers, restaurants and the hospitality sector. Meta will broaden the program to Italy, France and other nations in 2022.

Elsewhere, Meta says it's a founding member of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance. The group's goal is to push toward net zero air travel by investing in sustainable aviation fuel.

These efforts are intended to complement internal actions Meta has undertaken to combat climate change. The company hit net zero carbon emissions in 2020 and as of earlier this year, it's using 100 percent renewable energy. Other environmentally conscious efforts include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 97 percent in the last four years and supporting measures to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Like Microsoft, Meta aims to restore more water than it uses by 2030.

COP26, the UN’s climate change conference billed as “the world’s last best chance” to prevent the most disastrous effects of global warming, kicks off in Glasgow on Sunday. Delegates from around the world will convene to hammer out another round of emission reduction targets with a goal of achieving “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century and keeping our rapidly heating planet temperature rise to a more manageable 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than the calamitous 2.7 degree bump currently predicted.

With the eyes of the world firmly focused upon humanity’s disastrous planetary stewardship to date and wondering what might be done to rectify our past pollution, leading tech companies in recent weeks have become increasingly vocal in their pledges to reform business operations to help “save the planet.”

Apple, for example, announced the launch of 10 new environmental projects as part of its Power for Impact initiative as well as that 175 of its suppliers will switch to using renewable energy, the company said in a statement Tuesday, and that, by 2030, every device the company sells will have a net-zero climate impact. The company also noted that it has already reduced its carbon emissions by 40 percent over the past five years.

Google, on the other hand, pointed to its goal of achieving net zero emissions “across all of our operations and value chain by 2030,” according to a blog post published on Monday. The company also called out its efforts to assist its partners with reducing their own emissions, such as through the Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE) program which helps cities map their pollution data, air quality and solar power potential. Google also made sure to mention just how sustainable its products actually are for consumers.

Microsoft

Microsoft made even loftier claims on Tuesday: to be “carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted, either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975,” before expounding on the rapidly increasing efficiencies of its massive data centers.

Amazon, for its part, announced that its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund investment program has selected three low-carbon startups: Resilient Power, which produces transformer-based EV charging technology; CMC Machinery, an order-specific-sized shipping box manufacturer; and Infinium, which devised “ultra-low carbon fuels that can be used in air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets,” per the company’s blog post.

But do these protestations of environmental progress signify a legitimate effort by Big Tech to clean up its collective act or are they simply more PR spin seeking to offset their bad behavior? Because we’ve seen this sort of behavior before. It’s called greenwashing.

What is Greenwashing?

Merriam-Webster defines greenwashing as “expressions of environmentalist concerns especially as a cover for products, policies, or activities.” The term was first coined in 1986 by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in an essay examining the hotel industry’s practice of leaving placards in guest rooms admonishing them to reuse their towels to help “save the environment.” Back then, people got their news from three places: newspapers, television and radio — the same sources for virtually all advertising at the time. This information availability imbalance created a system wherein corporations could promote themselves in any flattering shade they wished, regardless of their actual actions, with little fear of the public actually realizing that a deception had even occurred.

The practice of greenwashing in America goes as far back as 1953 — though it wasn’t called as such at the time — when beverage manufacturers launched the Keep America Beautiful campaign, reminding the public to be good environmental stewards and not litter, in what was actually an effort to forestall incoming regulations on the use of disposable containers. Greenwashing metastasized in the 1980s as Big Oil companies ladled out their own laudations while they sought to minimize their own liability and culpability in environmental pollution scandals and global warming. These companies went so far as to work to actively prevent the government from passing clean energy laws. But you wouldn’t know it from their television ads.

The spot above is from ​​Chevron’s People Do campaign. It should be noted that many of the programs promoted in that campaign were actually government-mandated actions and that while this campaign was running, Chevron was repeatedly found in violation of the Clean Air and Water Acts, and was caught dumping oil in wildlife refuges.

Exxon’s actions through the ‘90s were equally abhorrent. The company continually muddied the waters around humanity’s role in climate change, knowing full well how the burning of fossil fuels inflamed the growing crisis.

In 2017, a Harvard study of ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (both internal memos and public-facing advertorial newspaper content) produced between 1977 and 2014 found that while more than 80 percent of internal documents acknowledged that human activity was largely responsible for global warming, just 12 percent of the company’s advertorials did the same.

"Within hours of publishing our study, ExxonMobil responded with ad hominem attacks," Harvard Research Associate Geoffrey Supran, told Client Earth last year. "I was invited by the European Parliament to testify about ExxonMobil's history of climate denial. The day before, they sent a private memo (which has now been leaked) to Members of Parliament to try to discredit me. If these experiences tell us anything, it's that the Exxon tiger hasn't changed its stripes."

Greenwashing in the modern era

Greenwashing remains a widely-used marketing tactic even today — and not just the mealy-mouthed word salads regurgitated by oil executives during a House Oversight Committee hearing this Thursday.

Take bottled water, for instance. Nestle alone has spent millions of ad dollars over recent years in an effort to convince the public that, as it claimed in 2008, “bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world.”​​ This despite the fact that barely 31 percent of plastic water bottles actually get recycled and the rest end up cluttering landfills and the ocean — scientists estimate that around 8 million metric tons of plastic entered the ocean annually.

And they are far from alone. Coca-Cola came under fire in 2015 in Australia when it rolled out Coke Life, a supposedly light sugar variant packaged in a bright green can. Sure it made consumers feel like they were making a health conscious purchasing decision but that was despite health advocates pointing out that “the reduction to 10 teaspoons of sugar in a 600ml bottle made little difference in terms of health impacts.” More recently the company launched its World Without Waste campaign which, at its essence, pushed consumers to simply recycle more, rather than actually adjust the way the company conducts its business.

In 2013, Tyson Meats was taken to task over the fawning self-framing of how it cares for its animals and their relative well-being, not two years before five Tyson supplier employees were charged with 33 counts of criminal animal cruelty for repeatedly kicking and punching pigs. And who can forget Volkswagen, which launched a “Clean Diesel” marketing campaign amid the Dieselgate emissions scandal?

Why Greenwashing works so well

So why do companies insist on greenwashing their operations rather than actually reform themselves? Because it is far more profitable to simply adjust public perception than it is to make meaningful reforms. A 2015 Nielsen poll found that 66 percent of respondents would be willing to pay a premium for “environmentally sustainable products” and among those willing to pay more more than 50 percent were influenced by sustainability factors such as “a company being environmentally friendly (58 percent), and company being known for its commitment to social value (56 percent.)”

It’s also because we, collectively, keep falling for it. Consumers’ desires to help address the climate crisis, especially in the face of barely tepid responses from world governments, primes us to view virtually any action on that account as a positive one. “SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] and ‘net zero’ have kind of created an opportunity for a lot more greenwashing, because it allows you to describe yourself as a green company when you’re doing a thing that’s fundamentally not green,” Dave Powell, co-presenter of the Sustainababble podcast and the former Head of Environment at the New Economics Foundation, told Client Earth. “You effectively buy your way out of trouble, for example, by promising to plant large numbers of trees.”

"As part of their climate strategies, many companies are relying on voluntary carbon offsetting. However, if not done well, offsetting can result in greenwashing,” Dr. Aoife Brophy Haney, Research Lecturer at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, added. “To mitigate this risk, government and society at large should support the use of best practice guidelines, such as the recently released ‘Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting’, to help ensure offsetting is done in a rigorous and credible way that ultimately contributes to net zero goals."

And, most importantly, companies continue to engage in greenwashing because there is very little downside to doing so, at least from a regulatory perspective. In the US, the FTC guidelines for environmental marketing claims are only voluntary, though the FTC does retain the right to prosecute outright false or misleading advertisements.

However, cracks in the greenwashing facade may be beginning to show, starting in the financial sector, as regulators’ interest in ESG fund (environmental, social and governance) oversight grows. As Financial News London reported Monday, German asset manager DWS has recently been investigated by both US and German regulatory agencies after a former employee accused the company of fudging the environmental credentials in its 2020 annual report.

“You have to be careful, as there is a big reputational risk,” an unnamed senior executive at a European asset manager, told FN London. “We’re not saying we were bulls***ing before, but there’s a recognition now that it’s more complicated.”

“Most have probably been a bit too pushy in marketing their alleged ESG expertise and they are now applying more caution,” ​​Philip Kalus, managing partner at consultancy Accelerando Associates, added. “Some would even say there is panic in the house. Nobody wants to be the next one being accused, but it is an important and overdue wake-up call for the industry.”

That’s not to say that environmental pledges made by Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon are meant to intentionally gaslight the public (though Exxon, Shell and Chevron absolutely did). These companies have a vested financial interest in at least appearing as positively as possible to their customers because, frankly, nobody’s going to have time to talk about the slick new features of the Pixel 8 or iOS 15 when we’re in the midst of a global climate meltdown-slash-water war.

Is Google’s “moonshot goal” of operating its data centers and campuses entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030 going to make more than a blip of difference when it comes to mitigating the impacts of climate change? Probably not, definitely not on its own and certainly no more so than Microsoft’s promise to reduce water use in its data centers by 95 percent by 2024 or Apple’s plan to build robots to more effectively recycle old handsets. But these claims do not, in and of themselves, constitute greenwashing. Their changes may not be enough to make a noticeable impact at this point, but these good faith efforts attempt to do something, anything, to stave off what could well be humanity’s self-inflicted extinction. And given how America’s most recent effort to invest in environmentally responsible energy technologies was single-handedly killed off by the coal-loving Senator from West Virginia, these sorts of corporate initiatives may likely be the best we’ll soon see.

Google Cloud has added tools to help users gain a better understanding of their environmental impact as part of the company's broader efforts to combat climate change. The Carbon Footprint feature shows the gross carbon emissions linked to the electricity consumption of someone's Cloud Platform use. It displays emissions over time and can break down the data by project, product and region.

Companies will be able to roll this information into their own emissions data for internal audits and making carbon disclosures (they can export the data to Salesforce Sustainability Cloud, for instance). Google stressed that the figures relate to a user's gross carbon emissions, since the company has been carbon neutral for over a decade. It plans to run entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030.

Google Cloud will also flag applications that are not in use, as well as their carbon emissions. Google suggests that deleting apps identified by the Unattended Project Recommender will help companies mitigate security risks, lower costs and reduce their carbon footprint.

In addition, Google is bringing Earth Engine to the Cloud Platform for select users. Using satellite imagery, data sets and other tools, companies can harness Earth Engine to "track, monitor and predict changes in the Earth’s surface" caused by extreme weather events or human activity. That, Google says, will enable businesses to reduce and mitigate risks, "become more resilient to climate change threats" and save money. Companies can apply for access to Earth Engine through Google Cloud.

Last week, Google unveiled a string of features that highlight the environmental impact of consumer choices. Shopping results can promote greener options, while Google Flights started showing carbon emission estimates for almost all trips. The Nest Renew program, meanwhile, can switch your thermostat on or off depending on the availability of clean energy. In addition, Google is hoping to use AI to improve the efficiency of traffic lights and reduce pollution from idle cars.

YouTube's reduced tolerance for misinformation now extends to climate science. The Google service has enacted a new policy barring ads and monetization for content that contradicts the "well-established scientific consensus" surrounding climate change, including videos that claim climate change is a hoax or reject the human link to global warming. YouTube will start enforcing the policy in November.

The company stressed that it would allow ads for videos discussing those bogus claims as well as other climate-related subjects, such as the exact degree of human impact or debates on climate policy. YouTube is basing its judgments on "authoritative" expertise, including contributors to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The firm wasn't shy about the reasoning for the move: advertisers just don't want their ads linked to climate change denial material, and creators don't want those ads on their pages. YouTube is concerned it could lose business, and dropping monetization for bogus science is an easy way to prevent that loss.

This effort stops short of banning climate change denial, although that's not surprising. Unlike anti-vaccine misinformation, climate change denial doesn't carry the risk of short-term harm. YouTube can keep the content visible for the sake of debate and expression without worrying that it will directly lead to illness. This won't stop science deniers from moving to other platforms or using their videos to peddle products like books, but it might discourage 'casual' attempts to profit from climate misinformation.

Google is making its search engine more useful for the eco-friendly crowd. The internet giant is updating its search to provide information on more sustainable shopping and travel options. Look for energy-intensive appliances like hot water heaters or dishwashers, for instance, and you'll see suggestions for more sustainable (and frequently more cost-effective) products. A future update will also make it easier to cross-shop electric and hybrid cars, complete with identifying tags and a view of nearby compatible charging stations.

Google Flights, meanwhile, will show the estimated CO2 emissions for "nearly every" flight, right down to the seat level. An economy seat on a new aircraft could be much kinder than a first class berth aboard an older airliner.

Even stocks will see an improvement. Google Finance is launching sustainability scores for stock portfolios, giving you an overall sense of how Earth-conscious your investment companies are. Google will source info from the Climate Disclosure Project.

Search will also improve if you're simply trying to investigate climate change. Google is promising a dedicated results page with in-depth data, including related info from the UN and other authorities. Ideally, the data panels will help you better understand climate change and the fight to minimize it.

You'll have to wait a while to see all of Google's planned changes. The shopping and travel changes will arrive this week, but you'll have to wait until later in October for climate change info panels. The stock portfolio scores are merely "coming soon," and you'll have to wait until early 2022 to see EV and hybrid tags.

This is far from guaranteed to have a tangible effect on the environment. Just because you've seen an environmentally-savvy search link doesn't mean you'll click on it or even consider it. Even if that's the case, it signals a shift in attitude at Google. Tthe tech firm no longer considers reductions in behind-the-scenes resources to be enough — it's educating web users directly.

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney are among the major companies backing corporate lobby groups and organizations that are battling a US climate bill, according to a report. That's despite those companies all making pledges to reduce their impact on the environment.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Rate Coalition are three of the lobbyist and business groups that oppose the Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget bill, which includes measures to fight climate change. The Guardian reports that watchdog Accountable.US analyzed the groups to learn which companies have connections to them.

The Chamber of Commerce, the biggest lobbying group in the US, has said it would "do everything we can to prevent this tax-raising, job-killing reconciliation bill from becoming law.” The group's board includes executives from the likes of United Airlines and Microsoft.

The board of the Business Roundtable includes Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google and Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. The group has said it's “deeply concerned” about the bill and the increased taxes it would lead to for the rich. Google has also made political contributions in the past to individuals and organizations that have denied climate change.

The report notes that The Rate Coalition is set to release attack ads against the bill. That body's members include Disney and Verizon (Engadget's former parent company).

The support of lobbying groups that are attempting to kill the bill conflicts with the tech companies' attempts to tackle the climate crisis. Apple, Google and Microsoft have all backed the Paris Agreement, for one thing. Apple and Microsoft promised to become carbon neutral and carbon negative respectively by 2030.

In 2019, Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos launched the Climate Pledge, which has a goal of hitting net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and meeting the Paris Agreement benchmarks a decade early. Microsoft is among the 200+ companies that have joined the pledge. Disney, meanwhile, is aiming to reach net zero emissions for its direct operations by 2030.

Engadget has contacted Apple, Google and Microsoft for comment. The Guardian said that none of the companies it contacted rejected the stances of the groups they're members of. None of them said they would re-assess their connections to those bodies either.

On Friday, Amazon expressed support for the infrastructure bill and the climate aspects of the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. A spokesperson provided the following statement to Engadget:

Amazon believes both private and public sector leadership is required to tackle the global issue of climate change. That’s why we actively advocate for policies that promote clean energy, increase access to renewable electricity, and decarbonize the transportation system. In addition to advocating for these issues on a local, state, and international level, we have a worldwide sustainability team that innovates sustainable solutions for both our business and customers, as well as co-founded The Climate Pledge - a commitment to be net-zero carbon 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.

Amazon has made bold commitments to reduce our carbon emissions, and we continue to encourage other companies to join us. We support investments in the Infrastructure and Build Back Better bills to lower emissions in key sectors like energy and transportation, and we believe these investments will help advance America’s carbon reduction goals. As we said earlier this year, we support an increase in the corporate tax rate to pay for things like infrastructure, and we look forward to Congress and the administration coming together to find the right, balanced solution that maintains or enhances U.S. competitiveness.

Update 1/10 12:22PM ET: Added Amazon's statement.

It's no longer possible to prevent the planet from heating over the next 20 to 30 years, and some of the changes global warming is bringing about are now impossible to undo in the short term, according to a new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The document represents the most comprehensive analysis of the physical science behind climate change ever amassed in human history. The 284 scientists who worked on the project spent eight years examing data from more than 14,000 studies. They say human activity is "unequivocally" behind the Earth's rapidly changing climate.

Since the mid-19th century, the planet's temperature has increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, as a direct result of greenhouse gas emissions related to humans burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels for energy. We've already seen the effects a warmer planet can have on humans. It was only earlier this summer that parts of Canada and the US Pacific Northwest suffered through a sweltering and unprecedented heatwave that melted power cables, buckled roads and killed people.

"Many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion — such as continued sea level rise — are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years," the IPCC said.

Unless governments commit to sharply reducing emissions, limiting warming to the targets established in the Paris Climate Agreement will be "beyond reach," the report warns. With a 1.5 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures, there will be more frequent and life-threatening heat waves, droughts that leave millions struggling to find water and continued sea level rise that will likely displace coastal communities across the globe.

"We can expect a significant jump in extreme weather over the next 20 or 30 years," Piers Forster, one of the climate scientists who contributed to the report, told The New York Times. "Things are unfortunately likely to get worse than they are today."

Reiterating past UN reports, the IPCC also warned a 3 degree or even 4 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures would be catastrophic. With every additional degree of warming, there's a greater risk of the planet passing specific tipping points that could lead to even dramatic changes to the climate. According to the IPCC, drastic reductions in emissions can limit the worse effects of climate change and keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, it could take between 20 to 80 years to see global temperatures stabilize.

The report will be front and center when diplomats travel to Glasgow, Scotland, to attend the UN's COP26 summit on climate change. As one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases globally, the US can play a significant role in what happens next. After rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden pledged America would cut its greenhouse emissions in half by 2030. Now more than ever, it's time to take action.