Most of the climate misinformation circulating in the Western Balkans is copied and adapted from global misinformation stories, most of which mirror those from the United States, China, Russia and Western European countries, they said. A report by the Metamorphosis Foundation, a North Macedonian fact-checking organization.
The report examines the most common misinformation stories in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, and tracks the spread of misinformation in each country and across the region through data collected by local fact-checking organizations.
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Three of the most common false narratives in the region are that chemtrails (white residue left in the air by planes) are used to make people intoxicated, that the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) manipulates weather conditions and is responsible for weather phenomena such as floods, fires, droughts and hailstorms, and that climate change does not exist and is merely an excuse used by nation states and political actors to control populations.
A notable exception to this trend of climate misinformation originating abroad and then being adopted locally is Serbia: unlike other countries in the region, the report found that around half of the misinformation there was spread by local actors, but even here a significant portion of the misinformation had international roots.
The authors of the Metamorphosis Foundation report said: “The exposure of major disinformation about climate change in the Western Balkans is of great importance for the region. Although these countries in many ways do not seem fully connected to the European Union, the analysis confirms that many European trends, including topics and methods of spreading climate disinformation, have been copied and imported to the region.”
Disinformation
of reportClimate conspiracy theories in the Western Balkans: Widely imported and relentlessly repeated is a study produced by the North Macedonia-based fact-checking organization Metamorphosis Foundation as part of its Climate Facts Europe project. European Fact-Checking Standards Network.
The report is based on fact-checking and debunking research by 24 fact-checking organisations across Europe. European Climate Facts DatabaseIt is complemented by other sources and data.
The report, the third of four planned to analyse misinformation and disinformation identified in the Climate Facts database as part of the Climate Facts Europe project, is due to be published around once a month until September, in the weeks surrounding the 2024 European Parliament elections.
This author
Brendan Montague is Ecologist.
To access the fact-check database: Climate FactsFor more information about EFCSN, WebsiteFollow EFCSN X, threadand LinkedIn We will provide you with regular updates on the project.
