Life on the West Island - Stopping the rot

This week, a West Island Senate committee has been hearing evidence on a little-reported subject: misinformation about measures to combat dangerous climate change. It’s worth looking at the Committee’s terms of reference:

The Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy was appointed by resolution of the Senate on 30 July 2025, to inquire into and report on:

(a) the prevalence of, motivations behind and impacts of misinformation and disinformation related to climate change and energy;

(b) how misinformation and disinformation related to climate change and energy is financed, produced and disseminated, including, but not limited to, understanding its impact on:

(i) Australian politics,

(ii) domestic and international media narratives, and

(iii) Australian public policy debate and outcomes;

(c) the origins, growth and prevalence of ‘astroturfing’ and its impact on public policy and debate;

(d) connections between Australian organisations and international think tank and influence networks associated with the dissemination of misinformation and disinformation related to matters of public policy;

(e) the role of social media, including the coordinated use of bots and trolls, messaging apps and generative artificial intelligence in facilitating the spread of misinformation and disinformation;

(f) the efficacy of different parliamentary and regulatory approaches in combating misinformation and disinformation, what evidence exists and where further research is required, including through gathering global evidence; and

(g) the role that could be played by media literacy education, including in the school curriculum, in combating misinformation and disinformation.

The Committee is chaired by Senator Whish-Wilson and has five other members, including Senator David Pocock. There are two prominent climate change deniers from the Coalition and two Labor senators.

So far, there have been many written submissions from individuals and organisations supporting positive action to combat lies and misinformation, but there have also been a number of submissions from shady front bodies funded by fossil fuel industries, while some experts have given evidence in person. One of the latter was Professor Christian Downie, a specialist in global governance from the Australian National University.

Prof Downie drew attention to some myths and lies deliberately spread by groups claiming to be made up of everyday citizens, which in fact are bogus bodies created and funded by public relations or advertising agencies acting on behalf of some of the West Island’s biggest polluters in the mining and fossil fuel sectors. This mirrors past tactics used by the tobacco and asbestos industries in trying to stymie or abolish controls on their deadly products.

In evidence to the Committee, Downie gave instances of widespread false or misleading information being spread to confuse or misinform the public about measures taken to reduce harmful carbon emissions. In summary, these included:

• Claims that wind turbines in the ocean kill whales. This particular widely-believed myth has been comprehensively proven to be false by a mountain of scientific research, including from the official US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Similarly, numerous studies show that many millions of birds are killed by emissions and heat from coal-fired power stations compared with a mere handful which fly into wind turbine blades. Recent studies have shown that painting just one blade of a wind tower a different colour reduces collisions with birds by over 95%.
• Then there is the myth that electric cars are likely to catch fire much more often than petrol-driven vehicles. The facts show that the opposite is true – numerous statistical studies have shown that electric vehicle fires are very rare. The risk for petrol and diesel vehicles is at least 20 times higher, due to the flammability of the fuel they use. But fossil fuel companies and their proxies spend huge amounts of money to promote the false message that electric vehicles pose a high risk of fire.
• Another myth challenged by scientific research is that “natural gas” is far less polluting than coal. Numerous academic studies have found that this myth relates only to carbon dioxide emissions but ignores the far more toxic emissions of methane. For instance, a Cornell University peer-reviewed study found that using “natural gas” to generate electricity produced emissions which were 33% cent greater than those related to coal.

In outlining his submission to the Select Committee, Prof Downie wrote:

This is what climate misinformation looks like. These claims are common, influential and damaging. They’re often spread for a reason: to slow the uptake of clean alternatives to fossil fuels. Unfortunately, they are shaping public opinion. My research has followed the money trail between the fossil fuel industry and public relations firms. As a co-editor on a forthcoming book on climate obstruction, I can say that large PR firms have too often put their commercial interests, and the interests of fossil fuel giants, ahead of those of the public.

In the climate domain, researchers typically use the word “misinformation” to refer to any falsehoods about climate change. They can be spread innocuously or through a deliberate campaign. Misinformation matters because it can influence attitudes and behaviours of both the public and political elites. Tackling climate change effectively requires public support for clean energy and many other changes. Misinformation erodes this support for climate science and climate policies. The more often false information is repeated, the more likely we are to think of it as true. These campaigns can inflate the sense of opposition to climate action and give policymakers a false sense of how widespread support for climate action is.

Australian policymakers have previously moved to ban or restrict advertising for products known to be dangerous. Cigarette advertising is banned because cigarettes cause cancer, and now there’s a growing push to ban fossil fuel advertising due to the damage done by emissions.

It’s time to stop the rot from West Island fossil fuel emitters and their proxies and to call out the mining and energy corporations who spend millions of dollars to deliberately mislead the public in the interests of protecting defending their massive – mostly tax-free – profits.