DENY, DECEIVE, DELAY

The report identifies a resurgence of outright climate denial and the rise of 'culture war' narratives used to delay climate action. It highlights systemic greenwashing by fossil fuel entities on Meta and the algorithmic amplification of the #ClimateScam hashtag on Twitter. The analysis reveals that climate misinformation is increasingly integrated into broader 'anti-woke' and conspiratorial communities, with a small number of high-influence actors driving a significant portion of the engagement.

• Between 1 September and 23 November 2022, fossil fuel-linked entities ran 3,781 active ads on Facebook and Instagram, spending approximately USD $3-4 million.
• Energy Citizens, a PR and lobby group for the American Petroleum Institute, was the most prolific advertiser by volume, while America’s Plastic Makers spent roughly USD $1.1 million on climate-related campaigns.
• State-owned oil companies from Saudi Arabia, China, and Brazil used 'nature-rinsing' tactics on Meta to promote green credentials despite their governments' efforts to weaken fossil fuel phase-out ambitions.
• The hashtag #ClimateScam saw a sudden spike on Twitter in July 2022, accruing over 362,000 mentions from 91,000 unique users by December 2022.
• Twitter's recommendation algorithm actively suggested #ClimateScam as a top result for organic searches of 'climate' during COP27, despite the hashtag having lower volume and engagement than #ClimateCrisis or #ClimateEmergency.
• Analysis of high-engagement content shows that claims portraying climate actors as 'alarmist' received more likes than any other sub-claim, while claims that climate change is a 'hoax' or 'conspiracy' were more frequently shared.
• Right-wing contrarians framed the COP27 'loss and damage' negotiations as unfair 'climate reparations' from the Global North to the developing world, often linking this to the UK cost of living crisis.
• Climate misinformation is increasingly shared by 'anti-woke' and COVID-sceptic communities; 22.27% of the COP27 misinformation network comprised COVID-sceptic figures, up from 12.35% in 2021.
• A small group of 12 key actors were identified as the most prolific amplifiers of the five monitored narratives, generating 343,862 shares in the four weeks surrounding COP27.

APA

Institute for Strategic Dialogue (n.d.). DENY, DECEIVE, DELAY. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Deny-Deceive-Delay-Vol.-2.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Strategic Dialogue. DENY, DECEIVE, DELAY. n.d. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Deny-Deceive-Delay-Vol.-2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |title=DENY, DECEIVE, DELAY |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Deny-Deceive-Delay-Vol.-2.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforstrategicdialoguenddeny, author = {{Institute for Strategic Dialogue}}, title = {{DENY, DECEIVE, DELAY}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Deny-Deceive-Delay-Vol.-2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }