Climate Communications Australia is conducting ongoing research into how advertising is supporting climate misinformation in Australia. We have already conducted a one year study, between October 2023 and October 2024, of climate solutions reporting of thousands of articles in 22 of Australia’s most read news outlets to understand the extent and nature of climate solutions of misinformation in Australia.

 The aim was to produce an index of misinformation claims, by ranking news outlets according to frequency of misleading claims, as well as an index of which claims were most frequent across the news media ecosystem.

We found 18 types of misinformation throughout Australia’s online digital news ecosystem, and ranked them from most to least by news group and individual news outlet.

 The study also generated an advertising index, looking at which companies had advertisements placed next to misinformation articles, thereby sponsoring content that is normalising an attitude that will seriously delay the urgent action needed to address dangerous climate change.

The study went further in researching all environmental and climate policies of the companies that were sponsoring such misinformation to see whether there was a contradiction between its stated climate values and aims, and its practice (a practice it may not be aware of in placing trust in media buyers to place its ads) of sponsoring climate solutions misinformation.

The study went even further than this, by researching all of the investors in the companies that were sponsoring climate misinformation, and in turn looked at the stated climate values and aims of the investors.

In our sample we also found 466 companies sponsoring misinformation articles, were themselves supported by 98 investment groups. Of these companies and investors, well over half had strong environmental statements on their websites or annual ESG reporting.

The results of this study will be of interest to companies that advertise in Australian news outlets, to advertising agencies, to media buyers, to news outlets, and to the readers of those outlets, a great many of whom have been misled on the solutions to climate change, in a year leading up to a federal election.

If you are an advertiser or investor, visit our project’s Invitation to Advertisers and Investor’s page.