Fact check: Did Scientists Say There’s No Climate Emergency?
A Debunk Bot user shared a twitter link of a post which reads, “an utterly unscientific claim! More than 1200 scientist including Nobel Prize winner has confirmed that there is NO climate emergency – add to that they say that CO2 levels actually contributes to the possibility to expand food production.”
We established that this was a reply to a post by Micheal Martin, the prime minister of Ireland who was highlighting the impacts brought about by climate change in the Horn of Africa.
Martin’s post said “Catastrophic drought in the Horn of Africa, and devastating floods, prove climate change is here – it’s how we lessen that impact for the most vulnerable. #LossAndDamage is a priority for Ireland. And I’m pleased to announce we will donate €10m to the Global Shield initiative.”
Below are the photos attached to Michael’s tweet
The grammatical mistakes in the reply caught our attention. These include “1200 scientist” instead of 1200 scientists, “Nobel Prize winner has confirmed” instead of Nobel Prize winners have confirmed.
Using botometer and twitonomy we established this account is not a twitter bot rather it is run by an individual.
But what is a climate emergency?
Climate emergency is defined as a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it, Oxford Dictionaries.
Using google search we found a similar claim published on a news website “Clark County”. The context of this article reports about the world climate declaration organised by Climate Intelligence, founded in 2019.
The declaration in question gives a one page summary of points with short explanations and other pages are full of names of people.
According to a fact check by EuroNews, the list of signatories has 1107 names, including six people who are dead and only a few of those who are listed describe themselves as climatologists or climate scientists.
“Eight of the signatories are former or current employees of the oil giant Shell, while many other names have links to mining companies. One of the signatories is Ivar Giaever, a joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973 for work on superconductors. However, he has never published any work on climate science,” the fact check reads.
In short,the authors of the declaration in question are linked to fossil fuel companies through receiving fundings to support their narrative, according to DeSmog, an organisation with reporters and researchers in North America, Europe, Africa, and beyond, who debunk misinformation about climate change from major fossil fuel interests.
On the other hand, in 2019 more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries warned of climate change impacts and declared a climate emergency on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference.
Since then, more than 2,800 additional scientists have signed the declaration of a climate emergency.
Claims of this sort have been debunked internationally and climate scientists quoted in the Guardian say the work was selective and had misinterpreted the results of some studies, while leaving others out.
Verdict
The claim that “More than 1200 scientists have confirmed that there is no climate emergency” is FALSE, the facts have been altered and there is an inclination to some of the world’s biggest polluters making it biassed.
The fact is more than 11,000 scientists have declared a climate emergency. Climate change impacts are evident and there is a need for action.
This fact-check was produced by Debunk Media Initiative with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network and African Fact-Checking Alliance network.
