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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 24/09/2026

US Senate Democrats publish report on Trump’s deals with fossil fuel billionaires: “appointed positions, deregulation, and favorable policies in exchange for campaign cash.” See report here: www.epw.senate.gov/public/index...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 24/09/2026

Also see last year's International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE)'s report for background on the current state of information integrity: www.worldwithoutfossilads.org/wp-content/u...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 24/09/2026

UN General Assembly dialogue featuring @aronczyk.bsky.social, and attended by Director @timmonsroberts.bsky.social. Remarkable work moving information integrity into the mainstream.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 23/09/2026

Happening now! Rutger's Climate Week's "The Science and Politics of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Current Challenges in Informing Policy," featuring CSSN scholars @daniellefalzon.bsky.social @kdepryck.bsky.social and @pammcelwee.bsky.social.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 24/07/2026

Sign up to our newsletter below and get the latest digest of climate obstruction related work! If you are interested in mis-/disinformation, greenwashing, corporate capture, litigation and more, then join over 1500 people in receiving our monthly newsletter. cssn.org/about-us/sub...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 29/05/2026

Nationalism as a tool of climate obstruction: This review identifies four forms—resource nationalism, energy nationalism, techno-nationalism, and fossil fascism—and shows how they can delay, divert, or undermine effective climate action. See the full paper here: www.frontiersin.org/journals/pol...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 28/04/2026

How do we make our academic work make a difference? What does knowledge production look like when it is being threatened from outside forces? Thrilled to share that NYU's Dr. Dale Jamieson will be this year's keynote speaker for our upcoming online annual conference. Register here: bit.ly/4tcdBFe

Title card for keynote speech with Dale Jamieson: "Climate Ethics: The Development of a Field and the Long History of Denialism." EVent is May 19, 2026, at 11am EST.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 13/04/2026

After a review of coverage by nine legacy UK newspapers, J. Painter, S. Cocks, and S. Hayes find that media framing is playing a significant role in shaping political debate around Net Zero, often without balanced evidence. See their new paper below. www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 12/03/2026

Successful counter-obstruction efforts are few and far between. Recipients of CSSN grant, Daniel Delatin Rodrigues and Marco Grasso, have explored what dismantling deeply embedded fossil-fuel systems can look like - through the lens of two Italian case studies. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

screenshot of paper titled "Contesting fossil extractivism: Practices of deactivation in Milan and Civitavecchia, Italy", highlighted quote: "The study highlights three critical conditions for successful counter-obstruction: internal realignment of obstructive networks, multi-level strategic practices (discursive, procedural, infrastructural), and temporal alignment with key decision-making moments."

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 05/01/2026

In his most recent piece, CSSN scholar @bforchtner.bsky.social gives us an in-depth look at the formation of climate obstructive narratives through the late 1980s-2018, classifies the trends, and offers insights into the Austrian and German Far Right tactics. www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 20/11/2025

ATTN #COP30, come by our event today, November 20, Side Event Room 5 from 6-8:30pm: "Reimagining climate policy-making to be effective, inclusive, and action-oriented."

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 10/11/2025

Climate denial never disappeared — it evolved. The same networks that once denied the science now work to obstruct climate policy and dismantle global climate governance. See @plehwe.bsky.social, Justin Farrell, et.al's chapter, "bit.ly/PlFeCOGA" bit.ly/PlFeCOGA

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 03/11/2025

Coal, utilities, and transport firms use PR cover + front groups to block policy while appearing “part of the solution.” Chapter 3 of “Climate Obstruction” exposes how this network shapes rules, silences protest, and spreads false “energy poverty” narratives. Read: cssn.org/news-researc...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 28/10/2025

The fossil fuel industry’s playbook: Deny. Delay. Dilute. Chapter 2 of “Climate Obstruction” shows how Big Oil reinvented obstruction for the net-zero era. Read: cssn.org/news-researc...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 21/10/2025

What exactly is climate obstruction—and how does it differ from denial? Chapter 1 of “Climate Obstruction” explains in short: the science is clear—but powerful actors are slowing action. Read and download our book here: cssn.org/news-researc...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 14/10/2025

It's finally here! 100+ scholars, global scope, practical insights. “Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment” shows how organized interests stall policy—and how governance can respond. Open access available now! Or order for paperback and hardcover. cssn.org/wp-content/u...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 22/09/2025

Experts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social @aronczyk.bsky.social and @johnfocook.bsky.social speak with @trackchangesmedia.bsky.social on the rising threat of climate disinformation in the media, solutions misinformation, and the attack on climate science and scientists themselves.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 09/09/2025

New study from Carlos R.S. Milani, Janaina Pinto, and Arthur Facini on the organized obstruction observed in the Brazilian government and industries. Read the full article here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 02/09/2025

The lexicon used by climate misinformers has changed, and "‘New Denial’ is bent on condemning solutions to climate change and their supporters." Researchers found the most prevalent climate-related terms on Twitter/X from 2021-2023 and shared their results below. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A chart of the most frequent search terms. "Climate control" is by far number one, followed by "green fossil fuels" and "drill baby drill."

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 18/06/2025

WEBINAR TOMORROW💻 How does #misinformation threaten climate progress and what we can do to protect the integrity of information in the lead-up to COP30 in Belém? Read more and register for the International Panel on the Information Environment's event here: ipie-info.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 05/06/2025

Congratulations, again, to our scholars Galen Hall, @joshuabasseches.bsky.social, Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, and Trevor Culhane for their award from ‪‪@apsa.bsky.social‬ for the best journal article on U.S. state politics or policy. Their paper can be found here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 09/05/2025

Africa Energy Transition Bank: A catalyst for development or an institution of climate delayism? See CSSN awardee Dr. Oluwaseun James Oguntuase's work in @Econology: zenodo.org/records/1530...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 04/04/2025

Happening in 30 min - hear from NGO experts: Lucas Nassar of the Laboratório da Cidade, João Pedro Ramalho of Cúpula do Povo, and Auricelia Arapiun, Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB). Register here: brown.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 01/04/2025

THIS Friday! Hear from experts on how to have an impact on the road to COP30 Belém.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 26/03/2025

WEBINAR POSTPONED! This week's webinar, "Subnational Climate Politics in the Amazon" has been moved to April 25. Be sure to tune in next week, April 4, for the next talk in the series, "How to have an impact - Civil Society and Social Movements Perspectives." cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 17/03/2025

Meet CLARA (Climate Accountability Research Assistant), a free AI tool created by CSSN member B. Franta and colleagues M. Patakota and J. Rutherford that reads and retrieves litigation documents: "Let's use AI for corporate accountability and a cleaner, healthier, more just world: clara-research.com

screenshot of introduction and login page for CLARA. Text reads: "Hello, I am CLARA!"

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 12/03/2025

Update to our speakers and timing! Event will be this Friday at 11am Eastern Time, and 12pm AMT (Belém). Register here: cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 11/03/2025

Don't miss the next installment of our series on the road to COP30 this Friday. We will be joined by economics, anthropology, and climate science scholars: Dr. Francisco de Assis Costa, Francy Baniwa, Dr. Carlos Nobre, and moderated by Lise Tupiassu. Register here: cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 10/03/2025

THIS FRIDAY! Experts explore the relationship between the Amazon rainforest and climate change, through both scientific and social lenses: The natural science of the Amazon, the role of Indigenous knowledge in conservation, and the implications for global climate policy. cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 04/03/2025

The next installment of our webinar series is coming March 14. Speakers will review the science and the controversies in the Amazon. See our website to be notified when registration opens: cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 17/02/2025

This week! Hear from experts on the road to COP30. What are the state of climate negotiations, and what does a path forward look like? Register here: cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 13/02/2025

Next week will be the first talk of our webinar series on the lead up to COP30. We will be joined by Drs. Rachel Cleetus and Maureen Santos, and Director Harjeet Singh. Registration is open: cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 07/02/2025

Join us February 21 for our event, "The State of Climate Negotiations, and Why COP30 is Important." This is part of a webinar series hosted by @ufpa.bsky.social @brown-ibes.bsky.social, NAEA, and CSSN. cssn.org/event/cop30-...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 26/08/2024

Climate Obstruction Across Europe from Oxford University Press has arrived in print! Order your print copy in hardcover or paperback: bit.ly/oup-coae. This sweeping review of climate obstruction is also available #OpenAccess along with chapter summaries here: bit.ly/coae2024

cover of Climate Obstruction Across Europe

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 10/04/2024

Research from CSSN scholar Mahir Yazar: "Episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Screenshot of abstract reading: Populism is multilayered and involves two main dimensions – ideology and strategy – which are employed within and beyond political parties. These dimensions can result in sometimes overlapping but generally divergent backlashes, targeting specific climate and sustainability interventions in cities. This critical commentary presents episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions by exploring how they create their own political landscapes across the political spectrum in cities against progressive urban climate agendas. Specifically, the article examines how episodic populist backlashes manifest on an urban scale and highlights the need for urban scholars to pay more attention to the phenomenon. The article proposes two complementary explanations for why populism precedes urban climate actions in episodic and thematic ways. These explanations include policy backlashes against diffused global climate norms in cities, and counter-movements and rh

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 04/04/2024

New research from @aronczyk.bsky.social et al.: "Greenwashing, net-zero, and the oil sands in Canada: The case of Pathways Alliance" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Screenshot of abstract text: Net-zero plans, or the target of negating an organization's carbon emissions by 2050, have proliferated among large oil and gas companies. These plans have led to misleading and unverifiable claims to climate protection and have spurred concerns by researchers about greenwashing. This article examines net zero greenwashing using the case of Pathways Alliance, a coalition of six companies representing 95 % of oil sands production in Canada, one of the world's largest oil reserves.

Drawing on a corpus of documents (n = 183) spanning a two-year period, including materials from the coalition's advertising and public relations campaign, we evaluate Pathways Alliance's public communication for indicators of net-zero greenwashing. We identify instances of selective disclosure and omission, misalignment of claim and action, displacement of responsibility, non-credible claims, specious comparisons, nonstandard accounting, and inadequate reporting. There is also evi

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 27/02/2024

This week Climatic Change published two new articles from CSSN scholars on how special interests can influence academia on climate change. Read the research here: link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1...

a screenshot of two article titles, "Academic Capture in the Anthropocene" and "The animal agriculture industry, US universities, and the obstruction of climate understanding and policy"

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 07/02/2024

Research from Simone J. Domingue and Stacia S. Ryder: "Mapping multiscalar power for fair, effective climate policy discourse" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Screenshot of abstract text: Mainstream climate policy discourse obscures power disparities between those who contribute the most to climate change and those who are hit the hardest, particularly in discussions regarding the appropriate targets for intervention, including behavioral change. We reflect and critique this obfuscation of power in policy debates, and as a corrective, we identify actors with high levels of climate responsibility and high capacity for mitigation and adaptation, and that intersect different scales of social organization. We visually map these overlaps to spur productive dialogue and generate new policy ideas to target the worst violators first and encourage action for others where it is rooted in what capacities they have. We include examples of how power disparities reflect and produce complex climate injustices, underscoring the importance of conceptualizing power through a multiscalar lens for fair and effective climate policy.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 01/02/2024

Research from Viviana Chiu Sik Wu and Weiai Wayne Xu: "Who Leads and Who Echoes? Tracing Message Similarity Network of #ClimateChange Advocacy on Twitter" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Screenshot of abstract text: How do nonprofits advocate and shape climate conversations on Twitter? We answer this question by combining computational analyses with thick descriptions of discursive data to analyze message diffusion on Twitter. We first map a temporal message similarity network comprising 298,073 unique tweets sent by climate action and obstruction nonprofits. We then identify four leading nonprofits and trace their message similarity to 2,479 accounts over 2 weeks. Our results suggest that while climate obstruction nonprofits might not be frequent tweeters, their voices are highly reciprocal in the Twitterverse. We also find that messages of either side are most echoed by the public rather than elite audiences. Although diffusion to policymakers is almost absent, we uncover high semantic similarities between messages from climate obstruction nonprofits and bot-like accounts. Our analyses contribute to new theoretical and empirical insights into the roles of nonprofit c

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 07/12/2023

Did you know that you can search for a Climate Social Science Network scholar by area and country of expertise on our site? Check it out: cssn.org/scholars/sch...

A photo grid of Climate Social Science Network scholars with filters to select areas of expertise and country on top

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 20/11/2023

Please join the Climate Social Science Network on 27 November for an event on climate obstruction, loss and damage, and adaptation in honor of the late Professor Saleemul Huq. brown.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Flier for "Taking on Climate Obstruction on Loss and Damage and Adaptation" event featuring a photo of Saleemul Huq

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 08/11/2023

New research from CSSN scholar Rachel Wetts: "Money and Meaning in the Climate Change Debate: Organizational Power, Cultural Resonance, and the Shaping of American Media Discourse" www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Screen shot of abstract text:
The author investigates why some framings of climate change are publicized in American mainstream media while others are not, examining organizational power and cultural resonance as two paths through which messages may gain visibility. First, she uses automated text analysis to identify climate change frames in interest groups’ press releases (𝑁=1,768
), coding frames for features believed to heighten cultural resonance. Then, she uses plagiarism-detection software to identify which messages were publicized in three major newspapers, 1985–2014. She finds that policy messages from structurally powerful interest groups such as business coalitions have received disproportionate media attention in the US climate debate. However, organizational resources alone are not determinative of messages’ success. Political messages are also more likely to receive visibility when they leverage sources of cultural power, such as by appealing to the latent world

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 03/11/2023

New from CSSN scholar Sam Stephenson: "Technology to the rescue? Techno-scientific practices in the United Kingdom Net Zero Strategy and their role in locking in high energy decarbonisation pathways" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Abstract screen shot: The development of country specific decarbonisation pathways is becoming increasingly common as more governments commit to achieving Net Zero. These pathways are critical for setting the direction and pace of decarbonisation.

This article reviews the characteristics of fifteen different UK Net Zero pathways (three government pathways and 12 additional pathways) and shows how the expectation of technology innovation and low-carbon energy abundance closes down the space potential pathways can occupy. In particular, we find that while conceptually different, the three government pathways display a high degree of similarity and that the majority of pathways rely on significant amounts of new clean energy and retain large residual emissions in 2050 which requires the deployment of significant new carbon dioxide removal technologies.

The dominance of high energy and high residual emission pathways is also observed in international scenarios including IPCC's Shared Soc

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 01/11/2023

New research from CSSN scholars @christinahoicka.bsky.social, Jennie Stephens, Yuxu Zhao, and Pável Soriano Hernandez: "Misalignment or exclusion? Investigating climate and energy philanthropy funding of diversity" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Text of abstract of the article: Environmental philanthropy is expanding while inequities and disparities among those impacted by environmental degradation are also growing. Little is known about the distribution of funds from environmental philanthropy, that is, who is benefitting and who is excluded? This study analyzes how environmental philanthropy is being distributed among non-profit organizations working on a low-carbon energy transition in Canada. The funding sources of 462 organizations characterized as either diversity-led or conventional-led were analyzed and compared. Organizations that are clearly led by equity deserving communities were classified as “diversity-led” while organizations that provided no indication of diverse leadership were classified as “conventional-led”. The findings indicate that the 356 conventional-led organizations receive philanthropic support from more funders than the 106 diversity-led organizations. The diversity-led organizations, that are more

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 30/10/2023

The Climate Social Science Network mourns the loss of Professor Saleemul Huq, who was an early member and supporter of CSSN's work on climate obstruction in addition to his incredible contributions to UN climate negotiations. He will be deeply missed.

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 25/10/2023

Tomorrow at 11 am ET, join the Climate Social Science Network for a conversation on what's new in climate obstruction. Register here: brown.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Flier for What's New in Climate Obstructino event, featuring Brendan Demelle, Viveca Morris, and Dieter Plehwe

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 04/10/2023

New research from Caroline Sassan, Priyanka Mahat, @aronczyk.bsky.social and Robert Brulle: "Energy Citizens 'Just Like You'? Public Relations Campaigning by the Climate Change Counter-movement," investigates campaigns surrounding the Waxman-Markey bill. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Screenshot of the abstract for Energy Citizens “Just Like You”? Public Relations Campaigning by the Climate Change Counter-movement

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 03/10/2023

Join the Climate Social Science Network on October 26th for an event on what's new in climate obstruction. brown.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

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Climate Social Science Network @cssn.org · 29/09/2023

"A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism" by CSSN scholar @aronczyk.bsky.social and Maria I. Espinoza has won the 2023 Roderick P. Hart Outstanding Book Award. Read it: www.amazon.com/Strategic-Na...

Book cover of A Strategic Nature, featuring an image of an arrow made of leaves

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