Lisbon, Aug. 6, 2025 (Lusa) - Alice Fonseca, climate and policy expert at WWF Portugal, says that the fight against climate misinformation is hampered by a phenomenon of paralysis in which people believe that combating climate change is not worth the effort.
Alice Fonseca, representative of the international environmental organisation World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), tells Lusa that “people recognise the problem, they think it is important to act, but they also recognise that they are acting in a context where decision-making is very difficult, because it is very difficult to understand whether the information is actually true or not”.
A recent Eurobarometer survey concluded that 52% of Portuguese respondents believe that traditional media do not provide clear information on climate change, its causes and impacts, with 49% finding it difficult to distinguish between reliable information and misinformation on climate change on social media.
According to the expert, this is a phenomenon of paralysis, because if people feel that they are being given a lot of worrying information but are not presented with proposals on how to act and combat the problem, they consider that "there is no point in doing anything".
“We need accessible information that everyone can understand, because climate change is a difficult phenomenon to explain in an accessible way, making communication on these issues challenging,” says Alice Fonseca.
It is therefore necessary to work with traditional media outlets, “which have a role to play in combating misinformation and promoting literacy”, as well as “reporting the news in a non-sensationalist way, but also in a way that conveys the seriousness of the problems and presents possible courses of action and solutions”.
In addition, the fact that fires in Portugal and elsewhere are very present in the media at this time of year means that “there can often be an excessive emphasis on certain issues and less on others”, which is why forest fires should be a topic of conversation throughout the year, she argues.
In this perspective, “action must be taken to reduce the severity of fires and minimise their impact, and this also involves information, people being informed, knowing how to act, how to prevent, but also policies and other types of measures”, she argues.
“The biggest challenge from the point of view of fires in Portugal is prevention”, says Alice Fonseca.
PYR/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
