Introduction
In the first half of 2025, the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye began deliberating a comprehensive climate law draft to implement Paris Agreement commitments. Public opinion data, depending on a nationally representative survey in 2014 conducted by Başar Baysal in a previous study, indicated that Turkish society was ready for implementation of such a law. The survey revealed that 64.4 percent of respondents identified climate change as "the most important problem of our time," while only 2.8 percent considered the issue "exaggerated." In the same study, 65.3 percent of respondents acknowledged climate change as a security problem. All indicators pointed toward a relatively smooth legislative process.
Yet that is not what happened. From the moment the climate law draft text reached the public, a different picture emerged on social media platforms (Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, and Ekşi Sözlük). Rather than debating climate science or global warming, opposition began framing the climate law itself as an existential threat. Posts claimed the law would initiate an "Orwellian era of control," destroy agriculture, eliminate personal freedoms, and hand Türkiye's sovereignty over to global powers. Climate policy had been rendered more dangerous than climate change.
This paper aims to reveal the thematic structure of this disinformation campaign that circulated on social media during the February to July 2025 period. Drawing on the examination of 225 original posts spread across four major platforms, this analysis seeks to demonstrate which fears the campaign mobilized and why it found such a wide field of resonance in Turkish society. Our core argument is the following: as long as a grounded and widespread climate awareness is not established, society will remain vulnerable to this type of disinformation campaign.
The Nature of the Campaign: Climate Policy, Not Climate, Is the Target
The fundamental characteristic that distinguishes this disinformation campaign from classic climate denial is that its target is not climate science but climate policy. The campaign does not debate CO₂ concentrations or global temperature increases; instead, it presents policy tools such as carbon taxes, agricultural regulations, monitoring mechanisms, and energy transformation as existential threats. In other words, a shift has occurred from the discourse of "climate change is a threat" to "climate policy is a threat." This makes the campaign different from and potentially more dangerous than purely scientific denial movements, because it can pull even people who accept the existence of climate change into opposition against policy.
The thematic analysis of the campaign reveals six interconnected core narratives. These narratives can be listed as: fear of restrictions on personal freedoms and surveillance, economic burden and inequality, global elite conspiracy and loss of sovereignty, perception of moral and cultural threat, distrust in climate science, and democratic legitimacy deficit. Each constructs the climate law as a "threat" from a different angle, and together they form a comprehensive architecture of fear.
1. Restriction of Freedoms and Fear of Surveillance
The most prevalent theme of the campaign was the claim that the climate law would eliminate individual freedoms and establish a comprehensive surveillance regime. Posts directly equated the law with authoritarianism:
"The climate law is dictatorship. You will not be able to cultivate your field. You will not be able to feed your animals."
The claim of personal carbon tracking was used as a particularly widespread source of fear. The concept of "carbon footprint" was framed as a tool for intervening in every aspect of individuals' daily lives:
"Under the name of carbon footprint, every step you take, every breath you draw will be counted. One day an app will tell you 'you have exceeded your limit today.'"
This narrative made fear tangible by transporting an abstract policy discussion into concrete, everyday scenarios ranging from water restrictions in bathing to bans on growing flowers in pots. The Climate Change Presidency, in its official statement in July 2025, characterized these claims as "myths" and responded to them one by one; however, the dystopian imagery created by the posts had already reached wide audiences.
2. Economic Burden and Inequality
The second powerful component of the campaign was the claim that the climate law would lead directly to economic devastation. Specific fears such as carbon taxes, agricultural bans, penalties for farmers, and the imposition of artificial meat were combined with a general narrative of "the poor will become poorer." Posts emphasized that climate policy amounted to a class-based attack:
"The poor, small business owners, and villagers will pay the price; the holding companies that pollute the environment will receive a 'green certificate' that wipes away their penalties."
Agriculture and food security stood out as a particularly sensitive area. Posts such as "What does zero emissions mean? It means the end of agriculture and animal husbandry" directly activated livelihood anxieties in rural areas. The artificial meat issue was also linked to conspiracy narratives through Bill Gates: it was claimed that eating natural meat would become a privilege exclusive to the wealthy. The economic narrative became the dimension of the campaign that reached the widest audience by bringing abstract climate targets to the kitchen table.
3. Global Elite Conspiracy and Loss of Sovereignty
The deepest and most difficult-to-counter layer of the campaign was the narrative that presented climate policy as part of a global conspiracy. In this theme, the Paris Agreement was described as a "sales contract" transferring Türkiye's territory to foreign powers:
"Türkiye has been sold to the globalists. The Paris Climate Agreement is a sales contract. The climate law passed through Parliament is the transfer of the title deed."
The conspiracy narrative drew on elements in global circulation such as BlackRock, Bill Gates, and the "Great Reset." In some posts, the language reached apocalyptic scenarios:
"You will have approved the 'Great Reset,' that is, the 'plan to destroy humanity,' of the globalist satanists. This is the greatest betrayal of this homeland and nation."
This conspiracy framework functioned as a meta-narrative that connected all other themes. When fears about artificial meat, concerns over carbon taxes, and claims of agricultural restrictions were considered individually, each was a policy discussion; but when placed within the conspiracy framework, they became "evidence of a global attack." Each new claim of restriction was interpreted as confirmation of the conspiracy. Notably, the Climate Change Presidency's official response did not address these conspiracy narratives at all.
4. Perception of Moral and Cultural Threat
Opposition to the climate law, in some posts, transformed into a deep civilizational crisis narrative. The law was presented not only as an economic or political threat but as a moral and cultural one:
"We will become a genderless, propertyless, religionless, digitally monitored slave society."
Religious framing also appeared frequently: expressions such as "those who wage war against God will eventually lose" turned climate policy into a matter of faith. Antisemitic discourse also found a place within this theme. Because this narrative moves climate policy from a technical negotiation into an identity conflict, it renders compromise nearly impossible. Partial compromise with what is perceived as an attack on civilization is not feasible.
5. Distrust in Climate Science
The epistemic dimension of the campaign spanned a wide range from the outright rejection of climate science to the claim that IPCC reports are "under government control." Spread through hashtags such as "#climatescam" and "#greenswindle," this narrative declared the process of scientific production itself suspect:
"There is no such thing as a climate crisis. There is a climate lie."
This theme provided the intellectual infrastructure for the others. By rejecting climate science and thereby eroding the empirical basis of the primary threat claim, it simultaneously made it possible to sustain urgency and threat discourse directed against climate policy. The fact that the Climate Change Presidency's official statement did not directly respond to this theme constitutes a significant gap.
6. Democratic Legitimacy Deficit
The final significant component of the campaign was the claim that the climate law was enacted by bypassing the democratic process. Posts alleged that the voice of the people went unheard and that civil society was excluded:
"It was passed through the Grand National Assembly despite the open objection of the nation."
The claim that "civil society, scientists, and local governments were left out of the process" opened up a space of legitimacy for all other themes. If the process was not democratic, then opposing the resulting law became legitimate. This facilitated the transformation of objections to climate policy from mere content criticism into a call for systemic resistance.
Institutional Response and Unaddressed Gaps
The Climate Change Presidency published an official statement through social media in July 2025, responding to nine specific claims in circulation. The Presidency characterized and refuted, one by one, the following as "myths": claims regarding freedom restrictions, carbon taxes, agricultural bans, farmer penalties, artificial meat, territorial transfer via the Paris Agreement, fossil fuel bans, criminalization of opposition, and personal carbon penalties.
However, this response addressed only one dimension of the campaign. No official-level response was provided to the campaign's deepest and most pervasive themes, such as the global elite conspiracy, deep-rooted distrust in climate science, moral and cultural threat narratives, and democratic legitimacy critiques. Yet our social media data show that precisely these unanswered narratives served as the campaign's primary carriers. While the Presidency refuted specific policy myths, it overlooked the deeper narratives that gave those myths cultural resonance and mobilization power.
Conclusion: Without Climate Awareness, Vulnerability Persists
Türkiye's experience during the climate law process reveals a striking paradox: even in a society where 96 percent accept climate change, disinformation campaigns targeting climate policies can find a wide field of resonance. This demonstrates that climate awareness cannot consist merely of a general acceptance that "climate change exists."
The success of the disinformation campaign originates from the absence, within society, of a grounded understanding of why climate policies are necessary, how they function, and whom they serve. People may generally accept climate change; but when they do not know what carbon pricing is, how emission reduction mechanisms work, and how international climate regimes relate to national sovereignty, conspiracy theories, fear scenarios, and political manipulation fill these gaps.
The fundamental lesson that emerges from this analysis is the following: climate communication cannot limit itself to explaining climate science. Building societal resilience against disinformation requires a comprehensive awareness that also covers the logic of climate policies, how their costs will be shared, their democratic legitimacy, and their international dimension. Otherwise, a post claiming "the climate law is dictatorship" can spread fast enough to nullify years of scientific effort and policy work overnight.
The experience Türkiye has gone through is not unique to Türkiye. Similar patterns appear across a range from the Yellow Vests movement in France to Green Deal opposition in Europe, from "America First" climate policies in the United States to rising authoritarian populism worldwide. Preserving the societal legitimacy of climate policies is one of today's most critical governance challenges. And this legitimacy can only be built on knowledge-based and participatory climate awareness.
