Climate Obstruction in the Digital Far-Right: Mapping the Climate Countermovement in German-, Danish-, and Swedish-Speaking Digital Information Environments

This article examines how climate obstruction narratives circulate in far-right digital information environments in Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. We analyzed 41 million social media posts published across multiple social media platforms from 2019 to 2022. Using multilingual text classification and actor–source mapping, we identified which posts contained climate obstruction narratives, which actors produced them, and which sources they cited. The results revealed three configurations. In the German-speaking environment (Germany and Austria), obstruction is mainly driven by far-right citizen accounts embedded in a hyperpartisan media ecosystem. In Sweden, far-right grassroots actors coexist with climate-focused organizations that bridge mainstream and alternative sources. In Denmark, obstruction is comparatively mainstream-embedded and anchored in organizations and citizen groups drawing on legacy news. The article discusses how national media systems, political fields, and far-right actor constellations make certain forms of obstruction communicatively viable and thereby shape the digital climate countermovement.