The coronavirus crisis has brought new life to an old conspiracy theory about a totalitarian world government seeking to kill most of the world’s population as part of a UN plot dating back to 1992.



A BuzzFeed News analysis of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram shows a sharp uptick in posts mentioning "Agenda 21" in recent weeks as the coronavirus crisis has taken hold around the world, although posts are often removed for breaching the platforms’ rules.

These posts and videos often link Agenda 21 with other tried-and-tested tropes of anti-government conspiracy theories, including vaccinations, Bill Gates, George Soros, and 5G networks.

Many of the theories brought together by Agenda 21 are included in the list above, which has been shared hundreds of times after being posted in a Facebook Group called "Yellow Vests Canada" last week.

"Agenda 21" was a nonbinding UN resolution signed in 1992 that provides an action plan for governments with regard to sustainable development.



But in the 22 years since it was signed, extremists have recast it as a secret plot to impose a totalitarian world government and a nefarious effort to crush freedom in the name of environmentalism, according to a 2014 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Fears are running rampant in the far right that [the coronavirus] is some part of a conspiracy, maybe by the Chinese government, other global actors, even George Soros, to do 'something' to conservatives or Americans,” Heidi Beirich, one of the authors of the 2014 report, told BuzzFeed News.

“It’s not surprising that Agenda 21 would pop up again in that environment.”

Agenda 21 content is rife on YouTube, which has long had an issue with conspiracy theories.

One YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 200,000 times since being uploaded by "the Atlantis Report" stated: “Agenda 21 will reduce the human population from almost 8 billion to around 750 million. This means that the UN is planning on killing just over 90% of the global population.”