How can inconsistent character encoding impact the display of special characters in PHP?

Inconsistent character encoding can lead to special characters being displayed incorrectly in PHP. To solve this issue, you can use the `utf8_encode()` function to convert the string to UTF-8 encoding before displaying it. This ensures that special characters are properly encoded and displayed.

$string = "Special characters: é, ü, ñ";
echo utf8_encode($string);