Negotiators gathering in Belém, Brazil, for COP30 this week have placed a new, urgent threat at the heart of global climate talks: a surge of climate disinformation that risks undermining progress on the world’s most critical environmental challenge. For the first time in the history of the United Nations’ annual climate summit, the issue of information integrity has taken a central role, with leaders warning that the battle for truth is now as pivotal as the fight to cut emissions.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva set the tone as he opened COP30, declaring, “We live in an era in which obscurantists reject scientific evidence and attack institutions. It is time to deliver yet another defeat to denialism.” According to UN News, Lula called for COP30 to be the “COP of truth” amid a climate of “fake news and misrepresentation.” His remarks underscored the growing recognition that falsehoods—spread at lightning speed online—are sabotaging fragile climate progress and threatening to derail negotiations.
The summit’s opening days saw a major milestone: On November 13, 2025, twelve countries—including Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Uruguay—signed the first-ever Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change. The declaration, launched under the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, represents the first formal commitment by states to jointly combat climate disinformation. As reported by Euronews, it sets out six key commitments: ensuring accurate climate information while protecting free speech, supporting independent media, making evidence-based information accessible to all, building capacity to identify threats to information integrity, and calling on the private sector to uphold responsible, transparent advertising practices.
“In endorsing this Declaration, we reaffirm our shared responsibility to ensure that societies around the world are empowered with the knowledge and information they need to act urgently and decisively in the face of the climate crisis,” the document concludes. The declaration was unveiled as part of a partnership between Brazil, the UN Department of Global Communications, and UNESCO—a collaboration first announced at the G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay emphasized the stakes: “Without access to reliable information about climate disruption, we can never hope to overcome it. Through this initiative, we will support the journalists and researchers investigating climate issues, sometimes at great risk to themselves, and fight the climate-related disinformation running rampant on social media.”
The challenge is formidable. According to a report from Climate Action Against Disinformation and the Observatory for Information Integrity, there was a staggering 267 percent increase in COP-related disinformation between July and September 2025. Terms associated with the UN climate summit appeared over 14,000 times alongside words like “failure,” “catastrophe,” “disaster,” and “joke.” Charlotte Scaddan, senior advisor on information integrity for UN Global Communications, described the moment as a “critical juncture where two of humanity’s most pressing challenges have become quite dangerously intertwined.” She warned that a lack of trust in information is a “deeply concerning trend” worldwide, with climate change being “weaponised” as a wedge issue to polarise societies and undermine democratic processes. “The winners in this disinformation economy...are fossil fuel interests, they are certain political actors and they are digital influencers online who are monetising outrage and lies,” Scaddan explained.
Frederico Assis, COP30’s Special Envoy for Information Integrity, echoed these concerns, telling UN News, “Disinformation, driven by obscurantist worldviews, fuels political extremism and puts lives at risk.” He noted that the danger is not abstract: “There is broad recognition that disinformation can affect and compromise every part of the COP process—diplomatic negotiations, the action agenda, or mobilization and summits. All our efforts will be at risk if we fail to tackle disinformation properly, which stems from denialism.” Assis also highlighted the role of algorithms in amplifying conspiratorial and manipulative content, often using sophisticated tactics to spread false messages. His mandate at COP30 is to keep the issue in the public eye and mobilize leaders, civil society, and the media to push back.
For the first time, information integrity is officially on the COP agenda—an overdue milestone, according to UNESCO’s Guilherme Canela. He told UN News, “We still know very little about what’s behind this. For example, who funds these posts, and why do they spread faster than other types of content? How does that happen? If we don’t understand these mechanisms, it’s very difficult to design effective strategies to combat this phenomenon.” The Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change aims to fill these knowledge gaps by financing investigative journalism and research, especially in the Global South.
The Global Fund for Information Integrity on Climate Change, created under the initiative, has already attracted 447 proposals from nearly 100 countries. Backed by an initial $1 million from Brazil, the fund is supporting its first round of projects—almost two-thirds of which are based in developing nations. Canela called it “very rewarding” to see the issue “embraced so strongly at COP30.”
On the ground, the battle against disinformation is both possible and daunting. Maria Clara Moraes, a UN Verified Champion and co-founder of the Marias Verdes platform, has over half a million TikTok followers and knows the terrain well. She told UN News that climate disinformation campaigns are “highly organized and backed by powerful forces, particularly the fossil fuel industry.” These campaigns, she said, “change their disguise” over time. “There are several types of disinformation. One of the most powerful is saying that it’s too late—that nothing can be done, or that these events like COP30 don’t make a difference. That’s also disinformation. Saying, ‘This isn’t working, it’s too slow, too complex, too frustrating.’ But yes—it’s important. We must constantly reaffirm the value of multilateralism and the importance of spaces like this one.”
Despite the obstacles, Moraes sees hope in younger generations. By producing content rooted in science and sustainability, she believes awareness of the climate emergency is growing rapidly. “Young people are a great source of hope and optimism,” she noted, urging everyone to play their part in creating “micro-revolutions” through everyday choices that support climate action and drive systemic change.
Momentum for action is building beyond governments. Hundreds of civil society organizations, Indigenous groups, and global leaders—including Paris Agreement architect Christiana Figueres and Laurence Tubiana of the European Climate Foundation—recently signed an open letter demanding that national governments adopt a strong, ambitious, and mandatory decision at COP30 to uphold information integrity. The letter warns that the “degradation and pollution of the information ecosystem is not just a climate crisis but is a multi-faceted global emergency.” It cites research from the International Panel on the Information Environment and the Climate Social Science Network, which found that organized climate obstruction activities are “actively delaying the human response to the crisis, directly sabotaging international cooperation, making the Paris Agreement goals unattainable, and putting the lives of millions at risk.”
As world leaders, scientists, and activists gather in Belém, the message from COP30 is resounding: the fight for the climate is inseparable from the fight for truth. With new commitments, funding, and a wave of global attention, the hope is that this year’s summit will mark a turning point—one where the world not only confronts emissions, but also the falsehoods that threaten to block real progress.
