UN Initiative Seeks Solutions to Combat Climate Change Disinformation

The COP30 Presidency has issued a global call for concrete initiatives to address climate change disinformation, marking the first time information integrity has been formally included in the COP Action Agenda.

The Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, established by UNESCO, the UN, and the Brazilian government, is crowdsourcing solutions to tackle disinformation tactics that delay and derail climate action. Organizations have until August 31 to submit proposals, with selected initiatives to be showcased at the COP30 conference in Brazil this November.

This push comes at a critical time when public understanding and concern about climate change remain fragmented despite overwhelming scientific consensus. In the United States, more than a third of adults express no concern about climate change, according to recent data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Among those who acknowledge climate change exists, only 60% attribute it to human activity.

Media coverage of climate issues has simultaneously declined sharply. The Media and Climate Change Observatory reports that newspaper coverage of climate change dropped 28% globally in June 2025 compared to the previous year, further limiting public exposure to critical climate information.

“The climate crisis isn’t just a scientific or political issue, it’s a communications issue. If lies spread unchecked, actions will stall,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), in a recent speech.

The UN’s first Global Risk Report, released earlier this month, identified misinformation and disinformation as the world’s top vulnerability. Environmental risks constitute five of the top ten most significant risks across all regions, highlighting the intersection between information integrity and climate action.

At the G20 Leaders’ Summit where the initiative launched, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for strengthened action against “coordinated disinformation campaigns impeding global progress on climate change, ranging from outright denial to greenwashing to harassment of climate scientists.”

Last year, Guterres urged countries to ban fossil fuel advertising similar to tobacco restrictions, accusing the industry of “shamelessly greenwashing” while delaying climate action through “lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns.”

The initiative, dubbed “mutirão” (Portuguese for “joint effort”), seeks existing actions across multiple domains, including research on climate disinformation, tools to promote information integrity, communication strategies, support for environmental journalism, protection of scientific data, advertising supply chain transparency, and climate-related media literacy.

Experts remain divided on the most effective communication approaches. Michael Gold of Climate Swings suggests that “inspiring, uplifting stories about people doing awesome things are always going to land better than wonky scientific explanations or doom-and-gloom narratives.” This aligns with the approach of climate optimists like Anne Therese Gennari and Abby Hopper.

However, the CCDH’s 2024 report notes that climate deniers have evolved their tactics from outright denial to what they term “new denial” – claiming that climate solutions won’t work and that climate science itself is unreliable. This shift requires fact-based countering strategies alongside positive narratives.

Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe recently categorized most climate denial into five types: claims that climate change isn’t real, isn’t human-caused, isn’t harmful, can’t be fixed, or that it’s too late to address.

Existing initiatives addressing climate information integrity include support for climate journalism, academic programs like the Yale Program on Climate Communication, and creative approaches through the Hollywood Climate Summit and Climate Fiction Writers League, which integrate climate information into popular media.

COP30 will take place in Belém, Brazil, from November 10-21, 2025, where selected proposals from this initiative will be presented on the global stage.