Spain to Protect Public Against Climate Disinformation

When the Iberian Peninsula lost power for ten hours on April 28, 2025, the digital disinformation that followed was predictable, following a viral pattern set in 2021, when a blackout in Texas was falsely blamed on renewable energy instead of frozen fossil fuel infrastructure. Years later, and we’re finally seeing policymakers start to take action to protect the public from people exploiting emergencies to profit off lies.

Climate disinformation does not spread by accident. It doesn’t share itself. It needs people, and it needs technology. Disinformation is engineered by the public relations industry, posted by professional propagandists and amplified by platform algorithms because outrage and falsehoods drive engagement, and engagement drives advertising revenue.

After decades of disinformation from public relations professionals on behalf of Big Carbon, now Big Tech is stepping up to spread lies for profit. Platforms have made billions by amplifying outrage, falsehoods, and division.

Propagandists flood our feeds with climate denial, conspiracy theories, and outrage to divide the public, inflame geopolitical tensions and destroy trust in public institutions, democracy, experts and reality itself.

Yet this progress is now under direct political attack. In the United States, MAGA aligned lawmakers are actively targeting the EU’s Digital Services Act, attempting to weaken the very safeguards designed to hold Big Tech accountable.

Spain’s bold leadership must spark a coordinated international counteroffensive to defend digital accountability and information integrity and protect the public from corporate power, especially when exerted through political backlash.

That is why the European Union’s decision to endorse the UN Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change is more than symbolic. It marks a shift in how the world understands the climate crisis: not only as an environmental emergency, but as an information one.

For the first time at the UN level, governments are explicitly committing to protect science-based climate information, support independent journalism, improve transparency, and counter disinformation that undermines public understanding. In simple terms, the Declaration recognizes that without trustworthy information, climate policy cannot succeed.

With the EU on board, this commitment gains real force.

Europe is already setting global standards for digital accountability. EU Regulators have begun enforcing platform responsibilities under its Digital Services Act, including recent penalties against major social media companies for failures in content governance. When those regulatory tools are aligned with an international framework focused on climate information integrity, they create a powerful model for how democracies can defend facts at scale.

Another tool that works on the local level? Fossil fuel ad bans, like those put in place in The Hague and Amsterdam, and most recently, Florence, Italy. We don’t need to tolerate false advertising, and like we did with Big Tobacco, we should protect the public from dangerous products and the lies used to sell them.

While the lies haven’t changed much since the 2021 Texas outages, fortunately the unwillingness to accept digital deception has. The Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition’s polling found that in the wake of the 2025 blackout, while many people in Spain had heard one of the false claims, the vast majority were also eager to hold Big Tech accountable.

And sure enough, not long after the EU’s endorsement, Spain announced its intentions to step up its commitment with a decisive move to hold digital platforms accountable for the harm their systems create, from disinformation and hate to the manipulation of public discourse.

By placing legal responsibility on platform executives, criminalizing algorithmic amplification of illegal content, tracking polarization, and protecting minors online, Spain is shifting the focus from surface level moderation to real accountability.

Spain’s reforms recognize that public safety, truth, and democratic stability must not be sacrificed for sake of profit. Together with the EU’s growing commitment to information integrity, marked by signing on to the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, Spain’s move makes it clear that momentum is building for governments to protect their citizens from dangerous disinformation.

In Spain, Amsterdam, Florence, and across the EU, governments have started showing that they can put people before profit. Real accountability is how we protect our communities, our democracy, and our climate future.

Dana Schran is General Coordinator of the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition. Philip Newell is the Communications Co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition.