COP LOOK LISTEN ISSUE 04 | 13 NOV 25

Hello CAADies, welcome back to day 4 of COP30, where the COP of Truth is living up to its name. Yesterday in Belém, after a press conference and 400+CAADies issued an open letter calling for climate action on disinformation, the UN’s Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change launched a first ever Declaration on Information Integrity, endorsed by thirteen countries, including Brazil, France and Germany. The declaration sets shared commitments to counter climate disinfo and defend evidence-based climate action – a COP first!

But while leaders pledge action from the top, the climate disinfo battle is fiercest at grassroots. Today, we’ll be zooming in on climate disinfo in the Global South, thanks to our friends at Roots.

While a few systematic and country-level studies have begun mapping climate disinformation in the Global Majority/South (see today’s Good to Know and Listen to the Experts sections for more!) there’s still a lot left unaddressed, especially from within the most affected communities themselves. That’s where Roots comes in, partnering with CAAD, they’re connecting frontline communities of the Global Majority to build people power and counter disinformation at the grassroots level, driving intersectional and equitable system change from the ground up.

This year, Roots and CAAD launched a Fellowship for Countering Climate Disinformation, with Fellows reporting from all over the world, with case studies rooted in local contexts across the Global South: Nigeria, the Haitian and Panamanian diaspora, Uganda, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Brazil.

We’ll take a quick look at the findings below, but we highly recommend checking out the reports in full!

FINDING OF THE DAY

Individually, each case study explores the consequences of, and potential solutions to, climate disinformation being spread. Together, they show that while local problems are unique, solutions often take a similar shape: supporting authentic local journalism. All over the world, we see digital information vacuums being filled by polluters and propagandists who can afford the infrastructure to produce and spread disinformation. Our best defense is an empowered public – one that fuels investigative journalism not only to expose corruption, but to hold powerful polluters and politicians to account.

To set the stage, Essien Oku Essien unpacked how colonial structures continue to shape African discourse today via modern mutations of British colonial ruling structures that co-opt and exploit existing cultural authorities and hierarchies – embedding narratives of control (disinformation) into religious beliefs to normalize ideologies sympathetic to extraction. “Disinformation’s potency lies not in its volume but in its camouflage,” Essien writes, “embedding itself in everyday talk so that denialist content is received as indigenous common sense rather than foreign propaganda.” We see that credibility camouflage elsewhere in the disinfosphere, for example the mimicking of the IPCC with the NIPCC, or the rightwing National Association of Scholars to mirror the real National Academies of Science in the US.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, fossil fuel interests were camouflaging disinformation as something else: journalism. “From the San Matías Gulf in Argentine Patagonia,” Fabricio Di Giacomo told us, “narratives of progress, development, and well-being are imposed to conceal the terrible consequences of the advancing hydrocarbon extraction industry and to silence the voices of those of us who defend our territories.”

Di Giacomo’s research uncovered a network of “pink slime” fake news pages using advertising to generate millions of views for sponsored content. “This enables a virtually unknown outlet to achieve massive reach: it does not rely on its actual audience, but rather on the financial investment used to amplify its messages,” Di Giacomo writes. “Advertising spending allows narratives with no prior grounding in the region to take hold, displacing genuine public debate and silencing local voices.”

Digital advertising is also a key vector for disinformation in Mexico, where Jacqueline Cruz Aguila found YouTube and Facebook advertisements greenwashing fossil/methane/natural gas as a climate solution that’s clean and safe, through a combination of everything from state-backed communications to spam accounts.

But fossil fuels aren’t safe, and Silvana Arlet Condenzo Pacheco’s research into what happened in Peru after an oil spill shows how disinformation is used to cover it up and shift blame to indigenous communities instead of the company responsible. “Day to day media may seem harmless,” she told us, “but it does stay in people’s minds and influences major decisions, such as giving or not the corresponding aid to indigenous people after an oil spill.”

But it doesn’t take an oil spill for fossil fuels to harm people and the planet. Even in their “normal” operation they inflict damage. That reality was brought to light by Marilia Papaléo Gagliardi’s research on how disinformation is used to obscure the environmental costs of data centers. With public perception clouded by industry greenwashing and government permitting processes tangled in bureaucracy, frontline communities are forced to endure the pollution with no government recourse, or public outcry.

The antidote to disinformation is its opposite: real, independent, community-rooted journalism. In South Africa’s Majuba Village, Cherish Vundisa, shows  what that looks like –  community radio that speaks in the language, culture, and rhythm of its people.  From Uganda’s Ntungamo District, Ninsiima Alison Linda’s research emphasizes the same truth: when trusted local leaders share climate information in ways that fit existing beliefs, people listen.

Across the Global South – and the world -those profiting from pollution pour money into disinformation to drown out the truth, and silence the voices they harm. That’s why CAAD and Roots created the Counter-Disinformation Fellowship: to empower grassroots leaders from the Global Majority with the tools, networks, and power to defend people and the planet from polluters and propagandists.

“Strengthening community capacity to identify and dismantle these communication mechanisms and to build collective tools to counteract them is a big task ahead of us” Di Giacomo told us. “Because in the face of the overwhelming machinery of climate disinformation, organized and informed communities can continue to defend our territories, our sea, and our lives.”

GOOD TO KNOW

Hot off the press! Our beloved Brazilian climate disinfo newsletter, Oii, launched an e-book on climate information integrity wrapping up five years of hard earned lessons from their work in Brazil and with the incredible work we do together at CAAD. Grab your (free!) copy in  English, Portuguese, and Spanish and dive in.

DeSmog’s back at it with a ton of COP30 and Big Ag content! They’ve covered how Brazil’s COP30 Agriculture Sponsors [is] Linked to Deforestation and Land Conflict, they mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30, and Revealed: [the] U.S. Dairy Industry Push to Water Down Global Emissions Framework.

In his study exploring discourses of climate delay in energy transition debates in national media, researcher Guy Edwards dug into Colombian media coverage of climate action, and found that “In all twenty articles analysed, no reference was made to any technical information to substantiate claims made by those opposing the pledge.” No facts. No data. Just vibes – and a lot of hot air.

Episode 8 of DRILLED’s season on Climate Obstruction is focused on “those who will bear the brunt of climate change and have contributed the least” to the problem, the Global South, while Episode 10 looks directly at how the COP process has been corrupted by obstructive forces.

LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS

How is the climate disinfo hivemind reacting to UN’s GIIICC’s Declaration on Information Integrity?

• Laurence Tubiana, CEO, European Climate Foundation & COP30 Special Envoy for Europe says; “...Upholding information integrity is non-negotiable for effective climate action… it’s the foundation of public trust.”
• Damian Collins, former UK Tech Minister “Democracies rely on accurate information to function effectively, especially on existential issues like climate change. This declaration represents an important step in countering harmful disinformation and reinforcing global cooperation for COP30 and beyond.”
• “… [but] we must treat this as a starting point, not a finish line,” added Jennifer Morgan Senior Fellow at Tufts University. “...Governments must immediately hold bad actors accountable for spreading disinformation and … enforce existing legislative safeguards…to fortify our vital information space.”
• Silvana Arlet Condezo Pacheco, CAAD-Roots Fellow from Peru: “I am glad to see that more than 10 countries are now placing climate disinformation in the public eye. In that way, now it is receiving the deserved recognition as one of the defining challenges of our time, which means the obstacle will be reduced.”

Last but certainly not least, Al Gore nailed it (fast forward to 1:08 to get to the juicy disinfo bit!): climate deniers and delayers have mastered the art of flooding the zone. Bots, fake experts, and spin campaigns, bankrolled by fossil fuel polluters, push oceans of disinformation, all to delay the inevitable. As Gore dryly cited Upton Sinclair, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his income depends on him not understanding it.” True that, Al – everybody’s gotta eat, even if it’s off the plate of denial.

If you have any investigative leads CAAD should explore, or want to find out more about our research and intel during the summit, please email [email protected]. We also have members on the ground in Belém who are available for interviews and side-events.