Newsletters COPNewsletters | COP

COP LOOK LISTEN ISSUE 05 | 14 NOV 25

Climate Disinfo Digest Issue 14 November 2025

Well friends, we made it to Friday! Week one of COP30 is almost over!

And as negotiators sweat it out in Belém, the PR world is working just as hard polishing the image of the very industries fueling the crisis. Edelman – well seasoned in scrubbing reputations after getting caught working for the Koch network and helping ADNOC’s Sultan Al Jaber spin his way to COP28’s top seat, the PR firm is now proudly running the official comms campaign for our COP30 hosts.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel lobbyists have turned up in record numbers. According to the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, one in every 25 COP30 attendees represents fossil fuel interests—the largest share ever. With those numbers, fossil lobbyists don’t just have a seat  at the table—they’re here to make sure the meal never gets served.

And as Climate Action Network’s daily COP ECO bulletin notes, maybe it’s time to ask not just who’s speaking at COP30 but who’s scripting the green fairytale.  Because what could go wrong when the masters of spin are in charge of saving the planet’s image?

It’s not like there aren’t other options available for PR help. ACT Climate Labs reminds us there is a path to redemption to ending the flow of money and messaging that props up pollution, while Creatives for the Climate offers influencers a creative integrity playbook so they can avoid being exploited by evil liars.

Failing that, any true believers in climate change who are nonetheless trapped at an employer who does bad things, and you’re not brave enough to leak things and quit, try out the Edelman-aimed meditation app for surviving the climate breakdown – voiced in the soothing tone of fossil PR itself. Think “smog-breathing exercises” and “lo fi beats to frack to”.

Breathe in profit, breath out responsibility.

FINDING OF THE DAY

Who supports climate disinformation in the UK through advertising? Plenty of big companies, it turns out, like BMW, Chase Bank, Tesco, McDonalds, HSBC, IKEA, Amazon, Barclays, Disney, Samsung, Sky, Virgin Media, Wayfair, and even The National Lottery. Those are just some of the companies who advertised on Talk Radio, Talk TV, and GBNews TV and Radio over the past four months, while the outlets polarized their audiences against COP30 with hostile coverage that ramped up as the negotiations approached.

In honor of Badvertising’s tobacco-fossil crossover ads taking over the Tube this week, today’s findings are focused on the UK’s broadcast media, based on research conducted by Reliable Media, which runs the Stop Funding Heat campaign. They monitored British media broadcasters TalkTV/Radio and GB News (AKA “Britain’s Fox News”) between July 1 and November 9th of 2025 to see how these outlets were covering the lead-up to COP30, following from research on GB News conducted during COP29. They found nearly 200 segments (each segment is 30 mins of broadcasting time) which we’ve described here, so that you don’t have to subject yourself to them.

Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV and Radio really outdid themselves on COP30 – 84 of 89 segments were  hostile. Just  five managed to be neutral or positive. So while some 97% of climate scientists agree it’s a crisis, 95% of Talk coverage insists its not worth fixing. How balanced!

No wonder Rupert Murdoch earned the moniker “climate villain” from scientists. Stop Funding Heat’s findings called this months ago: Talk is a major UK source of climate denial.

Over the summer, Talk barely mentioned COP30.  But by October, coverage had tripled to a daily mention, and overwhelmingly negative. The turning point? October 20, when Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to attend the climate summit. Before that day: zero mentions. But after? Eleven half-hour segments attacking COP and the PM’s attendance, including seven consecutive hostile half hours during key morning commute times between 6:30 and 10am. Priorities, right?

Between November 1st and the start of COP30 on Nov 10, Talk averaged nearly four hostile segments a  day. Climate action was called a “con”. Science was smeared as “mass climate psychosis.” And for comic relief, there was the usual “hypocrisy!” tropes and playground insults, lobbing lazy but alliterative ad hominems at politicians, like calling Ed Miliband “the UK’s gormless Green Goblin in Chief.”

Over on GB News, known for its climate disinformation, denial and conspiracy theories, its increased MAGA movement left relatively little time for climate between July and October, before hostile coverage really ramped up in the weeks leading up to COP30. And while overall GB News was somewhat neutral to positive about Prince William going to COP30, coverage was decidedly negative when it came to PM Starmer and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband.

That was thanks, in part, to the ReformUK appearances, such as Deputy Leader Richard Tice worrying on October 21st about being “mugged” if he went to Belém, before suggesting to “follow the money.” Okay, we did and we found this lovely headline from DeSmog last summer: Who Funds Reform? Nigel Farage’s Party Received 92 Percent of its Donations from Fossil Fuel Interests, Polluters, and Climate Deniers . Neat!

That sort of self-serving, false-advertising-as-partisan-news coverage serves to pressure UK conservatives, over half of whom actually support the Net Zero goal, into rejecting climate action, while also serving to warp the perception of others into underestimating the widespread popularity of climate action because the disinformation is more prevalent than unspoken public support.

In addition to the partisan propaganda, there was plenty of the standard “discourses of delay” fare, and of course the declaring this COP, like others before, a FLOP (because it rhymes! So clever!) one of the other major narratives across the channels was the old reliable charge of hypocrisy, because how dare people travel!… to a conference about how we need to change travel systems, among other things, because of the use of fossil fuels.

Fresh disinfo narratives are hard to come by, maybe because the guest list never changes – Rupert Darwall, Craig Mackinlay, Ross Clark, Andrew Montford, and Ben Pile.

Now, let’s talk money. Here’s who’s been advertising on these outlets between July and November 2025 ( there could be  some names you might just recognize!)

  • Talk Radio advertisers included: British Gas, BMW, Chase Bank, Tesco, Sky, McDonalds, HSBC, IKEA, Amazon, PayPal, Barclays, Kia, Hyundai, Disney Plus, Samsung, Aldi, Vodafone, and eBay.
  • TalkTV (YouTube) online advertisers included: O2, Amazon Prime, Virgin Media, GoDaddy, The Times, Monday . com, Wayfair, and Wix.
  • GB News TV and Radio’s advertisers include: Sky, Jet2, The National Lottery, Smart Energy GB, Boxt Energy, and Lebara Mobile.

Sure, British Gas makes sense. But most of those brands brag about sustainability goals, and ESG officers, and all sorts of advertising claiming to be climate-friendly and green.

But if their ads are also funding disinformation, doesn’t that make it all greenwash?

Asking for a friend (AKA regulators in charge of enforcing false advertising statutes.)

Seriously though, as Stop Funding Heat puts it: if companies want to be seen as climate-friendly, it’s time to stop bankrolling anti-climate media.

GOOD TO KNOW

LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS

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.