Disinformation Threatens Climate Action, UN Warns
As the world tries to shift away from fossil fuels at COP29 in Baku, attending officials report how climate disinformation is slowing those efforts. Photo provided by UN Climate Change / Habib Samadov
Inside Climate News
Misleading and false climate content surging through social media and other channels threatens the COP29 climate talks by undermining science-based policy decisions, United Nations officials said.
“We are at the point where the issue of disinformation, the intentional spread of inaccurate information, has been recognized as an urgent threat by the international community at the highest level,” Martina Donlon, head of the climate section of the United Nations department of global communications in New York, said at a Nov. 20 press conference in Baku.
She said a U.N. initiative to tackle the problem, which ranges from outright denial and greenwashing to harassment of climate scientists, is growing quickly. Member countries from three continents, as well as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and U.N. entities like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Organization, have signed on to the effort, she said.
The plan to tackle climate disinformation stems from a commitment in the U.N.’s Global Digital Compact that encourages member countries to assess impacts of mis-and disinformation on global sustainability goals.
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