CAAD_Coalition

@caadcoalition.bsky.social

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Climate Action Against Disinformation A global coalition of 120+ climate and anti-disinformation organisations. https://caad.info/

Screenshot of the NYTimes story downplaying renewables as discussed in the post: headline says "Spain says the sun shields it from rising gas costs. Is that true?" and big red text added over the subhed says: "YES."
Climate disinformation and misinformation refers to deceptive or misleading content that:
Chart from the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report showing the top 10 global risks by severity in the short term (2 years) and long term (10 years), with geoeconomic confrontation and misinformation/disinformation ranked highest in the short term, and extreme weather, biodiversity loss and critical Earth system changes ranked highest in the long term.
Photo of CAAD's press conference showing the speakers and crowd.
Phil Newell, co-chair of the communications working group with Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), said the Joemar Sombero page highlights how AI can help content creators maximize the monetization structure built into social media platforms. "It's an example of how Big Tech has just made it so much easier to use lies to convince somebody to click on your thing, and that gets you some ad money," he said. Even if AI images are low quality, they make it cheap and easier for content creators and, in some cases, bad actors, to create huge amounts of emotionally evocative pictures that generate attention and clicks. Misinformation around natural disasters for financial gain — including climate misinformation — has been a big business for decades, with oil and gas companies spending billions over decades to mislead people about the harm caused by their products. AI has just reduced the cost of making this kind of misinformation to "near zero" and made it easier to spread, said Michael Khoo, co-founder of Upshift Strategies and policy and development for CAAD. "It's just so much more spam on a colossal new level," he said.
Picture of attendees clapping. Crédito: Alex Amaral/FALA
Paulo Sergio Domingues, Justice, Superior Court of Justice of Brazil: I don’t like the term “fake news.” Because it contains the word news, it ends up legitimizing something that isn’t news at all. I prefer to call it what it really is: a lie. I’ve been a judge for many years, and every day I see people presenting different versions of the same facts—not out of malice, but because they have different perceptions of the world. But here, it’s a different story. Here, we’re dealing with deliberate disinformation. We’re talking about lies and distortions designed to generate profit and political advantage. Those who profit from falsehoods are the ones most interested in spreading them. Today, every person is a newspaper and their own editor. Paid influencers, coordinated to maximize engagement, act as a highly effective form of advertising—and they’re a serious concern. Eliesio Marubo, activist and legal counsel for Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley: I come from a region where organized crime prevails, where the authorities are negligent – the political world is deeply connected with organized crime. This led to a deliberate denial in 2022 of the importance of the Amazon and environmental issues, which we had been discussing globally. The result of this is that, in a very dramatic way, of the 5 people who were threatened, 3 were murdered. Only 2 are alive to tell the story. And unfortunately, I am one of those people, who dramatically continues to defend my territory, defend the environment, working as an Indigenous activist and also for environmental causes, making sure that people and the world understand the importance of telling the true story.
Key Commitments: Brazil, the host of COP30, announced their commitment to prioritize information integrity at the upcoming climate summit (COP30) and to expand their efforts in leading the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change. The Brazilian chapter of the initiative is also launching today (26 March 2025). The European Union (EU) warmly welcomed the groundbreaking Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change and announced they are working through the processes for official commitment and financial contributions. The United Kingdom (UK) reiterated their commitment as a founding member of the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change.
Eliesio Marubo, activist and legal counsel for Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley: I come from a region where organized crime prevails, where the authorities are negligent – the political world is deeply connected with organized crime. This led to a deliberate denial in 2022 of the importance of the Amazon and environmental issues, which we had been discussing globally. The result of this is that, in a very dramatic way, of the 5 people who were threatened, 3 were murdered. Only 2 are alive to tell the story. And unfortunately, I am one of those people, who dramatically continues to defend my territory, defend the environment, working as an Indigenous activist and also for environmental causes, making sure that people and the world understand the importance of telling the true story.
Screenshot from the Climate Information Integrity Summit livestream
Screenshot of a slide from the Climate Information Integrity Summit... (I don't speak Portuguese, sorry!)
Screenshot of the panel
Screenshot of presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n72ETZr07C8
Map of 16 million Portuguese instagram posts
Still image of Professor Malini's presentation
Picture from the stage of CAAD's Climate information integrity summit in Brasilia, Brazil
Climate information integrity summit
The study was based on responses from more than 19,000 citizens in 13 EU countries — with 46.6 percent of respondents in favour of a ban, and 24.9 percent opposed. Support for a ban was highest in Greece, France, Spain, and Italy, running at between 56 and 59 percent of respondents. The highest level of opposition (32 percent) was in the Czech Republic, but this was still lower than the level of support in the country (34 percent). The law passed in The Hague prevents advertising for fossil energy contracts, petrol, diesel, aviation, cruise ships, and non-electric cars in publicly accessible places. Robert Barker, deputy mayor of The Hague and a key supporter of the fossil fuel ad ban in the city, said the study showed that more municipalities should follow suit. “Allowing fossil fuel ads while at the same time trying to reduce CO2 emissions is counterproductive,” said Barker. “Advertising normalises behaviour we need to discourage, like frequent flying or reliance on fossil fuels.”
Climate disinformation refers to deceptive or misleading content that misrepre- sents scientific data, including by omission or cherry-picking, in order to erode trust in climate science, climate-focused institutions, experts, and solutions (Climate Action Against Disinformation, 2023b). The spread of climate disinformation is exacerbated by the infrastructural and mediating role of online platforms (d’Andréa, 2020), which con- tinue to shape perceptions and reinforce biases, influencing the public’s understanding of climate change as an established reality (Thapa Magar et al., 2024). This study focuses on how these disinformation dynamics are affecting public discourse in Brazil, a country where online platforms are key sources of information (Newman et al., 2024). Climate disinformation is characterised by the pervasive circulation of environmental topics marked by an overload of posts, contested narratives, inaccurate or false content, the delegitimisation of social movements, and attacks on socio-environmental advocates (Laboratório de Estudos de Internet e Redes Sociais, 2024). This raises critical questions about how these disinformation posts are expressed and experienced — by both com- municators and Brazilian audiences — and their implications for public engagement with climate science.
1. Acknowledge climate disinformation as a major threat damaging the information ecosystem, hindering climate action and policy, risking public safety and health and further widening societal and political divides.