As the world’s attention slowly pivots toward COP31, scheduled to take place in Türkiye from November 9 to 20, 2026, a new and sobering report from the Forum on Information & Democracy (FID) is demanding that policymakers confront a threat that has too long lingered in the shadows of climate negotiations. The threat is not drought, flood, or wildfire—though those are urgent. The threat is disinformation, the deliberate and systematic poisoning of the information environment that makes meaningful climate action nearly impossible. For years, climate advocates have focused on emissions targets, financing commitments, and technological innovation, but this report insists that there can be no effective climate policy without a robust defense of the truth. The report arrives at a critical political moment, when public trust in institutions is fractured, social media algorithms amplify outrage over evidence, and hostile foreign actors are eager to exploit every division. It urges governments to treat climate denial not as a nuisance, but as a strategic threat to the planet’s future, one that must be met with coordinated, national-level responses before the next round of climate diplomacy begins.
This is not a distant academic exercise. The report, developed in collaboration with government partners from 23 countries, the European Union, and civil society representatives from around the world, offers a comprehensive overview of how nations are—or more often, are not—dealing with climate disinformation. Its findings are deeply concerning, and not because they reveal a lack of understanding. On the contrary, the report shows that many governments recognize the seriousness of the problem, yet almost none have built the institutional machinery required to fight it. At a time when social inequalities are widening, political polarization is hardening, and foreign influence campaigns are becoming more sophisticated, the fragility of our information ecosystem has never been more exposed. Online platforms and artificial intelligence have radically reduced the cost of creating and spreading falsehoods; a single manipulated video or misleading headline can reach millions within minutes. These technologies do not merely facilitate the spread of climate lies—they supercharge them, enabling coordinated campaigns that mimic grassroots movements, manufacture false experts, and drown out legitimate scientific voices. And yet, as the report makes painfully clear, the policy response remains fragmented, reactive, and profoundly inadequate.
The first and most glaring gap identified in the report is that most countries have no national strategy specifically dedicated to tackling climate and environmental disinformation. There are, to be sure, broader disinformation strategies in some nations, and climate change may be mentioned in passing, but rarely is there a dedicated framework that treats environmental falsehoods as a unique category requiring its own set of tools and expertise. This matters because climate disinformation is not just another form of disinformation. It targets science, which relies on a different kind of authority than politics; it operates across long time horizons; and it is often funded by entrenched economic interests, such as fossil fuel companies, that face enormous financial consequences if climate policies succeed. A generic anti-disinformation strategy, focused on election interference or public health, simply cannot capture the specific dynamics at play. The report’s authors emphasize that without a national strategy, governments are perpetually reacting to crises rather than preventing them. They cannot track the evolution of false narratives, coordinate responses across ministries, or build the resilience of communities most vulnerable to manipulation. And in a world where climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent, the cost of this unpreparedness is paid in human lives, as misinformation leads people to ignore evacuation orders, distrust renewable energy, or turn against the very policies designed to protect them.
The second gap is equally troubling: even where existing public policy frameworks address some of these issues, they still fail to adequately account for the distinctive characteristics of environmental disinformation. Platform regulation, for example, often focuses on hate speech, electoral integrity, or public health issues, but climate content receives far less attention. Social media companies have made scattered commitments to remove or label climate denial, yet these efforts are voluntary, inconsistent, and easily bypassed. Meanwhile, climate and advertising-related legislation remains stuck in the past, unable to address new forms of greenwashing, sponsored misinformation, or the subtle ways that algorithms promote sensational falsehoods over sober science. The report argues that this is not merely a technical oversight; it is a structural failure. Climate disinformation is often embedded in broader narratives about economic freedom, national identity, and cultural grievance, making it harder to regulate without careful nuance. But the current policy vacuum has allowed a perverse incentive structure to flourish: the more outrageous the lie, the more engagement it generates, and the more advertising revenue it attracts. Artificial intelligence only deepens this crisis. Generative AI tools can produce thousands of unique, convincing disinformation pieces in seconds, targeting individual users with precision based on their psychological profiles and media habits. Policymakers, the report warns, are essentially trying to fight a high-tech fire with a low-tech hose. Unless regulations explicitly define climate disinformation, require platform accountability, and restrict harmful algorithmic amplification, no amount of tech-focused optimism will solve the problem.
Inside this conversation, there is a human story that must not be overlooked. The report highlights that environmental journalists—the very people who bring us news from the frontlines of the climate crisis—are being left to fend for themselves. This is perhaps the most personal and heartbreaking finding. Despite being explicitly recognized in the Belém Declaration, which called for urgent protection for environmental defenders and journalists, this recognition has not translated into meaningful national policies. In too many countries, journalists investigating deforestation, mining, agribusiness, or corporate pollution face threats, harassment, and even assassination. The report emphasizes that protection for environmental journalists is not a luxury or a secondary concern—it is an essential component of any climate information strategy. If the people who report on the climate crisis are silenced, then every other effort to combat disinformation collapses, because there is no credible alternative to fact-check against. But the report goes further, highlighting the economic sustainability of environmental journalism as a systemic issue. Even in wealthy democracies, newsrooms have shrunk dramatically, and dedicated climate desks are often the first to be cut. This leaves the field open to less scrupulous outlets, funded by industry groups or driven by clickbait, that churn out a never-ending stream of denials and distortions. The report argues that governments and philanthropic institutions must treat environmental journalism as a public good, much like libraries or public broadcasting, and provide the financial support needed to ensure its survival. Without this investment, the fight against climate disinformation is hopeless, because a thriving press is the strongest counterweight to falsehood.
These findings, taken together, paint a picture of a world caught between an unprecedented environmental emergency and an equally unprecedented information crisis. What makes the report’s conclusions so urgent is the timing. With COP31 imminent, Türkiye will become the stage for crucial global decisions, and the report is deliberately designed to inform those conversations. It is not enough, the authors argue, to focus only on the physical dimensions of the climate crisis—temperature rise, sea levels, habitat loss. We must also focus on the information dimensions. A world that cannot agree on basic facts is a world that cannot agree on solutions. This is why the report calls for immediate, coordinated action from policymakers. It demands that governments create dedicated national strategies for environmental disinformation, with clear lines of responsibility and accountability. It urges them to overhaul existing platform regulations and advertising rules so that they genuinely address the distinctive nature of climate falsehoods. It asks them to honor the promises of the Belém Declaration by protecting environmental journalists and investing in the long-term sustainability of their work. And it calls for international cooperation, noting that disinformation crosses borders and that no single country can solve this problem alone.
As we look ahead to COP31, there is a glimmer of hope in the very existence of this report. It shows that the conversation has moved beyond denying the problem to grappling with how to solve it. Governments are sharing data, comparing approaches, and acknowledging their weaknesses. Civil society is pushing for more ambitious action, and the scientific community is increasingly aware of the need to communicate in ways that resonate with ordinary people. But hope must be accompanied by action. The report is not a comfortable document; it is a call to arms. It reminds us that truth is not automatically protected by the legal system or by the business models of tech companies. Truth is a public asset, and like all public assets, it must be cared for, funded, and defended. The fight against climate change will be won or lost not only in the world’s forests, oceans, and energy grid, but also in the stories we tell ourselves about them. If we allow disinformation to thrive, we are not merely losing an argument—we are losing the capacity to act. That is why the FID report, for all its unsettling findings, is ultimately a document of possibility. It maps the gaps, names the barriers, and points the way forward. Now it is up to the leaders gathering in Türkiye, and in capitals worldwide, to make climate action impossible to ignore and too important to be derailed by lies. The next few years will test whether we have the courage to protect not only the planet, but the shared reality on which all action depends.