If you’ve scrolled through social media recently, you may have seen reports that Belém, the Amazonian city hosting this year’s COP30, is currently under water. The video, showing dramatic floods and frantic news coverage, has been shared thousands of times across multiple platforms. Luckily, none of it is real. According to Brazil’s Observatory for Information Integrity (OII), the reporter, the crowds, the floodwaters, even the cityscape itself, are entirely AI generated. It’s just one example of a growing global challenge: climate misinformation, a term used for both deliberate and unintentional falsehoods about climate change. The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) warns that the human response to the climate crisis is being obstructed by the circulation of misleading information about the nature of climate change. And it’s becoming an increasing problem — the Coalition Against Climate Disinformation reports a 267% surge in climate-related falsehoods between July and September 2025 alone ahead of COP30. Brazil’s President Lula declared last week that this year’s COP30 must be “the COP of truth” , urging the world to come together to “defeat” climate denialism and fake news in his opening remarks to the conference. As world leaders gather this week in the Brazilian Amazon, the call for transparency, factual accuracy and candour seems more important than ever. The Information Crisis Meets the Climate Crisis We are in the midst of a transformation of the digital news ecosystem. The expansion of online social networks and increased automation are rapidly changing the speed and the way misinformation about climate change spreads globally, with AI now generating plausible but false content at scale, manipulating imagery, and amplifying polarising narratives through algorithmic targeting. False narratives spread through media have been found to be diminishing public trust and policy coordination, creating a ‘feedback loop’ between scientific denial and political inaction. The recent findings of the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Perception Survey corroborates this: in both 2024, and 2025, experts identified “misinformation and disinformation” as the world’s biggest short-term risks, with “extreme weather” and “critical changes to Earth systems” being the greatest long term concerns. In June 2025, the United Nations also confirmed this in its own inaugural Global Risk Report which categorised 4 groups of 'Global Vulnerabilities':
- Technological risks: Cybersecurity breakdown; AI and frontier technologies; technology-driven power concentration
- Societal risks: New pandemic; biorisks; mass movement of people
- Environmental risks: Natural resource shortages; biodiversity decline; natural hazard risks; large-scale pollution
- Political risks: Mis- and disinformation
With the world heading for 2.8°C of warming by century’s end under current policies, according to a United Nations assessment released in October, COP30 presents an critical opportunity to act — and for communicators, underlines the importance of information integrity as a core component of climate strategy.
The Regulatory Response
Climate misinformation is now a boardroom issue as well a social one, particularly in the UK and EU. For many brands, the proliferation of misleading narratives poses a material risk to investor confidence, brand equity and reputational credibility. It is also being met with heightened regulation.
The European Union is now implementing the Digital Services Act (DSA). While the DSA doesn't explicitly list "climate misinformation" as a systemic risk, it has been integrated into a Code of Conduct that, under the DSA, now requires platforms like Google, Meta, and TikTok to take steps to mitigate risks like disinformation, with non-compliance leading to investigations and potential fines. Meta and Apple have already been penalised under the DSA and X, formerly Twitter, is also under investigation.
Elsewhere, the EU’s Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition will become national law in member states from March next year, which intends to “forbid” vague environmental claims, meaning that companies will “no longer be able to declare that they are ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ if they cannot demonstrate that they are”.
Here in the UK, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is actively cracking down on climate misinformation and "greenwashing" through a dedicated initiative launched in 2021, featuring proactive monitoring, updated guidance, and targeted investigations across high-impact sectors.
This regulation moves mark a shift from voluntary responsibility to legal accountability. For corporate communicators, this means that sustainability storytelling must meet the same evidentiary standards as sustainability reporting.
AI: A Double-Edged Sword?
AI arguably sits at the heart of both the problem and the solution. Generative AI tools can be used by bad faith actors to produce fake imagery of natural disasters, distort data, and fabricate scientific sources. However, there is potential for companies to harness these same technologies for good - to detect manipulated content and create digital listening tools.
In this way, AI becomes not a threat, but a tool for information integrity — when guided by human ethics and oversight.
Lessons for reputational resilience
These developments point to a new era of accountability. Brands must be aware of the fluctuating regulatory environment and conscious that the legal landscape around misleading content is evolving. There is need to be thoughtful around the risks this presents to creating messaging content, as, according to the CMA, 40% of ‘green claims’ online may be misleading. ESG related claims should be verifiable and consistent – inconsistencies, even small ones, can quickly erode credibility in the era of social scrutiny.
As global leaders convene in Belém, the world will be watching to see whether this will be a conference about action and credible commitments – and not, as Lula puts it, “just fine speeches and good intentions”.
The Global Push for Information Integrity
Earlier this year, UNESCO, the government of Brazil, and the UN launched the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, supported by countries including the UK, France, Chile, and Morocco. The initiative aims to research and counter climate misinformation, strengthen investigative journalism, and develop evidence-based communication strategies, especially in the Global South, where digital inequalities amplify the spread of false narratives.
It recognises that climate policy cannot succeed without climate literacy. Information integrity has become a cornerstone of environmental progress — and a defining test of global leadership.
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