*[Enwl-eng] COP30: The New Climate Denial Is Economic
ecology
Date: чт, 28 авг. 2025 г. в 19:55
Subject: COP30: The New Climate Denial Is Economic
COP30: The New Climate Denial Is EconomicThe dispute is no longer only political or environmental: the new climate denial doesn’t just reject science, it distorts economics - and it’s already impacting COP30.
In
previous editions…
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If this were an open letter to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and to COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, we would say:
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All climate action depends on the integrity of climate information. This is an inescapable fact.
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And no, Al Gore, what we’re experiencing is not just a “very strange moment,” as you said during your recent trip to Brazil. The COP is being targeted. Twenty of the most-viewed posts in July contained lies and reached 834,000 people. These figures are from our partnership with CAAD (Climate Action Against Disinformation), via Brandwatch, in July (see our Climate Disinformation Reference Guide). These posts mainly focused on the housing crisis in Belém, Pará, and used it as a pretext to spread lies and attack COP30 without evidence.
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Climate disinformation is a strategy to block solutions. The economy, and therefore COP30 itself, is at the very heart of the decisions that can no longer be postponed, including the transition to new business models (and their impact on oil-producing countries), resources for adaptation and mitigation measures (and who pays the bill), and the adoption of regenerative agriculture (agribusiness in Brazil is the biggest contributor to global warming).
We have already seen a "test run" of this supply chain of economically-biased climate lies in Brazil. A notable example of this was the last election in the Legal Amazon region. Someone who has worked in the region for decades told me in shock that they had never seen climate disinformation influence the ballot box like this before. And what was this influential lie? The idea that environmental defenders and NGOs want to prevent people in the north from prospering. The effects of this lie were evident in the vote.
The COP president’s worst nightmare does have a solution. As he himself said at the Exchange Summit event with Al Gore, the climate cannot be the agenda of a single ministry (our emphasis). The same applies to information integrity: it must underpin all actions, from those of COP envoys to government ministries, and be integral to all solutions.
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Case Study: Oil Drilling at the Mouth of the Amazon.
No Time for Nonsense.
Human beings lie. Is that news to anyone? I don’t think so. But when lies spread 70% faster than the truth, when they are boosted by algorithms, and when the measure of success is advertising, it’s a whole different ballgame. With this in mind, I invite you to delve into the issue dominating public debate in Brazil and causing the government to take flak from all sides: oil extraction in block FZA-M-59, located 175 km from Oiapoque in the state of Amapá in the Amazon River Basin.
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Source: Arayara.
At the center of the debate is Petrobras, a mixed-capital company and a symbol of progress and sovereignty in the popular imagination (we’ll explain soon why this matters). Here’s a sponsored link from Petrobras that shows up at the top of Google’s first page. The problem? It’s hiding in plain sight, and we’re here to help you see more clearly.
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Recently, after months of pressure, Petrobras received the green light to carry out the first impact test, the final stage of the environmental licensing process. Our friends at Arayara have a monitoring panel with maps, the names of companies involved, and the impacts, and our friends at Greenpeace launched an online petition to pressure the government to abandon the plan. As a result, the subject came back into the spotlight and began to dominate social media.
A qualitative study by Marina Kuzuyabu at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), which became her master’s thesis, analyzed all of Petrobras’ communications about oil exploration in block FZA-M-59 and identified the disinformation contained in these communications, following the definition of disinformation in the European Union’s Code of Practice on Disinformation:
“…verifiably false or misleading information which [...] is created, presented and disseminated for economic gain or to intentionally deceive the public”
Her findings reveal layers of climate disinformation across four categories, led by repeated slogans: “Extraction is…” necessary, safe, and full of opportunities. These clear, easy-to-grasp messages connect directly to both the national and local imagination. All the details are in Marina’s thesis, but she kindly shared with us the documents she obtained through Brazil’s Freedom of Information Law (Lei de Acesso à Informação, or LAI).
1)
Socio-environmental impacts
According to the FGV study,
company representatives informed local Indigenous leaders at a meeting on February 13, 2023, that
Petrobras has never experienced an accident while drilling for oil
offshore. But the data say otherwise: in 2022, there were nine reported oil spills (p. 3), and in
2023, there were seven (p. 126). At another meeting on November 8, 2022, they
also said that emissions of environmentally harmful gases are limited to
the short period of drilling activity. However, the Brazilian Institute of
Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) warns that the impacts
may last "for more than 30 years" (item
II-4).
2)
Marine life in the block area
The company claimed that there was "no biological
formation of interest." However, recent studies have identified living reef
systems that would be directly affected in the case of spills.
3)
Indigenous, quilombola, and traditional
communities
According to the study, Petrobras claims
to discuss everything in meetings with "broad participation of representative
entities" (p. 82). However, the Federal Prosecutors’ Offices in
Amapá and Pará, along with the Prosecutor General’s Office, had to intervene in order to try to
guarantee this. They have not yet succeeded.
Marina spent two weeks in Amapá listening to communities affected by the project. She heard that local people, besides being excluded from the discussions, are also facing threats from politicians and local entities with vested interests in oil extraction. One of the anonymous reports stated:
“You’re labelled as being against the growth of the state, and against the population having access to a better quality of life. Because today, the discourse is that the project will save the state. That's the discourse. Everyone is saying that Oiapoque will be the main city in the state. Everyone’s speaking positively. So, I can see that this idea has entered people’s imagination.”
4)
The confusion around “pollution scopes”
To calculate the
emissions of any activity, including drilling wells and extracting oil,
three categories, or “scopes,” are used:
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Scope 1: direct pollution from production;
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Scope 2: indirect pollution from the energy the company buys;
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Scope 3: indirect pollution from everything that happens before and after a company’s main activities. In the case of the oil and gas industry, most emissions fall into this category, and this is when fossil fuels are ultimately used.
When Petrobras wants to claim that its oil “has a lower carbon footprint than the global average,” it only mentions scopes 1 and 2.
But the company itself admits that more than 90% of its carbon footprint doesn’t come from its own operations (scopes 1 and 2), but from the use of its products by customers (scope 3).
It’s one of those stories that’s easy to miss, almost hidden in plain sight. See it now? Look closely… ;)
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Here’s an exercise: after reading this list, let's go straight to the sixth letter from the COP President:
“Against a background in which climate urgency interacts with compounding geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges, the incoming Presidency hopes we remain guided from now to November by three interconnected priorities: (1) to reinforce multilateralism and the climate change regime under the UNFCCC, (2) to connect the climate regime to people’s real lives, and (3) to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement by stimulating action and structural adjustments across all institutions that can contribute to it.”
André Aranha Correa do Lago
COP30 President Designate
The emphasis is ours. Because climate disinformation is the biggest obstacle to any of the priorities identified by the president.
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Before
the final notices, an important warning:
SUPPORT THE
SCIENTISTS!
Timmons Roberts, a researcher from Brown University who honored us with his presence at our summit in Brasilia in March, is a regular reader and friend of Oii. He has become the target of accusations and legal threats for investigating opposition to offshore wind farms, particularly their connection to conservative networks (as reported by the New York Times and Bloomberg). We offer our full support to Tim and his team in this latest case of legal harassment against universities studying and helping us understand the impacts of misinformation.
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Social
Media Advertising Report Card: grade Z
(zzzzZzzzzZzzzz…)
NetLAB developed the Advertising Transparency Index to rate the
transparency of advertising on social media platforms. Spoiler alert: all
the platforms do very little about this, and the sleeping giants of TikTok
and X do even less.
Oil
extraction does not bring...
...improvements in
poverty, education, basic sanitation, employment, and health indices. It’s
worth reading Rafael Oliveira's report from Agência Pública on one of the most repeated
misconceptions in Brazil, especially for those in the Legal Amazon (hello,
friends!). Oil extraction comes at a price.
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Perplexed
by the Paris Agreement?
It’s an inside joke for those
who work in the climate field — because, let's face it, this is Brazil,
and nothing is ever easy — and the updated guide has just been released by
our friends at LACLIMA, experts in translating legalese,
and the Climate Observatory.
P.S.
For those who want to follow the monthly report, click here!
Accountability
of big tech companies in Brazil: Although it's not
climate-related, PL 2628 is a milestone because it's the first law passed
in Congress to protect children on social
media (Thais here!). As we've been saying for a long
time, platforms are not neutral spaces and
must be held accountable.
Information Integrity on Climate Change has been included in the action agenda for the first time in the history of COPs, and it has a day of its own! Save the date, and we'll see you there: November 12 and 13.
Share Oii - Observatory for Information Integrity - Climate
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Date: чт, 28 авг. 2025 г. в 21:50
Subject: Fwd: COP30: The New Climate Denial Is Economic
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