*[Enwl-eng] Climate disinformation: who tried to FLOP COP30 but didn’t stand a chance
ecology
Date: чт, 20 нояб. 2025 г. в 23:46
Subject: Climate disinformation: who tried to FLOP COP30 but didn’t stand a chance
Climate disinformation: who tried to FLOP COP30 but didn’t stand a chanceThe breakthroughs of a historic COP for climate information integrity
In
previous editions…
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Oii (Hi!), from COP30 (again), where by now no one has any doubts: safeguarding climate information integrity is key to making climate action work.
A lot of people stopped me in the halls of Belém to ask whether, five years ago, when I created Lies Have a Price (‘Mentira Tem Preço’) to expose the cost of the supply chain of climate lies, I ever imagined we’d make it onto COP30’s official agenda. And the answer is: I did imagine it. Or better: ÉGUA! My favorite expression from Pará, said with all the affection it deserves.
Seeing history change while you’re part of the solution is what keeps me going.
For the first time, climate information integrity entered COP’s official agenda, with a Brazilian special envoy: Frederico Assis. The opening came with a speech by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stressing the need to deliver “a new defeat to climate deniers.” One week later, the UN Secretary-General stated: “There can be no climate action without information integrity.”
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The second achievement was also unprecedented: a collective movement involving hundreds of people and organizations from science, technology, grassroots leadership, journalism, advertising, health, and the socioenvironmental and private sectors. This ecosystem understood that climate disinformation affects us all. That’s why they came together to demand concrete solutions, formalized in an open letter published by CAAD on November 12. It was powerful to open this conversation inside the COP with so many committed people.
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The third breakthrough was the launch of the Declaration on Information Integrity, with João Brant (Brazil’s Secretary for Digital Policy), Charlotte Scaddan (senior UN advisor), Guilherme Canela (UNESCO director) and representatives from the new signatory countries. The document is clear: countries commit to promoting information integrity at every level — international, national, and local — while respecting human rights and the principles of the Paris Agreement.
As Brant announced the new signatories, his phone kept buzzing. Two more countries had just joined. Total at that moment: 13 committed nations.
The fourth achievement is ours: we launched the Climate Information Integrity Dossier, in three languages (Portuguese, English, and Spanish), in both digital and print formats. The dossier reveals the cost of the climate-lie supply chain and highlights an essential point: the new wave of climate denial is economic.
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(Side note: the COP president himself, André Corrêa do Lago, said exactly that in an interview with TV Brasil.)
The fifth achievement was witnessing a wave of integration around this agenda: more than 100 panels and activities with partners discussing information integrity — on social media, in action plans, in ongoing projects, in conversations, and on COP stages.
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Ship’s log: millions of people pulled into the daily stream of climate lies at COP
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After coffee came the lie of the day. Sounds like a joke, but that’s really how our mornings started. And the numbers were influencer-level. By the 17th, we had logged 171 disinformation posts in nine days, each one reaching an average of 300,000 people. The peak came on Day 2, when climate lies reached a combined 17 million.
And speaking of posts: what do most of the top-performing COP posts have in common?
(We’ll get to that.)
The hashtag FLOP30
The anti-COP campaign even had its own hashtag: FLOP30 - 'Flop' means failure.
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Rafa
stepping in to explain Brazilian internet teen slang - feels
like.
Not every disinformation post used FLOP30, but almost every FLOP30 post had disinformation. It’s an old tactic, and definitely not a Brazilian invention. Climate deniers have been calling COP a “flop” on social media since at least COP26. And again at COP27, COP28, and COP29.
This was another finding from the Observatory for Information Integrity (Oii, remember ;), in partnership with a CAAD researcher. Every day, she tracked the 50 most-viewed posts about COP30 and, using our Reference Guide, flagged which ones contained disinformation tactics.
The Lie-O-Meter blew up on the 11th: 17.9 million total reach
On Day 2, the main theme of the lies and distortions was an Indigenous protest at the entrance of the Blue Zone, the official restricted area where negotiations take place. Of all the top-viewed posts that day, 46 percent were filled with lies or misleading narratives made to engage easily.
The targets: Indigenous peoples and activists.
Each post averaged 750,000 impressions and around 30,000 likes and comments. Average, okay? Not the total. The tactics repeat, and so do the prejudices: latching onto whatever is trending to claim Indigenous people are manipulated, or to link activism to terrorism.
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TRUMP
Day 10: 8.7 million total reach
The big engine of disinformation on the first day of the conference was a message from former U.S. president Donald Trump about a story you’ve seen here before: the road that was never built for COP, but that keeps being used as bait. Of the 50 most-viewed COP posts on Day 10, 18 contained disinformation, with an average reach of nearly 500,000 per post.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
A rough day, and not just for German diplomacy. Almost half of the top posts contained disinformation tactics. Combined reach: 3.6 million. The lie of the day claimed there was a “global feeling” that COP was a total disaster.
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Aldo Rebelo
He owned the spotlight. The former congressman posted stories we’ve mapped countless times: that NGOs “control” the Amazon as if it were under siege, even though we know what actually expanded there was organized crime. And that conservation is the enemy of progress. Straight-up stenography journalism never helps. Guess what happened? A great video to heat up a dead Sunday on social media.
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The price of the coxinha
Days 8 and 9: 8.8 million total reach.
Did you see that? The story about overpriced food in the Blue Zone became a stage for two politicians, Congressman Rogério Barra from Pará (PL) and Senator Cleitinho Azevedo from Minas Gerais (Republicanos), to make baseless accusations about the event’s food-service contract. Barra’s Instagram post reached 578,000 people and Cleitinho’s reached 425,000. Both had more than 20,000 likes, comments, and shares.
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Back to the question: looking across the posts, what did most screenshots have in common?
The bait: warnings about scandal, terrorism, or corruption, without evidence.
Who: politicians (current, former, and aspiring), Revista Oeste, and Brasil Paralelo.
The reputation layer: lots of blue verification badges on Meta and X.
Oii and Mentira Tem Preço are projects by FALA – Impact Studio
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2025 Thais Lazzeri
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San
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Date: пт, 21 нояб. 2025 г. в 09:45
Subject: Fwd: Climate disinformation: who tried to FLOP COP30 but didn’t stand a chance
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