Oops. Are we doing it again?
On the parallels between climate communications and the disinformation crisis
This newsletter is part of our Climate Communications Insights series. Read all the articles in the series here. 
‘Misinformation and disinformation lead the short-term risks and may fuel instability and undermine trust in governance, complicating the urgent need for cooperation to address shared crises’ (WEF)
‘Fujitsu establishes international consortium to tackle disinformation/misinformation and new AI risks’ (Fujitsu)
“The ability to fabricate and manipulate audio and video threatens information integrity, fuels polarisation and can trigger diplomatic crises…humanity’s fate cannot be left to an algorithm” (UN)
Pedro Sánchez warns of disinformation and climate insecurity as growing threats to European security (La Moncloa)
Looking at 2025 headlines, it is easy to think that we are in an unwinnable disinformation crisis that is destabilising governments, undermining trust in institutions and society and putting humanity’s fate at peril, nothing less. C40 cities have definitely felt the onslaught of increasing disinformation attacks. But a more nuanced insight emerges from a year of grappling with climate disinformation. While we are faced with new levels of mis- and disinformation, our efforts to win the argument are running the risk of repeating the communications mistakes that have resulted in climate inaction.
Trying to reason people out of believing disinformation
Just like with the climate movement, we have seen an abundance of debunking initiatives spring up to factually correct false information and fake news. These well meant campaigns rely on the idea that if people understand the actual facts, then support and action will follow. However, we know from years of neuroscientific research that once people believe a piece of mis or disinformation, it is almost impossible to correct because of the way the human brain works. Research on the effectiveness of debunking and fact-checking is mixed at best, thereby confirming what we know from years of working on climate communications: Don’t bring facts (alone) to a meaning-making fight.
What is worse, many attempts to debunk false information inadvertently spur it on by repeating false claims as part of arguing against them, thereby producing the ‘Illusory Truth Effect’, i.e. people are more likely to believe claims that have been repeated than claims that have not been repeated, irrespective of their veracity.
Trying to scare people out of believing disinformation
A study from a few years ago found that 98% of news items about climate change are negative. I have not seen a study on what the percentage is with disinformation news, but from the sample at the start we can deduce that the same principle is true. The hope in using a fear or threat framing is that it will spring people into action. But, decades of studies on the human brain show that fear does not work as a motivation to act when the threat is diffuse as it is with disinformation. Rather, ceaselessly talking about the crisis of disinformation produces a vicious cycle by increasing overall distrust in facts through a negative spillover effect that decreases the credibility of all knowledge sources. Using fear messaging around disinformation, almost talks the crisis into being.
Compartmentalising the fight
Being faced with unfair and personal attacks, it can be easy to fall into us vs. them messaging when trying to fight disinformation, positioning some as virtuous and others as gullible masses at best or malicious actors at worst. While adopting enemy tropes may drive engagement initially, it can worsen polarisation in the long term and make it harder to reach people outside one’s bubble. Rather than submitting to the normal human instinct to lash out when under attack, what actually cuts through to people is talking about the existing consensus on how many people support a statement (e.g. how many scientists confirm climate change is human-made).
Compartmentalisation is not only a risk when it comes to audiences but also to issues. Over the past year, topic-specific disinformation initiatives have mushroomed addressing everything from disinformation about food, transport, elections and climate change. This development is reminiscent of how for a long time the climate movement lacked intersectionality, failing to connect with other social justice movements (a failure we are still working to course-correct). Rather than focusing on one specific type of disinformation, it would pay to focus our energy on what can be learned from disinformation struggles across issues. While regional and thematic nuance is important, disinformation always targets the same areas of the brain and so similar mechanisms can be used to address it.
Taking my own advice
Having spent two thirds of this newsletter on analysing the problem, let me take my own advice by focusing on actions. While there are some studies that confirm that certain debunking or prebunking interventions had a minimally positive effect on small groups of people across a limited period of time, there is no study I have seen this year that holds more promise for successfully tackling disinformation than what the combined literature on climate communications from the past decade tells us: what works is repeating over and over again stories of climate action grounded in the audience’s values and delivered by trusted messengers. Not only to garner support for climate action, but also to inoculate audiences against disinformation attacks.
What works is repeating over and over again stories of climate action grounded in the audience’s values and delivered by trusted messengers. Not only to garner support for climate action, but also to inoculate audiences against disinformation attacks.
What works is repeating over and over again stories of climate action grounded in the audience’s values and delivered by trusted messengers. Not only to garner support for climate action, but also to inoculate audiences against disinformation attacks.
Help spread INformation by contributing to our Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy
We are seeking innovative, thought-provoking, and informed original research and policy guidelines for our open-call issue, scheduled for publication in Spring 2027.
Your submission can cover any aspect of the urban climate agenda which supports governmental policy to achieve resilient, equitable cities and a world where global heating is limited to 1.5°C. Share your ideas. Shape the agenda. Submit your abstracts by 30 January 2026.
What we are reading
Chiara: I finally got round to reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s written from multiple perspectives and mixes fictional eye-witness accounts of climate disasters with the inner workings of a new UN body called The Ministry for the Future. I particularly enjoyed the chapters that were written from the perspective of the note-taker during staff meetings (been there) or the shorter ones written from the perspective of a personified concept like Capitalism. It strikes the best balance I have seen yet between being realistic and hopeful!
David: I have a fun holiday read This poison will remain by Fred Vargas. Intuitive and unconventional Parisian Inspector Adamsberg decides that three elderly men dying of spider bites is more than a coincidence - against all the instincts of his team. According to the blurb, it’s “playful, thought-provoking, a total delight.” Seventy pages in, I couldn’t agree more.