Brazil Presents Pioneering Model for Combating Climate Disinformation at International Webinar

The initiative brings together government, academia, and civil society across six pillars: research, strategic communication, journalism, media literacy, digital integrity, and legal measures. The discussion highlighted progress on this agenda ahead of COP30

Representatives of the Brazilian government, the United Nations (UN), UNESCO, universities, and civil society organizations took part in an international webinar to present the progress made by the Brazilian Chapter of the Global Initiative for Climate Information Integrity. The event brought together more than 100 participants and highlighted Brazil's experience as an international benchmark in tackling climate disinformation and building public policies aimed at promoting safer, more transparent information environments aligned with science.

The global initiative was launched during Brazil's G20 presidency in 2024 and is coordinated by the Brazilian government, the UN, and UNESCO. Brazil is currently the only country with a formally structured national chapter, bringing together government bodies, universities, civil society organizations, researchers, and entities working on environmental and digital issues.

The Deputy Secretary for Digital Policy at the Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic (Secom), Nina Santos, presented the institutional framework of the Brazilian Chapter of the Global Initiative. According to her, the model includes a governmental Steering Committee made up of different ministries, and a Partner Network currently comprising more than 130 civil society organizations.

The network operates across six thematic pillars: research and public discourse monitoring; strategic communication; journalism sustainability and communicator protection; media literacy; information integrity in the digital environment; and legal measures to counter climate disinformation.

"Our intention is to bring this debate to local communities and broaden social engagement with the issue," said Nina. She also highlighted that Brazil is already producing concrete outputs through the initiative, including studies, campaigns, technical guides, and policy proposals.

Charlotte Scaddan, one of the co-chairs of the global initiative, stated that the information integrity agenda has gained international relevance over the past year, driven by growing concern over the impact of disinformation on climate action.

According to her, COP30, held in Belém, marked a historic milestone by incorporating information integrity into the final decision of a UN climate conference for the first time. "We didn't know if we would succeed, but we did," she said. Scaddan also highlighted the launch of the Belém Declaration on Climate Change Information Integrity, which already has 26 signatory countries and international organizations.

UNESCO's Director and Representative in Brazil, Marlova Noleto, emphasized that the climate crisis requires not only funding, international cooperation, and implementation capacity, but also public trust in science, institutions, and the information circulating in public debate.

"When disinformation erodes that trust, it also erodes societies' capacity to act in the face of the climate emergency," she said. In Noleto's view, Brazil now plays a pioneering role in the international agenda by making information integrity a structural pillar of climate policy.

She also recalled that the country has faced extreme weather events in recent years, such as the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, underscoring the need to strengthen reliable information ecosystems. According to the UNESCO representative, Brazil's experience could inspire other countries to develop national chapters tailored to their own political, social, and institutional contexts.

Ambassador Liliam Chagas, Director of the Climate Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), highlighted that the COP30 presidency created an opening to bring information integrity into international climate negotiations. She explained that Brazil used various tracks of the conference to advance the debate, including the Leaders' Summit, the Action Agenda, and spaces dedicated to climate empowerment.

According to Liliam, one of the tangible outcomes was the launch of a Plan to Accelerate Solutions (PAS) related to climate change information integrity. She also stated that the Brazilian government intends to expand this discussion in the UN climate negotiations set to begin in June in Bonn, Germany.

"The time is now. We need the support of all governments and civil society to consolidate this agenda within the climate negotiations," she said.

Marcelo Martinez, Head of the Digital Issues Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasized that establishing information integrity as a diplomatic category is a recent development, resulting from coordination among governments, international organizations, and civil society. According to him, Brazil was able to consolidate this agenda building on prior experience in Mercosur, the G20, and COP30 itself.

Martinez also highlighted that Brazil's tradition of multi-stakeholder governance strengthens the country's engagement in international forums. "Brazil enters international spaces with discussions that have already been developed together with civil society, academia, the private sector, and the technical community," he said.

The Research Director of the Instituto Democracia em Xeque, Letícia Capone, presented the experience of the Partner Network for Climate Change Information Integrity. According to her, the network brings together more than 140 organizations and was built with a focus on regional diversity and the participation of entities representing indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and populations vulnerable to climate impacts.

She explained that the Network operates in a horizontal and collaborative manner, holding seminars, workshops, public consultations, and working groups to produce assessments, campaigns, and recommendations aimed at countering climate disinformation.

Throughout the webinar, representatives from the six thematic pillars presented actions carried out by the network. These include research on Brazil's climate disinformation ecosystem, climate change communication campaigns, legal guides for acting against disinformation, responsible digital advertising strategies, and media literacy initiatives targeting vulnerable communities.

The representative of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Fábio Toreta, noted that the Brazilian chapter emerged in a context of strong political and narrative resistance to the climate agenda. According to him, the creation of the committee made it possible to bring together different areas of government and civil society to address concrete challenges related to disinformation.

Toreta cited debates around Brazilian environmental legislation as an example and stressed that information integrity has now been incorporated into Brazil's Climate Plan, a key policy framework for the country's climate transition.

"Without this coordination, each ministry was dealing with part of the problem in isolation. Today we are able to integrate actions and build coordinated responses," he said.

Participants argued that Brazil's experience demonstrates the importance of cooperation among government, the press, academia, international organizations, and civil society in strengthening public trust in science and enhancing the capacity to respond to climate change. They also reaffirmed that building more robust information environments will be essential to advancing international climate negotiations in the years ahead.