342: Follow The Money: Who’s driving climate disinformation?
This week we explore why disinformation is accelerating just as the climate stakes are rising, why it may be one of the greatest barriers to collective climate action - and how we can fight it.
About this episode
At the very moment we need clarity and trust, information integrity is being polluted. Disinformation is profitable and the impact on truth is dangerous - and nowhere is this more obvious than in the discourse around climate.
This week, Outrage + Optimism steps into the murky, fast-moving world of climate disinformation. Not simply misunderstanding and confusion, but the deliberate shaping of narratives to delay action, fracture trust, and profit from doubt.
Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson explore why disinformation is accelerating just as the climate stakes are rising, how it feeds on human psychology, and why the erosion of shared facts may be one of the greatest barriers to collective climate action.
Paul brings us a conversation from COP30 with Jake Dubbins, a leading voice at the intersection of advertising, climate and human rights. Together they unpack how fossil fuel advertising, opaque algorithms and the attention economy are shaping what we see, what spreads, and what stalls climate action. And they examine the newly launched Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, a first-of-its-kind effort at the international level.
But can governments, platforms and advertisers clean up a poisoned information space without sliding into censorship? And where should the line really be drawn between free expression and preventing harm?
Learn more:
🛡️ Read the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change
📊 Explore the OECD report on disinformation and misinformation
🔍 Find out about the Conscious Advertising Network and Climate Action Against Disinformation
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe
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Or get in touch with us via this form.
Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
