I was catching up on the news when a headline from Brazil caught my eye. COP30’s presidency has initiated a global call to address what they are identifying as climate disinformation. Not soft miscommunication. Not public confusion. Disinformation. The kind that spreads fast, wears the voice of someone familiar and takes root before facts can catch up. Proposals are now open for groups around the world, especially from the Global South, to build tools that defend truth in the climate fight. It felt overdue.
Just days earlier, a friend had sent me one of those familiar, long WhatsApp messages claiming that Oman’s newly announced wind farms will “vacuum the clouds", blaming recent shifts in rainfall on clean energy. There was no evidence cited, no meteorological data, just a concerned tone and sweeping conclusions. The message sounded scientific, but it wasn’t. It had already moved through three different WhatsApp groups before anyone asked if it was even true.
This is the thing about climate disinformation. It doesn’t always come in shouting. It slides into chats, dressed like a question or a worry, and before long it shapes how people vote, what policies they resist, and what solutions they no longer believe in. These stories reshape trust, rewire public emotion and wear down resolve. The issue extends beyond merely fake news; it revolves around narrative warfare. Sometimes these narratives deny the science altogether. Sometimes they delay action by saying the transition is too expensive or too fast. Sometimes they distort a single event, like a cold spell in winter, to argue the planet is not warming. Sometimes they distract, pointing at litter or plastic waste and insisting we focus on that instead. And more often than not, they greenwash. They make emissions look cleaner than they are. They make fossil fuel companies sound like climate champions.
This is not theory. This is everyday life. This is watching your neighbours grow sceptical of wind farms. This is hearing someone on the radio say climate change is just part of a cycle. This is seeing an ad that calls petrol clean because the font is green and the background has a leaf.
Researchers have mapped how to respond: detect, deconstruct, debunk and then deploy the truth in ways that travel just as fast. But most of us are not researchers. So what do we do?
We pause. We ask where the story came from. We verify the date. We compare it to trusted reports, like those from our Meteorology Officer and international bodies like the IPCC. We ask who benefits if we believe it. And we respond gently, clearly and early, before the story hardens into belief. That is called pre-bunking, and it matters more than we realise.
This work cannot take place on the periphery. The mayors of London and Paris have warned about how disinformation campaigns, some even funded by fossil fuel interests, have undermined clean air zones and delayed much-needed reforms. The same is true here, though the disguise may look more local, more familiar. It is not always loud, but it is always strategic. And the longer it goes unchecked, the harder it becomes to move forward.
Oman has no time for this. Our fisheries are exposed, our coasts are shifting and our cities are already contending with more extreme weather. The farmers of Al Batinah do not need myths about solar farms. They need facts that help them adapt to drier seasons. Every minute we spend chasing rumours is a minute we lose preparing the systems that will carry us through what is coming. Climate disinformation is not just frustrating. It is dangerous. It erodes trust. It slows response. And it isolates people from the truth at the moment they most need to act on it.
If you have encountered this information, whether it landed in your inbox or appeared on your screen, understand that you are not imagining it. Recognise that it carries weight and is not without consequences. We also know there are effective ways to counteract it. This can be achieved not through argument or confrontation, but through clarity, context and care. The message from Belém serves as a reminder that the fight for climate action extends beyond boardrooms and summit halls; it unfolds in family chats, group messages and during our morning scrolls.
And in that space, each of us has a role. Truth travels slowly. But it still arrives if we make room for it and protect it.
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