Essay by Eric Worrall
“False claims obstructing climate action” – like claiming the Spanish blackout was caused by renewables
Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says
False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalised
Damian Carrington Environment editorThu 19 Jun 2025 21.00 AEST
Rampant climate misinformation is turning the crisis into a catastrophe, according to the authors of a new report.
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The researchers found climate denialism has evolved into campaigns focused on discrediting solutions, such as the false claims that renewable energy caused the recent massive blackout in Spain.
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Climate misinformation – the term used by the report for both deliberate and inadvertent falsehoods – is of increasing concern. Last Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, called for misinformation and greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry to be criminalised. On Saturday, Brazil, host of the upcoming Cop30 climate summit, will rally nations behind a separate UN initiative to crack down on climate misinformation.
…She said states should “criminalise misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry” and “criminalise media and advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil fuel companies”. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called in June 2024 for a ban on advertising by fossil fuel companies, calling the firms the “godfathers of climate chaos”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/climate-misinformation-turning-crisis-into-catastrophe-ipie-report
More on the Spanish blackout explicitly mentioned in the article;
The Guardian confusingly conflates two separate events, a new report by our old friend John Cook, and a UN report presented by Elisa Morgera.
On this occasion, UN rapporteur Elisa Morgera actually produced a more extreme report than John Cook. The UN report includes a demand to immediately cancel all fossil fuel exploration. From Morgera’s UN report;
The imperative of defossilizing our economies
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Elisa Morgera*
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58. States should adopt and enforce explicit and time-bound legislative measures:
(a) expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure;
To prohibit new fossil fuel exploration and exploitation, as well as any
(b) To revoke licences for existing fossil fuel exploration and exploitation,163 including for captive and on-grid coal plants;164
(c) To strictly regulate the import and export of fossil fuels;
(d) To prohibit the abandonment of fossil fuel infrastructure without remediation, requiring financial guarantees to cover costs for the environmental management of facility closure and subsequent phases, including regarding extraterritorial impacts;
(e) To clarify how energy services will be maintained and improved through other sources, prioritizing the energy needs of rights holders in vulnerable situations domestically and abroad.
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73. States should:
(a) Inform the public about the fossil fuel industry’s deliberate contributions to the planetary crises and about their human rights impacts over decades;
(b) Ensure that accurate, science-based information is made available to the public on defossilization plans, including the underlying economic and technological assumptions, fossil fuel subsidies inventories, emissions embedded in fossil fuel exports, and plans for the decommissioning of infrastructure;
(c) Avoid loopholes in responsible decommissioning,190 and require independent verification of defossilization and decommissioning plans, and of their implementation;
(d) cross-border advertising;
Ban fossil fuel advertisements, promotion and sponsorship, including
(e) Ensure access to comprehensive education on the human rights risks of fossil fuels, and on the benefits of fossil fuel-free production, consumption and lifestyles; 191
(f) Prohibit lobbying by the fossil fuel industry;
(g) Require private financial institutions and universities to disclose publicly, including on social media, funding amounts, durations and any conditions from the fossil fuel industry;
(h) Criminalize misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry, including failure to disclose corporate lobbying activities or to provide remedies for harm;
(i) Criminalize media and advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil fuel companies;
(j) Criminalize attacks against environmental human rights defenders, including from judicial harassment tactics,192 in addition to enhancing environmental human rights defenders’ protection and access to justice and effective remedies.193
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Read more: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/59/42
Morgera’s report is available here. Cook’s report, Recommendations for Improving Information Integrity about Climate Issues, is available here.
Cook’s report also calls for more censorship, of course, but you have to wade through over 100 pages of what looks like AI generated gibberish to get to the censorship call;
Legislation and regulation. Legislation represents collectively agreed rules of social and human coexistence, including principles and procedures governing the exchange of information and the expression of opinion. While digital platforms and other media of communication, to an extent, regulate themselves internally and in dialogue with their users, the record regarding information integrity about climate science, as documented in this report, indicates the need for enhanced governance in the public interest.
Read more: John Cook’s report
Despite the absurdity of UN demands for a total stoppage of fossil fuel exploitation, and John Cook’s ongoing global conspiracy claims, the climate censorship movement is a very real threat to our freedom. The censorship movement is much bigger than a bunch of disgruntled academics and big oil conspiracy theorists, and may even threaten free speech in the USA.
In 2024 Elon Musk accused the European Union of offering a secret deal to X, where X would be immune from prosecution for violating Europe’s Digital Services Act, in return for allowing European officials to secretly censor the entire X platform – including content US citizens produce and read. Musk claimed other major social media platforms accepted the secret deal.
If Musk’s claim is true, the only reason the majority of US social media content is not being routinely illegally censored remotely by Europe is Musk had the guts to stand up to the EU, and because President Trump and Vice President Vance backed Musk with threats to withdraw the USA from NATO if Europe persisted with trying to censor free speech.
I applaud people like Musk, Trump and Vance for standing against the forces of global censorship and tyranny, I just wish more global leaders were standing next to them.
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When they arrest Guttieres for saying the oceans are boiling, maybe I’ll start to believe, just a tiny bit, that they’re on the right track.
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW, another leftist bonehead pushing for criminalizing free debate because he wants to push his planetary savior agenda without any opposition allowed.
This is evidence that what he proposes is nuts!
What’s the UN’s definition of “climate misinformation”, anything that pokes holes in the climate crisis argument? The reality is that the main reason the UN supports the lie in the first place is that they continue to believe that with enough alarmist rhetoric it’ll be able to convince member nations to enact some sort of global carbon pricing agreement that will enable it to transfer wealth to the developing world, not to arrest any climate change threats. Except the UN is overlooking several crucial facts; namely, carbon pricing was either never adopted en masse by the advanced countries in the first place, and the developing world has been consistently rejecting any suggestions that they abandon fossil fuels whose use has been steadily increasing there for expedited economic development.
The only reason they want to give money to the developing world, is to take it away from the West. They want us to be the third world.
Prosecute climate misinformation? Michael Mann already has enough legal problems.
Not much of a coincidence that the EU just announced their own DNS (domain name service, the directory of the Internet) that will “protect” EU citizens from malware, scams, and likely sites containing “misinformation”.
Censorship by any other name is just as sour.
Being original climate nazis, I guess you would want to criminalize contrary facts……
The UN is a criminal organization. Disband it. Demolish the NYC buildings. Make a park.
“Demolish the NYC buildings”
No . Give it to T2T.
https://t2t.org/
Turn it into a Supermax prison while in session. All the UN felons are already there.
That could well be a double-edged sword. How sweet that would be! I just commented today on a news article where an alarmist demonstrated that she doesn’t have a clue how color works and why chlorophyll looks green.
Totalitarians have always tried to control speech.
That’s us fucked then
Al Gore look out…….
Under this option to jail the misinformation producers then all of the BBC natural History team and Sir David Attenborough will be soon in jail.
More tumbling walrus due to climate change…..anyone?
I agree! All these lie spewing scumbags pushing “climate crisis” crap need to be put in labor camps.
From the article: “Elisa Morgera, called for misinformation and greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry to be criminalised.”
As far as I know, the fossil fuel industry is not actively spreading misinformation, nor are they greenwashing. For the most part, fossil fuel companies are trying to keep their heads down and seem to be happy with an “all of the above” energy policy as a sop to their critics.
I doubt Ms Morgera could even give us an example of fossil fuel misinformation or greenwashing. It’s not happening.
The UN should be criminalized.
I suddenly wonder whether the UN could be indicted in the US under the RICO Statute.
“infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations” and “illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce” certainly seem to fit the UN bill.
The real crisis is these totalitarian jerks who want to control every aspect of our lives predicated on the made up AGW scam.
The idea is to prevent any view but THEIR view from being available.
I wonder if all the other nations understand the United States Constitution well enough to figure out what it means for them to try to interfere with free speech in this country. It is quite literally an act of war. Against the United States of America. It’s hard to imagine what the response might be, but I hope they don’t FAFO.
We can put an end to this kind of talk by shutting off all gas delivered to all UN facilities, shutting off all fossil fuel or nuclear generated electricity,
confiscating all internal combustion vehicles used for or by the UN. Prohibit all deliveries to UN facilities by internal combustion vehicles. Prohibit travel to or from the US via fossil fuel burning transport for all UN representatives and their staff. Turn off all fossil fuel generated energy at their residences in the US. Disallow internal combustion vehicles for their personal transportation in the US. There is no reason to not give these people what they want.
The matter will be settled in a week or two.
The Neo Catolic Church is back for revenge against The Enlightenment and its science?