In a packed Brazil Pavilion in the COP30 Green Zone, government officials, UN representatives, advertisers and civil society leaders gathered around a different kind of climate tool. Instead of a new fund or technology, they launched a Statement and Commitment Letter on climate information integrity in digital advertising, treating the quality of information itself as a pillar of climate action.
The Statement was presented by the Brazilian Chapter of the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, a coalition of more than 130 civil society organizations supported by the Government of Brazil, the United Nations and UNESCO. Developed through the Network of Partners for Information Integrity on Climate Change, the letter responds to a clear warning from Brazilian and international experts: without climate information integrity, neither public support nor effective implementation of the Paris Agreement can be sustained.
From side issue to central pillar of climate action
For Nina Santos, Deputy Secretary for Digital Policies at Brazil’s Secretariat for Social Communication, COP30 marks a turning point. She told the audience that “for the first time, the quality and integrity of information have become a central pillar of the climate action agenda,” noting that the capacity to act on climate change is “severely impaired” without reliable information.
She linked the new Commitment Letter to the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change launched the previous day at COP30, already endorsed by twelve countries. Together, the Declaration and the new Statement position climate information integrity alongside finance, adaptation and mitigation as a shared international responsibility rather than a purely national or sectoral concern.
The panel “Information Integrity and Climate Action in Brazil: Synergies between Government and Civil Society” underscored how unusual the coalition is. The Statement emerged from a collaborative process involving more than 130 organizations working with federal authorities.
Letícia Capone, representing the RPIIC network and serving as Director of Instituto Democracia em Xeque, described it as essential to “building a communication space that is reliable, safe, and trustworthy.”
Targeting misinformation and greenwashing in digital ad systems
The Commitment Letter for climate information integrity in digital advertising warns that false and misleading content about the climate emergency undermines public understanding of risk and obstructs the goals of the Paris Agreement. It highlights how digital platforms, advertisers and programmatic intermediaries operate in a system defined by massive data collection, microtargeting and opaque optimization algorithms, which can be misused to spread climate misinformation and greenwashing to highly specific audiences.
The text stresses that advertising on or monetizing platforms that disseminate environmental and climate misinformation threatens human rights, erodes public trust and exposes brands to reputational and legal risks. It also points to a lack of transparency, specific regulation and effective oversight that has allowed manipulation, financial fraud and orchestrated misinformation campaigns through paid and promoted content.
To address these risks, the letter outlines commitments for advertisers, advertising companies and digital platforms. These include avoiding greenwashing, refraining from advertising on pages that promote misinformation, blocking sites created solely to generate advertising revenue, increasing transparency along the advertising chain, improving moderation and recommendation systems, labeling paid content, developing pre-bunking techniques and supporting climate literacy and responsible journalism.
Nelcina Trotta, President of the Brazilian Association of Advertisers, welcomed the initiative led by the Secretariat for Social Communication, arguing that it can “ensure that consumers have access to reliable information, especially on issues related to climate change.”
Legal tools and protection for journalism and defenders
The Statement did not stand alone. During the same session, several complementary documents were presented to operationalize climate information integrity. These included a Legal Action Guide for Climate Information Integrity, a separate Commitment Letter for advertisers, platforms and companies, an overview of the digital climate debate in Brazil, a set of recommendations to promote climate information integrity through the sustainability of journalism and the protection of journalists, communicators and environmental defenders, and a technical note in support of a draft decree on greenwashing.
The Legal Action Guide, available at the dedicated portal on information integrity, provides practical tools for legal actors seeking to safeguard the integrity of climate information in courts and regulatory arenas.
By pairing normative commitments in digital advertising with concrete legal guidance and protections for those who report on climate, the Brazilian chapter of the initiative is attempting to close the gap between principles and enforcement. The package launched in Belém positions courts, regulators, advertisers and platforms as shared custodians of climate information integrity.
As COP30 increasingly focuses on implementation, the Statement on climate information integrity in digital advertising signals that the information environment is no longer a peripheral concern. For governments and companies alike, treating information quality as climate infrastructure may now be a prerequisite for delivering on any other part of the climate agenda.
The guide can be accessed at: https://integridadeclima.org/documentos/guia-para-atuacao-juridica/
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