Health and civil society organisations today called on
WHO member states to recognise climate disinformation as a
public health threat and make information integrity a core
part of climate and health policy, preparedness and
response.
The call comes as concern about the
integrity of the global information environment moves
rapidly up the international agenda. The United Nations has
established Global
Principles for Information Integrity; Brazil, the UN and
UNESCO have launched the Global
Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change;
and at COP30 in Belém in 2025, information integrity was
formally recognised as essential for effective climate
action.
Now the health community is calling for that
recognition to extend to public health: a new report, Protecting
Health in the Age of Climate
Disinformation, produced by the WHO
Civil Society Working Group on Climate and Health states
that “a healthier information environment is not a
communications luxury. It is a condition for climate
justice, public health, and the right to a healthy
future.”
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The report is the first instance of the
health community addressing how climate disinformation
directly and indirectly harms human health around the world,
from undermining emergency warnings and public-health
guidance to delaying policies on air pollution, clean energy
and fossil fuels.
Case studies highlighted in the
report show that climate disinformation interacts with
existing inequalities and power structures. The case studies
include wildfire misinformation in Canada and Maui, backlash
against London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, cascading
climate and information risks during floods in South Sudan,
fossil fuel greenwashing, development narratives affecting
Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia, and attacks on scientists,
journalists and environmental defenders. Those trying to
provide evidence can also become targets.
The report
argues that the climate crisis now demands the same level of
institutional seriousness that public health has brought to
other major information threats. It calls for information
integrity to be embedded across climate and health policy,
rather than treated as the responsibility of communications
teams alone. It also urges stronger climate and health
education that clearly links fossil fuel combustion, air
pollution, harmful exposures, disease and climate change, so
that health professionals are equipped to communicate not
only the health consequences of the climate crisis, but also
its underlying drivers.
Protecting
Health in the Age of Climate Disinformation
highlights the interests and power structures that enable
disinformation to flourish, including fossil fuel
greenwashing and conflicts of interest, and sets out what
WHO, governments, health institutions and civil society can
do to strengthen the integrity of the information
environment.
“In this moment of turbulent
geopolitics and global uncertainty, where vested interests
are clearly backing climate denialism and delay, WHO member
states governments must strive to provide clear, timely,
evidence-based information that empowers people to protect
their health against both a warming climate, and
disinformation aimed at sowing doubt and confusion”,
said Dr Jeni Miller, Executive
Director of the Global Climate and Health
Alliance, and co-chair of the WHO Civil Society
Working Group on Climate and Health. “Governments must
integrate tools for mis- and disinformation response into
how they prepare and communicate heat, wildfire, flood,
storm, drought, and infectious disease
scenarios.
“Climate disinformation is not only a
problem of false rumours and mistruths; it is also a problem
of power, incentives and accountability”, added
Miller. “WHO, its member states, health
institutions and the health community must go beyond simply
providing better information and messaging – they must
establish robust conflict-of-interest safeguards against
fossil fuel greenwashing, and against those who wield
climate disinformation as a hybrid weapon of
war.”
“Climate disinformation is not merely a
challenge for climate scientists or communications teams”,
said Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum,
Head of Climate Change, Energy, and Air Quality
Unit at WHO. “It is a public
health threat that weakens trust, increases exposure to
preventable risks, and delays progress towards a future
powered by clean, cheap, renewable energy – that would bring
huge health gains. The health community has a responsibility
to respond.”
“The health impacts can be immediate
– misleading information can for example discourage people
from evacuating during wildfires or floods, undermine
confidence in heat and air-pollution warnings, interfere
with access to disaster assistance, and create confusion
about health risks during emergencies. But the consequences
also extend far beyond individual emergencies”
said Dr Laura Jung, Chair of the Working Group on
Environment, World Medical Association. “This
report calls for information
integrity to become part of the core
architecture of climate and health policy and calls on the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the member states to
collectively recognise climate disinformation as a public
health threat and develop guidance on managing the
climate-health infodemic.”
“Climate action and
information integrity are two sides of the same coin – a
healthy information environment should not be considered a
lateral issue, but a right that is central to protecting our
health”, said Guilherme Canela, one of
the architects of the Global
Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change.
“To ensure people’s health is protected from the climate
crisis means they must be able to gain access to accurate
and reliable information and trust evidence, and make
informed decisions for their families while holding national
policies that safeguard their health accountable. The Belém
Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change
offers a comprehensive framework, which is relevant for the
climate information ecosystem and for broader discussions,
such as the ones related to health.”
“Public
health starts with protecting people from the conditions
that make them sick. Climate disinformation undermines that
work by obscuring the health harms of fossil fuels and
weakening support for the policies that could prevent
them,”said Dana Schran, Coordinator of Climate
Action Against Disinformation.
“This is why
health institutions must not only protect the integrity of
the information on which public decisions depend, but also
examine how they procure communications services”, said
Schran. “Working with PR and advertising
agencies that also represent fossil fuel interests can
create serious conflicts of interest and undermine public
trust. Ensuring that communications contracts are
fossil-fuel-free and free from such conflicts should be part
of responsible health-sector
practice.”
Andre“Scientists, health professionals,
journalists, indigenous leaders and environmental defenders
who communicate evidence may face harassment, legal
pressure, gender-based abuse and, in some contexts, threats
to their safety,” said Dr. Jose Félix Hoyo
Jiménez of Medecins du Monde. “Protecting
information integrity also means protecting the health and
well-being of people and communities, and recognising the
role that trustworthy information plays in safeguarding
both.”
The report
argues that the health sector is not starting from
zero.
“Decades of tobacco control have shown how
commercial interests can manufacture doubt, distort the
evidence and undermine health policy. The COVID-19 pandemic
exposed how rapidly mis- and disinformation can overwhelm
institutions, fuel confusion and erode public trust.
Vaccine-confidence programs have reinforced another critical
lesson: facts alone are not enough; trust is built through
credible voices, meaningful relationships and sustained
engagement,” said Prof. Ruth Etzel, of
International Pediatric Association.
“The
experience in emergency risk communication has demonstrated
that timely, clear and credible information can save lives.
We have an opportunity to take what public health has
learned from tobacco, vaccines, infectious disease outbreaks
and emergency risk communication and apply it to the climate
crisis, one of the defining health threats of our time,”
added Etzel
The report
argues that the climate crisis now demands the same level of
institutional seriousness that public health has brought to
other major information threats. It calls for information
integrity to be embedded across climate and health policy,
rather than treated as the responsibility of communications
teams alone. It also urges stronger climate and health
education that clearly links fossil fuel combustion, air
pollution, harmful exposures, disease and climate change, so
that health professionals are equipped to communicate not
only the health consequences of the climate crisis, but also
its underlying drivers.
Other conclusions from
Protecting
Health in the Age of Climate
Disinformation:
- Governments
should integrate misinformation and disinformation
preparedness into climate-related emergency response,
strengthen climate and health literacy, regulate
greenwashing and protect policy from conflicts of interest,
and ensure people have timely access to trustworthy
information during heatwaves, wildfires, floods, storms,
droughts and disease outbreaks. - WHO and health
agencies should recognise climate disinformation as a health
risk, strengthen climate-health infodemic management and
help countries develop the capacity to identify and respond
to harmful information narratives. - Health
professional associations and health civil society should
train and protect their members, refuse fossil fuel-linked
sponsorship and strengthen climate-health education. Health
civil society should document disinformation, support
communities and build alliances across health, climate,
journalism, labour, Indigenous Peoples and environmental
justice movements. - Funders should invest in
research, local-language journalism, community-led evidence,
rapid-response capacity and protection for targeted
messengers, particularly in low- and middle-income
countries.
Established in 2019 by WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO
Civil Society Working Group on Climate and Health aims
to foster a strong and sustained health voice, informing
decision-making on climate change nationally and
internationally, and driving urgent action on climate
change. The group is co-chaired by the Assistant
Director-General, Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and
Care, Dr Bruce Aylward and the Executive Director of the
Global Climate and Health Alliance, Dr Jeni
Miller.
Elsewhere, the health community is already
battling the influence of the fossil fuel industry in
advertising and its resulting impact on human health. More
than 119 health organisations have already committed to
no longer work with advertising and public relations
agencies that also serve the fossil fuel industry.
Signatories include major global health organisations and
professional associations such as Médecins Sans
Frontières, Amref Health Africa, The Lancet, the
International Federation of Medical Students’
Associations, the World Federation of Public Health
Associations, the World Organisation of Family Doctors and
the Yale Centre on Climate Change and
Health.
About GCHA
The Global
Climate and Health Alliance is a consortium of more than 300
health professional and health civil society organisations
and networks from around the world addressing climate
change. We are united by a shared vision of an equitable,
sustainable future, in which the health impacts of climate
change are minimised, and the health co-benefits of climate
change mitigation are
maximised.
