So here we are again — the United Nations, ostensibly the world's premier defender of peace, human rights, and international cooperation (joke, joke), is now stepping front and centre in the battle over what we are allowed to say about climate change. But instead of championing open inquiry, it looks increasingly like the UN is endorsing a global information regime that could muzzle dissent and narrow public debate. True to UN form.
At the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, a group of countries endorsed what was called the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change and its associated Declaration on Information Integrity. On its face, the initiative aims to combat disinformation, protect scientists and journalists from harassment, and support accurate reporting on climate science.
Sounds reasonable — until you take a closer look.
So, What Is This "Information Integrity" Push?
According to official United Nations documentation, the initiative is meant to empower people, give them choices, protect freedom of expression, and help them make informed and independent decisions about climate issues. It emphasises supporting a diverse and resilient media ecosystem and shielding vulnerable voices from targeted attacks or manipulators. That sounds pro-free speech.
But critics have raised alarms — arguing that the language and intent behind the declaration could be twisted, or already is being framed, as a license to define and police acceptable opinion. They worry that "fighting disinformation" can easily slip into suppressing dissenting viewpoints — especially those that question the mainstream climate narrative or challenge costly policy prescriptions tied to net-zero targets.
Where the Line Between Facts and Dissent Gets Blurry
For many sceptics, the devil is in the definition — who gets to decide what is "false information" versus legitimate debate? In the UN's own phrasing, the initiative seeks to "boost support for urgent climate action" and tackle denial, misinformation, and disinformation. That's where things get sticky: supporting climate action is a policy choice. And when an international bureaucratic body endorses a particular policy and a sweeping campaign against "misinformation," the risk is that disagreement itself becomes treated as misinformation.
Opponents, like me, argue that this effectively makes the UN a global referee for truth — especially in media and online discourse. In our view, this doesn't just challenge freedom of expression, it clips its wings, by delegating to diplomatic consensus what should be settled through open scientific debate and democratic processes, not through declarations by governments.
Why This Matters: The Free Speech Dimension
At stake isn't some fringe argument found only in obscure corners of the internet — it's the principle that societal decisions should be made in a marketplace of ideas, not a curated set of "approved facts" by the globalist New World Order.
There is a real risk that, under the banner of fighting fake information:
dissenting scientists,
critical journalists,
alternative policy advocates,
…might be lumped in with manipulative bad actors, rather than heard as part of an honest debate. And while very few serious thinkers deny climate change as a physical phenomenon over millions of years, if not billions, many legitimately question the severity, causes, or appropriate policy responses of present policies which threaten to deindustrialise the West. Should those voices be erased from public space? That's the free-speech question that gets lost when anti-disinformation measures become indistinguishable from anti-dissent measures.
Balancing Act — Or Balancing Act Torn?
It's worth recognising that misinformation and harassment — whether about climate, elections, or health — can and do harm democratic discourse, public trust, and social cohesion. There's broad agreement among observers — and within UN texts themselves — that disinformation should be addressed in a way that respects fundamental freedoms, including free expression and access to diverse viewpoints.
But there's a big difference between countering outright deceit and deciding what is "truth" in a contentious political and scientific debate. The UN's current trajectory blurs that line, drawing it alarmingly close to an institutional embrace of speech governance loosely justified in the name of supposed climate urgency, which is open to challenge.
The Real Free-Speech Threat Isn't Debate — It's Certainty
If the UN's efforts ultimately narrow the permitted boundaries of discussion — by delegitimising certain perspectives as "misinformation" — then free societies could well find themselves less free, not more informed.
In an open society, questions should be argued, evidence weighed, and assumptions challenged. If the UN truly wants information integrity, it should champion transparency, open inquiry, and a pluralistic media landscape — not signalling that certain ideas are off-limits to polite conversation.
Because in the long run, efforts to protect people from ideas risk turning into efforts to protect power from criticism — and that's a far greater threat to democratic discourse than any climate "denial" ever was. And the UN just might be wrong about climate change, like it has been wrong on almost everything else!