Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change will quash climate debate in science and journalism. And Canada is eager to sign on
By Terence Corcoran, National Post, Nov. 19, 2025
The United Nations’ COP30 climate confab in Brazil is stumbling through its final few days with few signs of meaningful agreement on how the 190+ member nations can tackle what UN Secretary-General António Guterres refers to as the “dangerous and existential threat of climate change.”
Despite the usual alarmism, COP30 is bogged down in diplomatic inaction and is “failing to turn promises into performance,” said a Swedish professor. Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said the COP system is “no longer fit for purpose.”
So what is the problem? The latest explanation is that climate science and policy-making has been undermined by a global avalanche of “disinformation, misinformation, denialism and deliberate attacks on environmental journalists, defenders, scientists and researchers that undermine climate action and threaten societal stability.” Online harassment and greenwashing are destroying climate policy-making and must be fought, Guterres said last week.
It was all part of a new UN authoritarian document signed by a dozen countries — led by Canada — known as the “Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change.”
The flexible wording of the declaration, including nominal adherence to “freedom of expression standards,” does not quite hide its overarching interventionist objectives. It calls for “adequate policies to enable and ensure accurate and reliable coverage … on climate and environmental issues, as well as policies on advertising transparency and accountability.”
Reinforcing ‘trust’ by eliminating dissent
Governments, the private sector, civil society and funders must begin implementing science publication policies and protections for climate journalists and scientists who are allegedly currently subjected to “great risk” for their work.
The objective is to “safeguard those reporting on and researching climate issues, enhance public awareness on climate change, and reinforce trust in climate science and science-based policies.” The overall objective, in other words, is to stop the production and dissemination of science perspectives that do not agree with extreme climate catastrophism.
For climate skeptics and critics, however, this alleged need to protect climate scientists must seem like a joke. If anybody needs protection it is the scientists who regularly challenge mainstream data, models and predictions.
Real information culprits are scientists who distort the data
One good example is Roger Pielke Jr., emeritus University of Colorado professor who left his position in part because his critical views on specific climate-related issues sparked reaction. Pielke agrees climate change is a real problem, and supports the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but has been highly critical of other scientists and politicians who distort and misrepresent official data on weather, hurricanes and other climate subjects.
In a commentary posted this week Pielke described how the real aggressors in the climate science world are scientists who are exaggerating the risks and distorting official UN policy. After he delivered a lecture last week at Cornell University on the numerous flaws in claims regarding extreme weather events, another scientist — Cornell’s Robert Howarth — called for the dismissal of the head of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, a professor who invited Pielke to give the lecture. A major debate has since risen within Cornell.
When it comes to harassment and putdowns, the recipients are the scientists, journalists and others who cast doubt on climate science and policies. Branded as climate “deniers” and science “obstructionists” by Guterres and others, they apparently need to be purged from the public debate.
When it comes to harassment and putdowns, the recipients are the scientists, journalists and others who cast doubt on climate science and policies. Branded as climate “deniers” and science “obstructionists” by Guterres and others, they apparently need to be purged from the public debate.
Canada strongly behind censorship declaration
At COP30, however, there is more going on than simply shutting down a few obstructionists. The declaration, co-launched by Canada with the Netherlands, was overseen by Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and former climate activist with Équiterre. Not by coincidence, Équiterre is a member of Climate Action Against Disinformation, an organization headed by Équiterre among other green organizations.
Another group with 200 activist member organizations, including the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, hailed the declaration as a brave new counter to “the degradation and pollution in the information ecosystem.” According to an open letter from the group, the fossil fuel industry and others are guilty of “organized climate obstruction,” which is exacerbated by “the unregulated and unchecked power of Big Tech and vested-interest media” which “mass-produce and disseminate” information that is “hindering climate action.”
Linked to the declaration is the UN Global Digital Compact, a 2024 agreement in which UN nations committed to promote information integrity and “fact-based, timely, targeted, clear, accessible, multilingual and science-based information to counter misinformation and disinformation” that threaten the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In effect, the UN diplomatic machines are gearing up to shut down science and journalism and other material that does not conform with UN doctrine.
COP30 failure blamed on ‘misinformation’
The failure of COP30 in Brazil this week is therefore to be blamed on misinformation that must now be controlled to “empower citizens and societies to respond to climate change.”
Brazilian President Lula described COP30 as “the COP of Truth.” In this case, the idea of people “speaking truth to power” has been turned on its head. Under the Declaration on Information Integrity, Power plans to insist that it alone speaks truth to people.
Roger Pielke, in his comments earlier this week, described his most recent encounter with critics as “The Last Gasp of the Climate Thought Police.” He is optimistic. When I asked Pielke about the declaration, he wrote back: “Efforts to police discourse are doomed to fail, as they have here for decades.”