COP30 Makes History: Information Integrity Finally Gets a Seat at Climate Table

By: Abudu Olalekan

If you’re here for the quiet, make-or-break wins of climate talks—this one’s worth sticking around for. It’s not the flashy emissions-cut promise you see on billboards. But it might just be the thing that keeps all those other promises from unraveling.

Here’s the thing about COP meetings. They’re loud. They’re full of suits and speeches that drag on. A lot of the time, you leave wondering if anything actually got done. But at COP30 in Belém? Something shifted. For the first time ever, countries stuck “information integrity” right into the final Mutirão Decision.

Yeah. You read that right. This isn’t a tiny tweak. It’s the first time information integrity’s been formally woven into international climate governance. Finally—someone’s saying out loud that you can’t fix a crisis if the facts about it are getting twisted to bits by lies.

This didn’t pop up out of nowhere, though. Back in 2024, Brazil, the UN, and UNESCO launched the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change. It’s a ragtag group, at first: 14 countries, plus international organizations, civil society folks, and academics. All of them tired of climate disinformation. Tired of scientists getting harassed for just doing their job. They wanted to shore up real research, get better at talking about climate facts clearly, and make policies that actually fights the lies clogging up the conversation.

The Mutirão Decision? It’s proof that work didn’t go to waste. It’s a real step forward. A way to say, “We see the risks in how climate info gets messed with—and we’re gonna stop ignoring it.” It gives everyone a starting point to work together on this, not just fight it alone in their own countries.

Then there’s the Belém Declaration. 17 countries signed it at COP30. Three more hopped on after Belém, too. That’s 20 now, if you’re counting. The declaration’s not just a piece of paper with signatures. It says we need to act fast on climate disinformation, on denial, on the folks attacking scientist for speaking up. And the countries that signed? They promised to actually do stuff—not just talk.

What kind of stuff? Well, for one, making policies around information integrity that don’t forget about human rights. Then, helping media outlets that are trying to tell the truth stay afloat—’cause good, honest media’s pretty important here, right? Also, making sure regular people can get climate info that’s reliable and easy to understand, not just confusing jargon-filled reports. And putting money into research on this, especially in developing countries where they don’t have as much cash to spend on it as richer places do.

This declaration’s part of the COP30 Global Climate Action Agenda, by the way. And it’s still open—any country can sign on if they want to get in on this.

Oh, and before COP30 even kicked off? The European Union did something first. They put information integrity actions right into their Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. That’s a first. Now other countries have a example to follow, if they’re ready to take this seriously.

Here’s the takeaway, really. Climate action’s hard enough without lies mucking it up. By putting information integrity into COP30’s outcomes? The world’s set a new benchmark. It’s saying that the facts matter. That you can’t build a better, cooler future if you’re working with fake info and lies.

You can read more about all this over at Reportersroom’s site—just head to reportersroom.com/cop30-info-win (we kept that short, promise). It’s the kind of win that doesn’t make the evening news. But it’s the kind that keeps all the other climate wins from falling apart. No more letting lies derail the work that actually keeps people and the planet safe. This is the quiet foundation we’ve needed for a long time.