Essay by Eric Worrall

“False claims obstructing climate action” – like claiming the Spanish blackout was caused by renewables

Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says

False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalised

Damian Carrington Environment editorThu 19 Jun 2025 21.00 AEST

Rampant climate misinformation is turning the crisis into a catastrophe, according to the authors of a new report.

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The researchers found climate denialism has evolved into campaigns focused on discrediting solutions, such as the false claims that renewable energy caused the recent massive blackout in Spain.

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Climate misinformation – the term used by the report for both deliberate and inadvertent falsehoods – is of increasing concern. Last Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, called for misinformation and greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry to be criminalised. On Saturday, Brazil, host of the upcoming Cop30 climate summit, will rally nations behind a separate UN initiative to crack down on climate misinformation.

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She said states should “criminalise misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry” and “criminalise media and advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil fuel companies”. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called in June 2024 for a ban on advertising by fossil fuel companies, calling the firms the “godfathers of climate chaos”.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/climate-misinformation-turning-crisis-into-catastrophe-ipie-report

More on the Spanish blackout explicitly mentioned in the article;

The Guardian confusingly conflates two separate events, a new report by our old friend John Cook, and a UN report presented by Elisa Morgera.

On this occasion, UN rapporteur Elisa Morgera actually produced a more extreme report than John Cook. The UN report includes a demand to immediately cancel all fossil fuel exploration. From Morgera’s UN report;

The imperative of defossilizing our economies

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Elisa Morgera*

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58. States should adopt and enforce explicit and time-bound legislative measures:

(a) expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure;

To prohibit new fossil fuel exploration and exploitation, as well as any

(b) To revoke licences for existing fossil fuel exploration and exploitation,163 including for captive and on-grid coal plants;164

(c) To strictly regulate the import and export of fossil fuels;

(d) To prohibit the abandonment of fossil fuel infrastructure without remediation, requiring financial guarantees to cover costs for the environmental management of facility closure and subsequent phases, including regarding extraterritorial impacts;

(e) To clarify how energy services will be maintained and improved through other sources, prioritizing the energy needs of rights holders in vulnerable situations domestically and abroad.

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73. States should:

(a) Inform the public about the fossil fuel industry’s deliberate contributions to the planetary crises and about their human rights impacts over decades;

(b) Ensure that accurate, science-based information is made available to the public on defossilization plans, including the underlying economic and technological assumptions, fossil fuel subsidies inventories, emissions embedded in fossil fuel exports, and plans for the decommissioning of infrastructure;

(c) Avoid loopholes in responsible decommissioning,190 and require independent verification of defossilization and decommissioning plans, and of their implementation;

(d) cross-border advertising;

Ban fossil fuel advertisements, promotion and sponsorship, including

(e) Ensure access to comprehensive education on the human rights risks of fossil fuels, and on the benefits of fossil fuel-free production, consumption and lifestyles; 191

(f) Prohibit lobbying by the fossil fuel industry;

(g) Require private financial institutions and universities to disclose publicly, including on social media, funding amounts, durations and any conditions from the fossil fuel industry;

(h) Criminalize misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry, including failure to disclose corporate lobbying activities or to provide remedies for harm;

(i) Criminalize media and advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil fuel companies;

(j) Criminalize attacks against environmental human rights defenders, including from judicial harassment tactics,192 in addition to enhancing environmental human rights defenders’ protection and access to justice and effective remedies.193

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Read more: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/59/42

Morgera’s report is available here. Cook’s report, Recommendations for Improving Information Integrity about Climate Issues, is available here.

Cook’s report also calls for more censorship, of course, but you have to wade through over 100 pages of what looks like AI generated gibberish to get to the censorship call;

Legislation and regulation. Legislation represents collectively agreed rules of social and human coexistence, including principles and procedures governing the exchange of information and the expression of opinion. While digital platforms and other media of communication, to an extent, regulate themselves internally and in dialogue with their users, the record regarding information integrity about climate science, as documented in this report, indicates the need for enhanced governance in the public interest.

Read more: John Cook’s report

Despite the absurdity of UN demands for a total stoppage of fossil fuel exploitation, and John Cook’s ongoing global conspiracy claims, the climate censorship movement is a very real threat to our freedom. The censorship movement is much bigger than a bunch of disgruntled academics and big oil conspiracy theorists, and may even threaten free speech in the USA.

In 2024 Elon Musk accused the European Union of offering a secret deal to X, where X would be immune from prosecution for violating Europe’s Digital Services Act, in return for allowing European officials to secretly censor the entire X platform – including content US citizens produce and read. Musk claimed other major social media platforms accepted the secret deal.

If Musk’s claim is true, the only reason the majority of US social media content is not being routinely illegally censored remotely by Europe is Musk had the guts to stand up to the EU, and because President Trump and Vice President Vance backed Musk with threats to withdraw the USA from NATO if Europe persisted with trying to censor free speech.

I applaud people like Musk, Trump and Vance for standing against the forces of global censorship and tyranny, I just wish more global leaders were standing next to them.

By Vijay Jayaraj

So-called environmental activists across the United Kingdom will pat themselves on the back this Thursday (June 19), which they have declared “Clean Air Day.” Because nothing of real value will come of the observance, the crusaders’ sense of elevated virtue will be the only noticeable effect from all the promotion of cycle-to-work schemes and lamentations over vehicle exhaust on the M25.

The fact is that the air of most developed nations is quite clean, having been improved over the last 50 years through modern pollution-control technologies. Yet, a toxic fog of irony hangs heavy over these celebrations. Many of the voices calling for marginally cleaner air in London are part of a relentless global campaign to deny the world’s poorest citizens the very fuel that would significantly improve the air they breathe.

Zealots, comfortably situated in electrified offices, are waging a public relations war against natural gas and its liquefied form (LNG), even suing governments and financial institutions to stop LNG projects in developing nations and branding them as a dangerous source of energy.

Pretending that expensive and unreliable solar panels and wind turbines are realistic alternatives for more than 3 billion people – almost half the world’s population – the ecologically self-righteous would force the continued burning of wood, charcoal, animal dung and coal in unventilated huts for cooking, heating and lighting.

The resulting indoor pollution from particulate matter, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides causes 3.2 million premature deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization. More than 70% of these fatalities are in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa far from London high rises.

An estimated 700,000 Africans die prematurely every year because of polluting fuels used in daily life, accounting for nearly 10% of the continent’s total mortality. In countries like Somalia, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the death rate from household air pollution is staggeringly high.

Women and children, who spend the most time near smoky stoves, bear the brunt of this respiratory assault, facing heightened risks of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and acute infections.

Do the activists suing LNG projects understand these numbers? Do they appreciate that by blocking the development and distribution of natural gas, they are condemning millions of women and children to this reality? They are not saving the planet. They are sacrificing the poor at the altar of their own green ideology.

The ironic twist deepens when London’s own journey to cleaner air is considered. In the 16th and 17th centuries, wood was the dominant fuel for heating and cooking across Europe. By the 18th century, coal took over, powering the Industrial Revolution but blanketing cities in soot.

The transition to natural gas in the 20th century marked a turning point, offering a cleaner, more efficient fuel that reduced household emissions. Today, natural gas supplies nearly 85% of U.K. homes for heating and cooking.

Yet, the U.K. seems determined to kick this ladder to better health away from those trying to climb it. Look no further than the relentless legal assault on the U.K. government’s support for a massive LNG project in Mozambique. This $20 billion project, led by French multinational TotalEnergies, now has an uncertain future because legal challenges stymy efforts to fund it.

Why do environmental extremists expect Nairobi, Dhaka or Lagos to skip the rational evolution of energy use that so benefited the lives and economies of the U.K. – and of many other western nations? Why do they think an African mother should wait decades – or forever – to cook without smoke?

The answer lies in an elitist worldview that treats energy as a lifestyle choice rather than a lifeline.

India offers a striking example of what’s possible when cleaner fuels replace smoky ones. Since 2016, a nationwide program has provided subsidized connections to cooking-gas cylinders for over 80 million low-income households. Between 2010 and 2019, deaths from household air pollution in India dropped by over 208,000, thanks largely to expanded access to cooking gas.

To demand that poor countries jump directly from wood and dung to advanced, fully electrified stoves is to demand the impossible. It is a denial of history and the practical considerations of energy supplies and economics.

For nations where uninterrupted electricity is still a distant dream, natural gas provides the reliable, scalable, affordable, and dramatically cleaner fuel for cooking and heating. Clean air should not be rendered an out-of-reach luxury for the Third World by Europe’s well-off who take theirs for granted.

This commentary was first published at California Globe on June 17, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.

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The Heartland Institute

The corporate climate-alarmist media is already turning up the heat—on your TV, not outside—by hyping a summer warm spell as a “heat dome” threatening “dangerous heat and humidity” across much of America next week. Yes, it’s going to be hot. It’s summer. But the data tell a different story: there’s no long-term trend showing an increase in the number or intensity of heat waves. And despite what they claim, carbon dioxide emissions don’t drive heat waves. That’s not to say human activity isn’t warming the planet—but not in the way they’re shouting from the rooftops. We’ll lay it all out.

In episode 162 of The Climate Realism Show, we’ll give you the facts you need to counter the inevitable media panic surrounding next week’s forecast. Plus, we’ve got a loaded slate of Crazy Climate News: U.S. residential solar is on the brink, the so-called carbon fingerprint just got smeared, and Philadelphia’s electric bus fleet is going up in flames—literally. You’ll want to hear all of it.

Tune in LIVE at 1 p.m. ET with Heartland’s Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, H. Sterling Burnett, and Jim Lakely. We’ll answer your questions, tackle your comments, and call out the spin in real-time—streaming on YouTube, Rumble, and X.