12 Dec 2025 A grassroots approach to climate information integrity: Empowering local voices as key actors post-COP 30
Between 10 and 21 November, a delegation of 15 WACC-supported community media reporters and activists from across the Amazon region were in Belem, Brazil, to cover the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 30). WACC program director Lorenzo Vargas explains why this community-based approach is so vital to inclusive, impactful climate action.
During their time in Belem, the team of reporters produced dozens of pieces in both Spanish and Portuguese about the proceedings at COP and interviewed many policymakers, thematic experts, government representatives, civil society leaders, and Indigenous authorities. WACC partners Red de Noticias da Amazonia (RNA) in Brazil and the Latin American Association for Radio Education (ALER) led the team.
Thanks to the combined power of radio – still the most influential form of media in rural parts of Latin America with limited internet connectivity – and digital platforms, coverage is estimated to have reached an audience of between 8 and 12 million people from Mexico to Argentina.
The presence of the team of community reporters coincided with the attention that issues related to information ecosystems received at this COP. Prior to the start of the conference, several organizations issued an open letter calling for commitments by governments to tackle climate disinformation.
The COP of Truth
This helped create momentum for Brazilian President Lula da Silva to call the Belem COP the “COP of Truth” because of the need to address disinformation issues, and for a Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change signed by countries like Canada, Chile, and Germany, among several others.
This progress builds on the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, an international effort led by Brazil, UNESCO, and the United Nations in 2024 that seeks to “contribute to investigating, exposing, and dismantling disinformation related to climate change.”
WACC applauds the Declaration’s recognition that the sustained mobilization of key stakeholders required to achieve meaningful climate action can only be achieved when “access to consistent, reliable, accurate and evidence-based information on climate change” is guaranteed as it permits “awareness raising, public participation, accountability, and public trust in climate policies and actions.”
WACC also supports the Declaration’s notion that to achieve information integrity on climate change, it is necessary to “promote and support the sustainability of a diverse and resilient media ecosystem.” We look forward to the seeing this initiative succeed.
The Declaration also mentions the importance of working at the local level to address climate disinformation. That is a dimension of the information integrity equation that WACC would like to highlight.
Putting local media at the heart of the conversation
From working with partners around the world fighting for climate justice, from the Amazon region to Sub-Saharan Africa and the Philippines, WACC has learned that the best way to tackle climate disinformation is by putting local media at the center of the conversation.
While working with digital platforms and mainstream media is no doubt important, we have seen that trust is typically built from the bottom up and that local, trusted voices are often more influential than any algorithm.
This is precisely the type of work that the WACC-supported community reporters did while they were in Belem. Hailing from networks of community radio stations and grassroots communication collectives in Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela, the reporters brought reliable, timely, and accurate information to their audiences across Latin America.
They engaged with the issues at hand using culturally relevant language and relating the issues discussed in Belem with the everyday lives of their audiences – which include Indigenous, peasant, afro-descendant, and urban poor communities that are already dealing with the effects of climate change. As a result, the coverage produced by the WACC team most likely had a powerful effect in countering disinformation about COP 30 across the region.
Local-first media bridge communication and information deficits
Furthermore, beyond providing information, this local-first approach to media helps to address other communication and information deficits among grassroots communities impacted by climate change.
- It enables them to exercise their right to freedom of expression by sharing traditional knowledge and adaptation solutions.
- It helps to keep local decision-makers in check by enabling climate-oriented public interest journalism.
- It also challenges stereotypes about marginalized groups and creates avenues for people’s participation in the formulation of climate policies.
- And, perhaps most importantly, it helps tackle the generalized sense of voicelessness and invisibility that many climate change–affected communities feel.
As the agreements reached at COP 30 begin to be implemented, WACC encourages the many actors from government, the private sector, and civil society that supported the Declaration and Open Letter to ramp up their support for initiatives tackling climate disinformation.
We urge particular attention to the efforts of local and community media who are doing work that, while often invisible to those in capital cities and decision-making spaces, is essential to advancing inclusive and transparent climate solutions.
Top image: WACC-supported community media reporters Steven Santiesteban, Inés Gonzales, and Yorman Galviz at COP 30. Photo: WACC
WACC supported the COP 30 community media delegation in the context of its Communication Rights and Climate Justice program, with support from our partners Alongside Hope and Brot für die Welt.
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