Brazil: RSF meets with COP30 CEO about the importance of journalism in fighting climate change
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) met with Ana Toni, CEO of the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), to discuss the challenges facing environmental reporting. The discussion tackled disinformation about climate change on social media, the protection of environmental journalists and the sustainability of journalism. COP30 is a crucial moment to champion reliable information in the fight against climate change — a singular opportunity that cannot be missed.
Ana Toni plays a key role in defining the topics that will be discussed during COP30, which will take place in Belém, a city in northern Brazil, in November. She met with RSF and the digital policies secretary of the Social Communication Secretariat in Brasilia, the country's capital, on 14 April to discuss the obstacles to providing reliable information on climate change. During the meeting, RSF addressed the importance of countries committing to policies that protect journalists and promote and encourage environmental journalism.
According to cross-referenced data from the RSF Press Freedom Index and the World Bank's data on natural resource exploitation, countries where journalism is severely repressed (defined as falling into the “very serious situation” category on the Index) are responsible for nearly one-third (31 per cent) of the world's natural resource extraction.
“The numerous violations of environmental journalists’ right to report — some of which are shockingly violent — dissuade these professionals from exposing critical stories. These alarming attempts to silence vital reporting are compounded by the mass spread of disinformation on climate change, which delays countries’ and societies’ decisions to adopt measures that mitigate global warming. COP30 represents a unique opportunity to spotlight the role journalism plays in climate issues and to open debates on the problem at a high level. While meeting with COP30’s CEO, RSF stressed that countries must urgently guarantee journalists’ access to public and scientific information on the environment and ensure that citizens have access to reliable reporting on the subject. A crucial part of this solution is advancing policies obliging the online platforms that control the digital information space to amplify reliable journalistic content on climate change.
In the last decade, at least 24 journalists have been killed for investigating deforestation, illegal mining, land grabbing, pollution and other environmental catastrophes resulting from industrial activities and major construction projects. Dozens more have been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and subjected to all kinds of pressure from authorities and companies responsible for environmental crimes.
Despite the profound importance of stories about the exploitation of natural resources and the violence environmental crimes inflict on communities, they are no longer being told due to fear of what may happen to the messenger. Latin American journalists covering climate change are at particular risk, as RSF documented in the report “Scorched lands of journalism in the Amazon.”
Ensuring safe and sustainable conditions for consistant, reliable coverage of the environment — which directly counteracts the growing misinformation about climate change — is not just the right thing to do. It is a vital strategic decision for countries concerned about the future of our planet.
