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Where does one begin, writing about the Cerrado? For the people of Maranhão, a state in Brazil’s northeast, it is not a landscape but the ground of life itself. No biome is more careful with what it has. You can read this in its plants: their roots first go deep in search of water, and only then do they reach for the sky. The Cerrado is where we begin, and where we return.

350.org team with local community members in Maranhão. Photo: 350 Brasil

Every July and December, during the school holidays, families who had left for the big cities to work and study would make their way home. Most of those homes were in the Cerrado. They came back for what the cities could not give them: healthy food, clean air, silence, family and old friends, rivers, streams and forests, the games of childhood, a youth and innocence they had left behind.

For generations, the rivers carried them. They rise in the chapadas, the Cerrado’s high plateaus, and run down to the bays of São Marcos and São José de Ribamar, on the coast of the state capital, São Luís. The Mearim, the Itapecuru, the Parnaíba, the Munim, the Preguiças: these rivers bound the countryside to the city. Along the way, by water or by road, people gathered native fruits, bacuri, murici, buriti, pequi. There was enough for everyone. That sense of abundance never quite leaves you, even decades on.

But that abundance now belongs to the past. One of the reasons is gas extraction in the Cerrado of Maranhão by the energy company Eneva, which bears down on the traditional and quilombola communities of the Mearim Valley. Eneva may argue that when it took over its gas-fired power project in Santo Antônio dos Lopes, the environmental licensing was already complete. Yet no one told the traditional and quilombola communities what a project like this would mean for them. What would it do to their groundwater and their rivers? To the air, the soil, their crops? To their bodies and their minds? To the forests, the wildlife, their right to the land itself?

Eneva cannot claim ignorance. The company recently gave back gas exploration blocks that overlapped the Krenyê Indigenous land and the Peixes quilombola territory. It knows. And still it holds on to the blocks it bought in Capinzal do Norte, where several quilombola communities live. And still it behaves as though nothing is wrong in the quilombola communities of Lima Campos.

The auction planned for October reveals, once more, a way of doing business that looks past people and nature so long as the profits add up. One of the blocks on offer overlaps quilombola territories in the municipality of Vargem Grande. It also reaches into the Munim River basin, which gives water to towns and villages across eastern Maranhão. And once again, the communities were not asked first, as international law requires.

Activists stand in front of the Presidential palace, telling Brazilian President to end oil exploration in Cerrado. Photo: 350 Brasil

Those who would sell it off have learned the opposite lesson. They reach for the profit first, and leave the people who live on this land to deal with what is left behind.

The post The Cerrado Is Not for Sale appeared first on 350.

This is a guest blog by Tom Ellison, Deputy Director, Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a research institute tackling systemic climate and ecological security risks, and Phil Newell, Communications co-chair, Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), a global coalition of over 50 leading climate and anti-disinformation organizations dealing with climate misinformation and disinformation.

This past summer’s extreme weather has brought home the intensity of the climate crisis for many of us around the world: from the catastrophic floods in Nepal, to the lethal heatwaves across Europe and India, to the choking wildfires in North America, France, and Spain. 

As if that isn’t enough, we are seeing these extreme weather crises going hand-in-hand with information crises. The danger of heatwaves is being downplayed. Flooding is getting blamed on foreign neighbors. Wildfires are being attributed to a land-clearing conspiracy. As fossil-fueled extreme weather continues, it is also fueling an information crisis, bringing climate denial, AI slop content, political propaganda, extremism, and online rage bait. This has ramifications that endanger lives, divide societies, and undermine climate action. 

We must protect ourselves and those around us not only from the physical impacts of extreme weather but also from the disinformation that comes with it. The good news is, we can keep ourselves safe by anticipating and short-circuiting lies and distortions.  A new toolkit ‘Weathering Extremes,’  by Jennie King  from CCS lays out some practical steps forward:  

A Spanish military unit battles wildfires in August 2026, which displaced more than 300,000 people across Spain and France. (Military Emergencies Unit, Spanish Ministry of Defense)

Wildfires, floods, and other extreme events bring a host of problematic claims and narratives. Experts sometimes talk about false information that is spread knowingly (disinformation), or  false information spread unknowingly (misinformation), or even  cherry-picked facts that are spread to manipulate (malinformation). But the most important thing is the impact this kind of information has, not the mindset of the person clicking “share.” 

In the wild, we might encounter three main categories of deception around extreme weather. These can look different from traditional denialism in climate debates. But they have a variety of harmful impacts.

• The first category is environmental, which attacks science or cherry picks facts to separate a disaster from its climate-related causes. To use wildfires as an example, this could mean saying this wildfire was started by an arsonist, not climate change. That may be true, but it obscures the fact that climate change is making wildfires more likely and intense, regardless of how they start. Over time, this can weaken our understanding of climate change, and slow down climate action. 
• The second category is political, which attacks disaster response efforts, often to grind an unrelated partisan or geopolitical axe. For example, Russia falsely claimed the wildfire wouldn’t have been so bad if the US hadn’t wasted resources supporting Ukraine, or the US President misleadingly argued that the LA wildfires are the fault of his political rival’s water policies. These claims can polarize governance, undermine disaster relief or recovery, or empower authoritarian leaders.
• The third category is hateful and extremist, which blames disasters on minorities or promotes conspiracy theories. These deceptions might look like the wildfires were caused by Jewish weather control or that foreigners are stealing all the disaster aid. Such falsehoods can divide societies or endanger the safety of vulnerable people. 

These claims are mostly about directing blame, whether to “natural” causes, to conspiracies, to minorities, to political rivals or foreign enemies–basically, anything but climate change. So what is really behind the lies? It comes down to money and power that vested interests have on the line during chaotic, viral climate disasters.

Private interests have a great deal of money to protect or gain from high-profile extreme weather events. Most obviously, oil, gas, coal, animal agriculture, and other polluting sectors don’t want disasters to motivate climate action that threatens their profits. The role of corporate lobbying, advertising, and PR in climate disinformation and on climate  obstruction, i.e. creating doubt on the severity of the climate crisis has been documented for decades. But more recently, the interests of Big Oil are increasingly aligned with those of Big Tech. 

Once upon a time, social media promised an open shortcut for connecting with other people, be they friends, family, or strangers. But along the way, social media became a stew of addictive algorithms, with users forever scrolling in circles, where attention is sold to advertisers rather than browsing an open web. Now, online conversation around disasters favors whatever earns clicks and cash– whether it’s rumors, rage bait, AI slop, propaganda, or hate speech. As a result, the social media channel for public engagement has been hijacked by dishonest influencers, polluters, and bots. That leaves policymakers and the public struggling to find reliable information during disasters, right when they need it most.

Besides money, disinformation about extreme weather is also motivated by ideology and politics. Authoritarian governments see extreme weather as a chance to attach their message to a major news event and to undermine opponents and critics. Political extremists, especially the far right, have started treating climate change not just as an energy debate but as an enemy cultural identity. These actors are not the cause of our toxic information environment, but exploit and shape it to serve their goals.

Often, all these motives are mixed. For example, Russia has covertly sponsored far-right climate ‘disinfluencers’ in the United States, and the state-owned gas company owns Russia’s largest media conglomerate, showing how directly fossil fuel interests, social media, and global politics are intertwined.

During Hurricane Helene in 2024, the far right, online provocateurs, and Russian media spread climate denial, partisan attacks, and xenophobic messages, fueling security threats to public officials and FEMA relief workers (FEMA).

There are ways we can protect ourselves and our communities from these threats:  

1. We as communities and climate concerned citizens should expect disinformation during extreme weather as the rule, not the exception. Unfortunately, these information crises can happen anywhere, as local events are co-opted into viral narratives. By reading this and the resources here, you are already ahead of the curve. 
2. Second, we need to sidestep the algorithm and not rely only on social media. It’s tempting to focus all our energy online, but social media tends to reward lies and nonsense over truth. As Jennie King writes in Weathering Extremes, “information resilience is built on networks, not newsfeeds.” That means real-world connections matter – personal relationships, ties with local governments, or simple tools like email lists, phone trees, and group texts – that we can build before a disaster strikes. And it’s worth remembering: as Yale’s Climate Maps show, most people in the U.S, for example, support key climate actions – even if you’d never guess that from social media.
3. Third, we can build defenses ahead of time, rather than scrambling to counter or fact-check every rumor and lie during a crisis. One way is “pre-bunking”– warning people in advance about certain narratives, messengers, or tactics they are likely to run into. In fact, the disinformation examples earlier in this piece are themselves a form of pre-bunking. Another tool is the “truth sandwich” – leading with the truth, then knocking down a false claim or bad source, before reiterating the facts again. We can also work to get accurate information into the data AI chatbots learn and draw from – also called “generative engine optimization”. This is increasingly important as AI use grows, and because cunning governments and companies are already trying to feed their own messages into chatbots.

   A resource on prebunking and generative engine optimization, from Weathering Extremes: A Toolkit for Information Resilience Amid Disaster (CCS).

4. Finally, as citizens and civil society, we can push for the global, systematic reforms needed to make our online environment more trustworthy. Reforms that call for improved safety, transparency, privacy, and accountability standards for tech platforms endorsed by CAAD are a great starting point, and at will  unwind some of the toxic incentives that give lies and outrage the upper hand. 

Climate change and disinformation are two of the systemic challenges of our time, and they are colliding in harmful ways. Neither will be solved easily. But more people and institutions globally are tackling the challenge, from the UN to researchers to certain governments. Ultimately, reliable information is just as much a part of necessary climate infrastructure as is solar and wind power or flood defences. And everyone has a part to play from newsrooms to social algorithms and even family group chats. 

References and resources: 

• Weathering Extremes: A Toolkit for Information Resilience Amid Disaster
• Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition

The post Keeping Safe from Fires and Liars appeared first on 350.

For António Guterres, it was his final UNGA as UN Secretary-General. And he used the moment to make the case, repeatedly and forcefully, for international cooperation at precisely the moment when it is under greatest strain. In his final General Assembly address, Guterres called on governments to adopt national plans to transition away from fossil fuels, aligned with 1.5°C, and to protect workers and communities through that transition. And then, in words that will resonate far beyond the UN chamber, he landed on three words: “Polluters must pay.” 

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For us here at 350, that matters. For years, movements around the world have been demanding that those who have profited most from fossil fuels contribute to addressing the damage caused by their pollution. This week, that demand was articulated from the highest level of the UN.

And it wasn’t Guterres alone. The call for greater accountability from major polluters was echoed by political leaders, including the Spanish minister for ecological transition, Sara Aagesen Muñoz

Perhaps one of the most powerful interventions came from Nepal. Prime Minister Balendra Shah addressed the General Assembly following the devastating Bhotekoshi-Trishuli floods, which killed more than 1,400 people and left thousands unaccounted for, according to Nepalese authorities. He spoke not in abstract terms about climate risk, but about families waiting for loved ones who may never come home; communities searching through mud, rocks and floodwater; and homes, schools, roads and livelihoods swept away. 

His message was simple: Nepal heard the warnings. But global political action did not move at the speed required.

“The Bhotekoshi-Trishuli disaster was not just a local tragedy, it was a warning to the world.”

Shah also made the injustice explicit. Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet is facing profound consequences from a warming climate. He called for greater climate finance, including grant-based support rather than repeatedly pushing vulnerable countries further into debt.  This is what climate injustice looks like in practice: countries that have contributed least to the crisis are being forced to spend scarce resources responding to its consequences.

Scientists, frontline communities and climate movements have been saying for decades that climate breakdown will amplify existing vulnerabilities, undermine livelihoods, drive displacement and interact with conflict and instability. The intelligence assessment adds another powerful voice to that evidence base. But the fundamental problem isn’t a lack of warnings. It is the gap between what governments know and what they are prepared to do.

This brings us to one of the most concerning contradictions at play now: the leaders who will preside over the next stage of the climate negotiations, Australia and Türkiye, both used UNGA and New York Climate Week to talk about energy, electrification and climate action. But they were awfully silent about the elephant in the room: the urgent need to phase-out fossil fuels. It’s not like we’re living the worst energy crisis ever, emphasizing how crucial it is to break our toxic dependency towards oil, coal and gas.

Coal mine in Hunter Valley, Australia. Photo credit: Max Phillips

On the positive side, Türkiye launched its 35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge, calling for electricity to account for 35% of global final energy consumption by 2035, alongside initiatives covering grids, buildings, transport, industry and AI. Electrification is important. But there is a fundamental question that cannot be avoided: electrifying with what, and for who?

As 350 and partners argued this week, electrification needs to go hand in hand with rapidly scaling renewables and phasing out coal, oil and gas – and with making climate finance available for developing countries to achieve this. 92+ organizations published this open letter saying that the electrification target counts only if the power is renewable, if it reaches the people who have no electricity today, if the money follows, and if it comes alongside progress in the negotiations on the Just Transition mechanism, finance, and adaptation, and other existing commitments

Otherwise, we risk increasing electricity demand while leaving the fossil-fuel system at the center of the energy system.

That contradiction was particularly visible in the speeches and policies surrounding COP31. Australia is talking about climate action while its government recently approved an expansion of BHP’s Saraji coal mine. Türkiye is promoting electrification while planning further fossil-fuel power capacity. The issue isn’t whether electrification is necessary. It is. The issue is whether governments are prepared to phase out fossil fuels and support a just transition.

Street view of the wildfires in Türkiye’s Antalya province, which will host the COP31 summit. (Photo credit: 350.org Türkiye)

As COP32 hosts, Ethiopia showed its hand with President Atske’s UN address demonstrating the leadership East Africa has been waiting for. Inviting world leaders to Ethiopia in November 2027 in order to find solutions to the climate crisis, one of the defining imperatives of our era.At a time when other world leaders are backsliding on climate action, Ethiopia carried the torch of climate ambition high. As the next host of the Conference of Parties (COP32), this is exactly the kind of ambitious agenda-setting Africa needs, one that prioritizes a people-centered transition away from fossil fuels. 

However, with the world on the verge of overshooting 1.5C, every fraction of a degree we can avoid heating matters – and so does every political meeting. The World Bank. The IMF. The UN. The climate finance negotiations. The UN Tax Convention. COP31. Each is another opportunity to close the gap between what governments know and what they do. We cannot wait until COP32 to see the fossil fuels phase out in the agenda. We need it now.

UNGA ends. The diplomats leave New York. The speeches disappear from the headlines. But the crises don’t. The world has experienced devastating wildfires, catastrophic floods, extreme heat and a rapidly intensifying El Niño. The impacts are already being felt by people and communities around the world.

Next week, the climate season moves to Fiji for the COP31 pre-COP. All eyes will increasingly turn towards the negotiations in Türkiye and Australia. The question for COP31 should be straightforward:

Will governments finally put a date on the end of fossil fuels,  and put the money behind a just transition?

Because after this week in New York, there is little excuse for pretending we don’t know where the world is heading. We know the risks. We know the solutions. We know who has profited. And, who is paying the price.

Now the question is whether governments are prepared to act. Polluters must pay. And the fossil-fuel era must end.

The post UNGA: A week that laid bare the world’s fault lines, climate crisis all over it appeared first on 350.