On 12 November 2025, in Belém, twelve governments signed the Declaration on Information Integrity. Kick Big Polluters Out revealed that one in twenty-five COP30 participants represents fossil interests: while Amazonian Indigenous peoples struggled to enter, the industry that created the crisis occupied the decision-making tables. This is no accident, but the latest chapter in a long story.
For fifty years, oil companies have co-opted climate governance from within. Over the past five years, thousands of lobbyists, linked to 57 per cent of global oil production, have populated UN climate negotiations. This capture is physical in the corridors of COPs and informational in the public sphere.
In winter 2022, the war in Ukraine sent European energy bills soaring. Thousands of coordinated accounts spread the falsehood that the Green Deal was to blame. Forensic analyses linked that traffic to Russian-funded networks. The result reached the negotiating table: European ministers arrived at COP27 with mandates centred on energy security, which Saudi Arabia exploited to block fossil fuel phase-out.
The pattern is repeating in Belém. Between July and September, disinformation about the summit increased by 267 per cent. Platforms are monetising the ecosystem: Big Oil spent $5 million on false advertising amplified by Facebook and Instagram. The result is systemic paralysis. Eighty-seven per cent of the global population supports ambitious policies, but governments arrive weakened by an artificial perception of division.
Transparency requirements on conflicts of interest exist. Yet over half of delegates hide their affiliations, four countries declare nothing, and France brings TotalEnergies’ CEO. Climate multilateralism is failing because of a capture built over fifty years. The Declaration recognises the problem but is not enough. Until mechanisms are introduced that exclude those who use falsification as strategy, the entire COP system remains theatre whilst the planet crosses every critical threshold.

Over 2,500 Indigenous representatives attended COP30—the largest delegation in the conference’s history. Through GARN (Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature), we coordinated the 6th International Rights of Nature Tribunal, which presented “A New Pledge for Mother Nature” calling for legal recognition of the Amazon and Antarctica as rights-bearing entities, immediate cessation of fossil fuel expansion, and protection for Earth defenders.
In February, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory opinion declaring nature as a subject of rights. Five motions on Rights of Nature passed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, including the one I led on the rights of Antarctica. The world’s legal systems are finally acknowledging what Indigenous Peoples have always known: human rights and the rights of living systems are inseparable.
These legal precedents remain largely invisible in public discourse. The same information ecosystem that amplifies industry messaging marginalises frameworks built by frontline communities.
Yet without Indigenous leadership centered, without Earth defenders protected, without nature’s rights legally enshrined in national frameworks, business-as-usual climate action will continue to fail. We have the legal frameworks, the movement strength, the scientific evidence, and the moral clarity to act. What remains is the political will. We cannot afford incrementalism.