Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A recent study by Cornell University found that 99.9 per cent of scientists across 90,000 peer reviewed papers found that climate change was being driven by humans. Action on climate change is a moral and societal imperative. Undermining climate action puts lives, nature, the economy and future generations at risk. Disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies and deceit—weakens public demand for climate action, erodes trust in the scientific evidence, injects false and deceptive information into debates, and delays ambitious climate policies.

The Senate is having an inquiry into climate information integrity and disinformation, and I'm very pleased to announce that one good thing that has come out of COP in the last two weeks is a global initiative: 'Countries seal landmark declaration at COP30'. This marks the first time that information integrity has been prioritised in climate talks. A number of countries have signed joint declarations to provide research funding to combat the scourge of this ocean of disinformation that we're all drowning in. This declaration calls on governments, the private sector, civil society, academia and funders to take concrete action to counter the growing impact of disinformation, misinformation, denialism and deliberate attacks on environmental journalists, defenders, scientists and researchers, an impact that undermines climate action and threatens societal stability. As was said at COP:

This expanded membership—

Another four countries have signed; Australia is yet to sign, but I hope it will—

reflects growing international recognition that threats to information integrity represent one of the defining challenges of our time, weakening the foundations of public debate and undermining societies' capacity to build collective solutions to the climate crisis.

Australia needs to sign this global declaration and get on board with combating disinformation.