HOT TAKE: Urban Legends - Sorting City Climate Facts from Fiction

As the climate crisis accelerates, our information ecosystem has become a critical battleground. Coordinated climate disinformation - driven by fossil fuel interests - is increasingly targeting cities and urban leaders to stall transformative policy and manufacture public doubt.

In this special Hot Takes episode recorded on the ground at London Climate Action Week, host David Miller examines how cities are actively defending information integrity and reclaiming the narrative. We look at why proactive storytelling and pre-bunking are far more powerful than traditional fact-checking, how mayors serve as vital trusted messengers in noisy digital spaces, and the stark reality of how disinformation threatens life and resilience on the frontlines of Ukraine. We will also be exploring how the C40 Centre itself incubated the recently launched City Climate Facts that aims to support cities in fighting disinformation, and cleaning up our urban information ecosystem.

Featured guests:

Adam Brzezinski, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Chiara Morfeo, Senior Manager for Research and Communications at the C40 Centre

Oleksandr Senkevich, Mayor of Mykolaiv, Ukraine

To follow more of C40 and the C40 Centre’s work combating climate disinformation, please check out the following links: 

The C40 Centre’s climate communications insights - Substack

Previous episodes of Cities 1.5 covering different aspects of climate disinformation 

Overview of C40’s disinformation work.

If you would like a copy of the C40 disinformation and extreme weather playbook - available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese - please request one through the form at the bottom of this link. 

Links:

Big Oil's Real Agenda on Climate Change - InfluenceMap website

Combatting Climate Disinformation: Comparing the Effectiveness of Correction Placement and Type - Environmental Communication

Inoculation Theory as a Design Approach to Game-Based Misinformation Interventions - Taylor & Francis

Disinformation in the City: Response Playbook - University of Melbourne & German Marshall Fund

Disinformation in the Service of War - Center for European Policy Analysis

Starving the Hydra: How Digital Platforms Profit from Misinformation - Center for Countering Digital Hate

If you want to learn more about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, please visit our website at https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/

Listen to the Cities 1.5 five-part miniseries “Going Steady with Herman Daly: How to Unbreak the Economy (and the Planet)" here: https://lnk.to/HDMiniSeries

Cities 1.5 is produced by the University of Toronto Press and the C40 Centre, and is supported by C40 Cities. Sign up to the Centre newsletter: https://thecentre.substack.com/

Writing and executive production by Peggy Whitfield.

Narrative and communications support by Chiara Morfeo.

Produced by Jess Schmidt: https://jessdoespodcasting.com/

Edited by Morgane Chambrin: https://www.morganechambrin.com/

Music by Lorna Gilfedder: https://origamipodcastservices.com/