Adam Brzezinski 00:00
[theme music] All right. So, today’s talk will be largely based on a recent paper that’s joined with my colleague Luis Garicano at LSE, where we look at what we call narrative entanglement to try to understand what’s been happening to these climate policy narratives. And we think that this theory of narrative entanglement can bring us closer to understanding why politicians so fundamentally shifted their stories about climate policy. Why do we call it narrative entanglement? There’s some parallel to quantum entanglement, and maybe it’s slightly on the nerdier side here, but the idea is that if you have two entangled particles in space, you separate them very far from each other, they should be unrelated, right? But it’s an amazing law of physics that if you change the traits of one of the particles, then the other will also change, even though they are potentially millions of kilometres apart. And that’s somewhat parallel to [is that 01:08] an economic shock doesn’t only change the economic narratives of politicians, but also the entirely unrelated environmental narratives. But it shouldn’t, right? Because whether stricter climate policy can help to mitigate climate change has something to do with the laws of physics, or how much CO2 emission can be reduced if we build a wind farm, has nothing to do with how much it costs to build a wind farm. But through this entanglement, we have a change in both. So, it’s not a perfect analogy by any means, but this is why we think of it as entanglement.
But if you believe in our theory of narrative entanglement, what happens instead after an economic shock is that politicians will change not only the economic narrative, but also the environmental narrative. So, they won’t only say, “Now that, you know, climate policy is more costly, but we should still do it,” instead, they will shift both and say, “It’s more costly and, actually, we have done already quite a lot.” So, that’s prediction of narrative entanglement. [music ends]
David 02:16
You’ve just been listening to Adam Brzezinski. That was part of an excellent lecture on narrative shifts and the green backlash, which took place during London Climate Action Week.
[fast rhythmic music] As the world fights to keep global heating under 1.5° to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, the narratives we use to communicate our goals and plans become increasingly important. The fossil fuel industry, right-wing political movements, and vested interests are using deliberate online lies and bot farms to spread falsehoods and create doubt in an effort to interrupt climate action. London Mayor Sadiq Khan pointed this out when announcing the launch of our new initiative, City Climate Facts, which the C40 Centre has been incubating. [music ends]
Mayor Khan said, “Climate change isn’t beyond politics. Nothing is. The decisions we make about how to respond to our rapidly warming world will rightly provoke different opinions. In a healthy democracy, leaders shouldn’t just tolerate that debate, they should welcome it. What they shouldn’t welcome, however, are systematic attempts to subvert that debate by undermining the condition which makes it possible; the availability of reliable information. That is what climate wreckers and their propagandists are trying to do, rather than joining the conversation about how we respond to climate change, they want to destroy it by manufacturing doubt and denying the reality of the man-made crisis we face.” Powerful words from Mayor Sadiq Khan of London.
[rousing music] When we founded the C40 Centre four years ago, climate disinformation was already present and being weaponised against attempts to save our planet. But in recent years, this threat has not only increased in volume, but in sophistication, and has begun targeting cities and mayors specifically. The C40 Centre, through this podcast, has highlighted the risks climate disinformation poses, as well as ways to counter it, through multiple episodes with experts. [music ends]
[fast rhythmic music] Disinformation is threatening to derail climate action around the world, but it can also threaten life itself in the most extreme cases. Later on in the episode, we’ll be hearing from Mayor Senkevych of Mykolaiv about the deadly challenges disinformation can create in nations like Ukraine. But first, to learn more about what C40 has been doing, we’re turning to our in-house climate narrative expert to hear how communications and storytelling are the best weapons in our arsenal to safeguard the health of people, planet, and the information environment. [music ends]
Chiara 05:40
[phone rings] [whooshing] My name is Chiara Maria Morfeo. My title is Senior Manager for Research and Communications, and I am calling in all the way from Cádiz in Spain. [handset clicks]
David 05:52
Chiara, welcome to Cities 1.5.
Chiara 05:55
Thank you. I can’t believe I’m finally on this side of the mic, having seen you doing so many interviews. [chuckles]
David 06:02
Well, you’ve been well on the other side, not just seeing me interview, be present in interviews, write questions, scripts, help pull together episodes. But today we’re speaking to you because of your expertise and knowledge, particularly around narrative and disinformation. I know you well, but our listeners don’t. So, maybe you could just tell people what you do at C40 and give some background about your own knowledge and skills.
Chiara 06:34
Yeah. As you said, I’m the Senior Manager for Research and Communications at the C40 Centre. That’s the formal title anyways. But what hides behind that really, like any good comms professional, I’ve always been interested in stories, really. I had a watershed lecture about communicating climate science in my master’s. On one hand, there’s all this knowledge we have about the climate science, and on the other, sometimes, at least—not, of course, in C40 cities, but we see a lack of action on climate change. And for me, that moment, I thought, “Communications is for me what comes in that gap and help bridge that gap between the science and the action,” and that’s really what I’ve been doing ever since.
David 07:14
Given your context about narrative, your belief in narrative, the power of story, what’s the role of cities and mayors in crafting those narratives and combating disinformation?
Chiara 07:29
Yeah. So, actually, the power of cities and climate storytelling is something that I had to catch on to myself as well. Because straight out of uni, I actually started working at the United Nations level, kind of one department doing environmental communications there, and that was great. But sometimes the climate communications felt a little bit remote. We were working for so many different member states. So, only really when I got to C40 did I discover just what a great scale cities have to communicate climate stories. Because on one hand, I think because C40 works with the biggest cities in the world, when a city implements a climate policy it often has these ripple effects across the country and so it feels really impactful. But at the same time, cities are also really tangible. Like we can all picture a city in our mind. And now when it comes to disinformation or where that fits in with disinformation, on one hand, telling strong climate stories proactively about action that is already happening on the ground is one of the best insurances against climate disinformation and disinformation attacks. So, cities are really well placed to tell those stories. And then secondly, I think it’s also the role of the mayors and that they can play. We have some research in some of our cities that residents are really concerned about disinformation and actually want to hear from their local leaders. They want to have someone basically that they get to see on the ground in their cities that helps them navigate the information environment that has become so messy. Because it’s become really complicated where we get our information from and what information we can trust, and so I think mayors also have a really important role to play as those trusted messengers. And actually, there’s an example I only heard yesterday that I want to tell you, David. [chuckles] So, Quezon City, one of our member cities, they are really using their Facebook page of all things. Quezon City has three million inhabitants. Guess how many people are on their Facebook page?
David 09:24
I’m guessing it’s a big number.
Chiara 09:26
1.5 million.
David 09:28
Half the people of the city are on their Facebook page? Oh, yeah.
Chiara 09:32
I don’t know whether there is evidence that it is exactly every—like, only people who live in Quezon City, but basically what they’ve done is they use that as their one place of information, especially during extreme weather events. Like when a typhoon hits the city, this is where the city communicates. This is where there are so many pictures of the mayor being on the ground, so there’s a real face behind the Facebook page. And it’s so powerful that during extreme weather events, they actually receive a lot of rescue requests from residents to the Facebook page, over 400 in one of the last events. So, it’s really a place where people place their trust and they know this is the one place they can go to get help and get the right information when push comes to shove.
David 10:11
[rousing music] Can you talk about your insights based on your academic background, the work you’re doing at C40, in what really works to combat organised online disinformation? And by that, I mean the efforts by malign actors, often funded directly or indirectly by the fossil fuel industry, to use bot farms and other techniques to spread lies about climate action in an effort to prevent it. What really works in this complex modern environment that we’re in to counteract those challenges?
Chiara 10:52
I wish there was, like, one answer. Actually, to quote one of the mayors at London Climate Action Week, I think it was Mayor Aki-Sawyerr, who said, “There’s not one thing,” right? [music ends]
But there are—I mean, based on the research, we know that some things work better than others, and I would almost divide them into, like, two different buckets. So, on the one hand, there’s this whole issue around trust. Because when climate disinformation spreads, it’s not about one individual lie or one individual wrong thing that’s being told, but it’s more about that the trust in the information environment, so how we get our information, the trust in institutions, it gets really eroded. And so, people get really destabilised and any effective ways of combating disinformation, we really need to tackle that. And there’s different we can do. Interestingly, and this is, I think, why after so many years I still find it so fascinating, because maybe our initial instinct is not the best way to react. So, often when you are under attack and you receive really horrible lies that are being spread about you, you may want to fact check every individual lie and debunk it. That’s what they call it in the literature; after a wrong message has gotten out to hit back against that in particular. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence to suggest that that’s a really effective way to counter disinformation, and sometimes it may even worsen the impact because it gives more visibility to the lie. There’s something called the illusory truth effect. So, as a species, simply by seeing something more often, we think it must be more true or truer. And so, the debunking is not an effective way. There is something else called pre-bunking, and so, in that category, we find, as I mentioned before, sharing strong narratives before a disinformation attack even hits as an insurance almost against the disinformation attack. And then there’s different media literacy interventions, so also helping everyone understand, what are the different disinformation attacks? How can you spot them? To empower people, really, to navigate that information environment more confidently. And then the other side, I kind of throw it a little bit in the bucket of technology, but there’s only so much we can do spreading positive, correct narratives. As long as the digital platforms are still set up in a way that incentivise spreading disinformation, make that a profitable thing, it will be really hard to win, basically. And so, another area of attack, really, for anybody working on disinformation must really be platform governance. How do we hold platforms accountable, changing the algorithms that really push disinformation to the fore?
David 13:18
There’s a lot there to unpack. You know, we started this talking about stories and your interest in stories and narrative. Why does—stories and narrative, why do they matter so much in combating disinformation? And what does a city government—I mean, a city council, a mayor need to understand in order to succeed in building support for climate action about narrative and storytelling?
Chiara 13:52
[sighs] Easy question there. [laughs]
David 13:55
You’re the expert.
Chiara 13:57
Well, human beings are really a storytelling species, right? It’s way easier for us to remember information that was delivered as a story rather than, like, five bullet points that are just shared as a list. It’s similar ingredients to what we know about robust climate communications. And it’s almost harder to stick to the good principles we know in the face of disinformation attacks and not get distracted by that rather than doing something completely new and reinventing the wheel. So, one element being the trusted messengers. I mean, in some cities, mayors are the trusted messengers, but in others, it can be really powerful for mayors to work with trusted leaders in different communities that they’re trying to reach out to. The second thing, obviously the kind of language that they use to convey the story, right? Does it speak in terms that people actually use in their everyday life to really connect the climate action that you want to take to people’s concerns and really speak to them? Making sure that any policy or climate action you want to take is designed in an inclusive way and in dialogue with communities. So, a lot of those principles aren’t new, but I think sometimes as this new threat of climate disinformation is on the rise, we can kind of get distracted by that. And then there are obviously new tools we can use to make the stories more effective in terms of monitoring the disinformation attacks that arise online that can help us preempt the stories more effectively as well.
David 15:15
So, in a way, mayors need to double down on what makes an effective local politician in the first place, which is speak to people in their own language about local place in a way that builds support.
Chiara 15:29
Yeah. And I don’t mean that in a flippant way. I mean, it is a real challenge because actually, most people globally want climate action. Everybody thinks their neighbour doesn’t. And this sometimes extends to people who work in politics. They underestimate the support that there is for climate action or for governments to take climate action. And so, sticking with that, it’s not necessarily easy, but it’s really, really powerful, because mayors have this platform to really make visible the support that there is for climate action.
David 15:56
[slow rhythmic music] During London Climate Action Week, Mayor Sadiq Khan launched a new initiative at C40 called City Climate Facts designed to address disinformation. You run it.
Chiara 16:12
[laughs]
David 16:13
Can you talk about what City Climate Facts is, what it’s trying to do, perhaps what it will become as a way that C40 cities can help address this significant challenge to climate action? [music ends]
Chiara 16:29
Yes. So, in a way—I mean, we have all this technical expertise in C40 helping cities communicate climate action effectively on one hand and the rise of climate disinformation. On the other, we have, like you mentioned, Mayor Khan, we have a lot of mayors that are really taking a lead on tackling disinformation more broadly across policies that they see. And so, City Climate Facts really was born out of uniting these two superpowers, the technical expertise with the visibility that some of our mayors can already bring championing climate disinformation work to be really the place—hopefully the one place, the centre of expertise that mayors who experience difficulties with disinformation can come to both for tools and knowledge products and trainings to help them preempt disinformation attacks, as well as a deeper dive support that goes beyond, like, the webinars and everything we run. The first city actually we’re going to work with and that was announced as part of London Climate Action Week itself as well that will receive deep dive reports from us for the year is Cape Town in South Africa. They are looking to set up a disinformation unit inside their city to be really prepared for the disinformation attacks that they’re experiencing. And so, that’s what we’re hoping to support.
In terms of what’s next, I think for me, the ultimate goal is that we use City Climate Facts to fix the information environment one city at a time, right? We rebuild the trust and everybody gets empowered to really confidently navigate the information environment and to tell a fact from fiction, really.
David 17:56
That’s an ambitious aim, to fix the information environment. But one city at a time, it sounds real to me. That sounds possible. Are you hopeful that we’ll be able to keep acting on climate despite the organised online disinformation? And if so, what gives you that hope?
Chiara 18:17
I’m hopeful, one, because there are so many lessons, I think, we can learn across topics. Because to be honest, the mis-influencers, the people spreading disinformation, they don’t care what topic they spread disinformation about. And so, a lot of the techniques that we see, they’re similar across policies and they actually mayors say the same thing. They see attacks across policies, not just climate policies. And the second thing is I really believe ultimately that people want to hear from people, and the kind of disinformation attack or the level we’re seeing at the moment is, I feel like, exploding because of AI, but there’s also small rays of sunshine where people are returning to, like, analogue and talking to each other face to face. I think there’s something really special and deeply human about wanting to connect with people ultimately. So, maybe this crisis of the information environment is also an opportunity for a return to more of that kind of meaningful connection. And then lastly, I think there is such a—there can be such a creative task and imaginative task in thinking about how we could do differently. Like there’s so much scope for us to imagine how we can do it better, and so just let’s do it. [laughs] I think it can be really fun.
David 19:30
I love that tone. Your tone of optimism is exactly the tone we need on this podcast. People need to hear and probably the person steering city climate facts needs to feel. So, thank you for the optimism, your professional excellence and making the time to talk about City Climate Facts and a local response to disinformation on Cities 1.5.
Chiara 19:56
Thank you for having me.
Oleksandr Senkevych 19:59
[phone rings] [whooshing] My name is Oleksandr Senkevych. I’m a mayor of Ukrainian city, Mykolaiv. We’re here in London on the London Action Climate Week, and here we are. [handset clicks]
David 20:14
Mayor, thank you very much for being with us today on Cities 1.5.
Oleksandr Senkevych 20:19
Thank you for the invitation.
David 20:21
First of all, our listeners are going to be very interested to what you have to say as the mayor of a city in Ukraine who has enormous challenges at the moment and has had since the illegal Russian invasion. We’ve been speaking to people this week about the issue of communication with the people you represent around environmental issues, around climate change, around resilience and the challenges of fake information online and disinformation. In the context of a city facing invasion with these fundamental challenges of building resilience, as you’ve described, has it been a challenge to you and to your residents about fake news, fake information online, false rumours? Is that something you need to grapple with as a leader of the city? And if so, how have you done that?
Oleksandr Senkevych 21:29
You know, I will start with history. My mother in my childhood told me that mathematics is the queen of sciences. So, you have to learn mathematics and you will be successful in your life. Then I was in university and the professor said, mathematics is too simple. You need to learn logic, the discrete mathematics. The whole world is built on the logic of this. But then I became mayor and found that a lot of things which really can be explained by logic, you can’t explain it to people, then I found that the communication is the queen of sciences. Being able to communicate, you are able to change the world.
In the same time, sometimes you think that it’s simple. You explain to people and you expect them to act, like, with efficiency with that assignment that you give them, but you can explain something in a very affordable way but in the same time, some stupid person will spread the information which will hit in the heart of the average citizen with a much bigger efficiency than your, let’s say, scientifically explained. What we found that Russia prepared our city, first of all, as other cities on the front line, they were working on the—let’s say, the mind destruction. So, with the constant posting all the information, the bad information, creating the bad mood. After the full-scale invasion, they started to produce information that, “You have to give up.” We started to use our communication tools. We started also to promote the real information with a bigger efficiency. In the same time, Russians started to use, as I say, useful idiots. So, they found the leaders of the society, connecting them with the wrong information, and this is also a matter to work with special security services of Ukraine, which we also do. So, disinformation is around us. Especially now, when we have significant tools with AI, being able to create videos, audio, images and so on, you are able to create the army of bots that will replicate [disinformation 23:57] and then people start to think that it’s true. We had a couple of times, while in the war time, when we found that people really believe fake news more than the critical and logical explanation, confirmation by the police or something like this. Recently, we had information about—in Ukraine, that we have a lot of people who—immigrants who came to Ukraine, they will take over Ukrainians and so on. And it was so fast distributed that people started to do, like, strikes, something like that. But the official statistics said that the amount of immigrants fell down since the full-scale invasion like five times. What does that mean? That means that people don’t go to find a new job in a country where they can be killed by rockets. It’s easy to understand, but not so easy if you are brainwashed by the fake news.
David 24:59
[rousing music] What’s the role of a mayor and a city government in fighting back about that, particularly in your context of an invasion or perhaps let’s call it an emergency, that you need to get certain information about water, about power, about health and safety, about rocket attacks to the people of your city in a factual way that they can rely on? What’s the role of the mayor? What’s the role of your administration? And any thoughts on how other mayors and administrations can learn from what’s happening in your city? [music continues then ends]
Oleksandr Senkevych 25:41
My opinion about that, that it’s impossible to build a communication from the side of power, from the mayor, from the governor, from the president, unless you have in parallel people who are leaders of public opinion and they say in other way—not the way you do it, but other way; more simple. And as I usually say, the best way of the information penetration in the society are rumours. So, the rumours are the best and the most effective weapon to fight against the disinformation. So, yes, sure, we need to have all the mayors and all the authorities need to have their public relation department where they communicate what they do, but in the same time, they need to cooperate with the people who are not connected to them to give the right information to the society. Because you need to understand that people don’t trust the government and the local authorities. The amount of people who really analyse information is not very big. It’s the whole society, the modern society problem. Because new approaches to get information, social networks, these reels, TikTok and so on, they made that we don’t need to find information. Information finds us. So, it’s in your phone, you get a beep in your pocket, you open, you read it. Before, like 30 years ago, you had to buy a newspaper, read it, analyse it and make a decision. Now the decisions are made instead of you. You don’t analyse information. You don’t read it, you just consume it. So, and in this consumption, your brain understands that it’s easier. You don’t need to do something, you just consume. And in this consumption, you need to—also to put something, but not from the side of the government and the city council or mayor. Communicate even simple things, even obvious things. You need to communicate and use not only websites, newspapers or your channels—communication channels that you own, but also use people who are influencers, who are leaders of the society to replicate this information, to expand it to the bigger amount of people, but in the same time, those who don’t trust you.
David 28:18
Excellent advice. Mayor, I know all my colleagues at C40 wish you the very best indeed for success, and let’s all hope this invasion can be brought to an end sooner rather than later.
Oleksandr Senkevych 28:32
Thank you. Thank you and I hope to see you soon in peaceful Ukraine and in the city of Mykolaiv. You are very welcome.
David 28:38
Slava Ukraini.
Oleksandr Senkevych 28:40
Heroiam slava!
David 28:41
[theme music] Thanks for listening. This concludes our special episodes from the ground at London Climate Action Week 2026. But we’re not quite done. In two weeks, we’ll have one last special ‘HOT TAKE’ to hear the rest of the impactful interview with Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych. Tune in to hear his stories of extraordinary resilience in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the climate crisis. And how, even under continuing bombardment, the city of Mykolaiv and Ukraine itself are planning to rebuild in a way that respects the environment. You won’t want to miss it. [music ends]
