Wikimania provided the occasion for a second edition of the Pre-Conference on Information Integrity in Climate Change, which facilitated the exchange of evidence among the Wikimedia movement, United Nations multilateral agencies, and invited organizations.
During Wikimania in Paris, the Working Group on Climate Justice and Wikimedia Projects, together with Wikimedia Brazil and in collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation, organized the Pre-Conference on Information Integrity in Climate Change, with the goal of building strategic coalitions around information integrity, a concept that refers to ensuring that data is accurate, complete, consistent, and understandable.
The Pre-Conference took place on July 21, 2026, and was attended by Guilherme Canela, Director of Digital Transformation at UNESCO, and Charlotte Scaddan, Senior Advisor on Information Integrity at the United Nations, who presented the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change. João Peschanski, Executive Director of Wikimedia Brazil, presented his affiliate’s work on climate change and the environment, including its collaboration with the Climate Justice Working Group and Wikimedia projects, which led to the project “Promoting Information Integrity on Extreme Weather Events with Wikipedia and Wikidata,” funded by the Initiative’s first grant. Luisina Ferrante, from Wikimedia Argentina, and Evelin Heidel, from Wikimedistas de Uruguay, presented the preliminary results of the project.
In addition, we were joined by Dr. Balazs Vedres of the International Panel on Information Environment (IPIE), Paul Grignon of the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, and Camille Grenier of the Forum on Information and Democracy (FID), whose contributions allowed us to reflect on the many dimensions of a phenomenon such as information integrity in the context of climate change: from how current online traffic consists mostly of bots, and what that implies for the human communities that sustain projects like Wikimedia, through the challenges posed by cognitive biases in the spread of disinformation, to public policy response.
New wine into old wineskins: how disinformation delays climate action
During the first panel of the pre-conference, Guilherme Canela, Director of Digital Transformation at UNESCO, and Charlotte Scaddan, Senior Advisor on Information Integrity for the United Nations, presented the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, where they discussed how new risks have emerged, such as the malicious use of technologies like AI, the monetization of false information, and so-called “information laundering” by pseudo-experts. These risks are in addition to others already identified, such as disinformation campaigns and the harassment of activists, scientists, and independent journalists.
“We see legitimate social grievances being exploited to promote conspiracy theories,” Scaddan noted. For Canela, it was important to emphasize that even with these challenges, “89% of the world’s population recognizes that we have a climate problem.”
For the UNESCO representative, the Global Initiative helps facilitate the process of taking the necessary actions by strengthening ties and improving the accuracy of and access to information in settings such as climate negotiations and conferences, as well as through strategic communication and the exchange of evidence and best practices.
“We must go beyond institutional frameworks and build community connections,” said João Peschanski, executive director of Wikimedia Brazil. One example: the article on climate change in the Portuguese-language Wikipedia: “In 2014, there was a massive wave of edits, most of which included false information because some companies were attempting to alter the content of certain Wikipedia pages.”
But one editor—an art historian—was determined not to let this happen, becoming the article’s guardian. His work inspired community action. Today, the article has more than 1,000 references. “Young people working to ensure the integrity of information see this as a way to act as citizens,” explained Peschanski.
The importance of Wikipedia and Wikidata in creating a public record of extreme weather events
Evelin Heidel, Programs Director at Wikimedistas de Uruguay, and Luisina Ferrante, Programs Director at Wikimedia Argentina, presented the preliminary results of the project “Promoting the Accuracy of Information on Extreme Weather Phenomena and Climate-Related Events on Wikipedia and Wikidata.”
The project was selected in September 2025 from among more than 447 proposals from nearly 100 countries by the Global Fund for Climate Change Information Integrity. This initiative is a regional collaboration in South America between Wikimedia Brazil and the Climate Justice and Wikimedia Working Group, which is made up of Wikimedia organizations from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay.
The project’s goals included:
- Developing a multilingual model on Wikidata for extreme weather events—such as heat waves and floods—and other climate-related events.
- To analyze patterns of climate misinformation in Wikipedia articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
- To ensure that the available information is interoperable: that it meets technical and legal standards, such as open data and open licenses, to facilitate the exchange of research and learning processes.
Ferrante explained that one of the findings is that within the Wikimedia movement, “the communities’ approach to extreme events is very different.” For example, the English Wikipedia focuses on the physical effects of an event. The Portuguese Wikipedia provides better coverage of social effects, such as the number of victims and the damage caused, while the Spanish Wikipedia relies more on translations from the English version.
“It’s important to identify these differences and others, such as the fact that news articles are used more often as sources than academic reports or research,” she noted.
For his part, Heidel reflected on the impact of these gaps in the context of technologies like LLMs: “We’re trying to foster a dialogue to gain insight into volunteer-driven approaches that can improve information, especially now that AI is so widely used in Wikimedia projects. We need to consider policies and establish some protective safeguards. These platforms, such as generative AI, create their own frame of reference.”
“Every time standardized questions are asked, the information you receive already provides you with the lens through which you view that information. This lens is not neutral” she said.
Wikipedia, for its part, serves a different function than other information channels when an extreme weather event occurs. It creates a public record of these events and treats them for what they are: a multidimensional problem; this makes it a channel that provides valuable insights into what kind of information ultimately becomes part of the public knowledge once the event is no longer of interest to the media.
Algorithms, Psychology, and Public Policy: The Facets of Disinformation
In addition to the results of this study, Dr. Balazs Vedres of the International Panel on Information Environment (IPIE), Paul Grignon of the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, and Camille Grenier of the Forum on Information and Democracy also shared findings and reflections on the state of information integrity on the Internet
Dr. Vedres referred to his organization’s latest report, a systematic review on information integrity in climate science, noting that “today, 85% of communication comes from non-human algorithmic actors. There are actors who attempt to distort information and attack not only the content of communications but also human communities and their cohesion.”
For her part, Grignon invited the audience to reflect on the reasons why people continue to believe false claims, citing as a hypothesis “the need to find meaning: sharing misinformation can lead people to form a new group identity.”
To conclude the presentations, Camille Grenier shared some perspectives from the realm of public policy. For Grenier, “one of the interesting developments is the agenda on advertising and child safety.” According to the FID specialist, both issues share the same root cause as climate information integrity: “addiction to algorithms.”
For Grenier, “it is important that all the different initiatives be coordinated and not overlap, and that they use existing frameworks to strengthen access to information on climate change.”
How can the Wikimedia movement continue to actively participate in discussions about information integrity?
Information integrity is a fundamental pillar of democratic societies: it ensures that data is accurate, complete, consistent, and understandable. Without it, public debate takes place in a contaminated information ecosystem, where information asymmetries disproportionately affect the most vulnerable communities.
Reliable, evidence-based information on topics such as health, elections, or climate change enables people to weigh their options and make decisions freely and equitably in situations that affect them.
In the face of this complex challenge, digital public goods such as Wikipedia play a key role in promoting integrity and maintaining a healthy ecosystem for information.
The Wikimedia movement has much to contribute to this discussion. Since its inception twenty-five years ago, the Wikimedia movement has developed community guidelines, practices, and tools that ensure the quality of information. It has done so in a multilingual environment, which puts the movement in a unique position to understand how the integrity of information takes shape in the Global South and in languages other than English.
Discussions on data integrity often take place within multilateral organizations or international forums such as climate negotiations (such as COP31, which will be held in Turkey this year). In this regard, it is important to support efforts such as the Global Initiative on Climate Change Information Integrity to promote regulatory principles, public policies, and voluntary adherence mechanisms that are based on evidence and concrete community practices.
The Wikimedia movement has much to contribute to this discussion. It has experiences and practices that help bridge the gap between on-the-ground realities and global frameworks that seek to guarantee the human right to access, receive, and publish quality information.
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