Climate Misinformation Dominates Climate Misinformation Report

Why the UN’s Climate Misinformation Study Deserves Legal Scrutiny for Spreading Falsehoods

Introduction

The Guardian recently published an alarming article titled, "Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says: False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalised."  This piece highlights critical findings from the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE), emphasizing that the escalating prevalence of misinformation around climate change is severely hindering global efforts to address the climate crisis. According to the IPIE report, coordinated misinformation campaigns—frequently orchestrated by fossil fuel interests, politically allied actors, and even hostile governments—aim to erode public trust in effective climate solutions, such as renewable energy. The article details how misinformation tactics have become increasingly sophisticated, including deliberate falsehoods blaming renewable energy for power outages. Notably, The Guardian underscores the report’s unprecedented recommendation for legal accountability, explicitly calling for "climate lies" to be criminalized, signifying a major step forward in the global effort to combat climate disinformation.

Ironically—and deeply troubling given its influential status—the IPIE report itself commits a significant act of climate misinformation by omitting any mention of the decades-long anti-nuclear propaganda campaign. This omission cannot be dismissed as a simple oversight; it represents a profound distortion of the overall climate narrative of the past sixty plus years. Despite thoroughly documenting fossil fuel-driven misinformation and sophisticated propaganda tactics aimed at renewable energy, the IPIE report inexplicably overlooks the sustained and highly influential misinformation campaign against nuclear energy—one largely spearheaded by prominent legacy environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and many others. These groups, often funded directly or indirectly by fossil fuel interests, have systematically promoted false narratives portraying nuclear energy as inherently dangerous, prohibitively expensive, and environmentally reckless. Given the report's stringent standards for accountability, this glaring omission demands rigorous scrutiny, as it inadvertently legitimizes a decades-long campaign of misinformation that has significantly obstructed viable climate solutions.

The real-world consequences of this coordinated anti-nuclear effort are severe and extensively documented. By successfully undermining public and political trust in nuclear power, these environmental groups, along with their fossil-fuel backers, have effectively extended humanity’s dangerous reliance on highly polluting energy sources like coal, oil, and natural gas. This harmful dependence has squandered critical decades in addressing climate change, directly contributing to increased air pollution, widespread environmental degradation, and millions of preventable deaths worldwide.

By failing to acknowledge and condemn the critical role legacy environmental groups have played in propagating anti-nuclear misinformation—despite nuclear energy being explicitly recognized as a green, zero-carbon energy source by other UN bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the IPIE report perpetuates precisely the type of harmful misinformation it seeks to criminalize. This misinformation obstructs and delays urgently needed climate action, prolongs global dependence on deadly fossil fuels, directly contributes to environmental degradation, and results in countless preventable deaths. Such a significant oversight underscores how even institutions driven by good intentions can inadvertently become complicit in climate crimes when they perpetuate the deeply embedded and decades-long societal conditioning and self-reinforcing narratives that have misled the public—and even themselves—about nuclear energy.

Legacy Green Groups and a Misinformation War on Nuclear

Nuclear power—the cleanest, greenest, safest, and most powerful green energy source known to humankind, as thoroughly established by the authoritative MIT Energy Initiative report, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World—has been systematically undermined by decades of misinformation propagated by legacy environmental groups. By failing to acknowledge and condemn the critical role these groups have played in perpetuating anti-nuclear falsehoods—despite nuclear energy being explicitly recognized as a green, zero-carbon energy source by other UN bodies, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the IPIE report itself perpetuates precisely the type of harmful misinformation it seeks to criminalize. This misinformation obstructs and delays urgently needed climate action, prolongs global dependence on deadly fossil fuels, directly contributes to environmental degradation, and results in countless preventable deaths. Such a significant oversight underscores how even institutions driven by good intentions can inadvertently become complicit in climate crimes when they perpetuate the deeply embedded, decades-long, cult-like conditioning and self-reinforcing narratives that have misled society—and even themselves—about nuclear energy.

Groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the NRDC, and many others have systematically depicted nuclear energy as an existential threat to both people and the planet. For decades, these influential environmental organizations have relentlessly promoted fear-based narratives of apocalyptic reactor meltdowns, eternally catastrophic radioactive waste, and financially ruinous construction costs—claims that were systematically exaggerated, intentionally misleading, or blatantly false. Amplified by mainstream media and reinforced through popular culture, this relentless alarmism significantly distorted public perception.

By the late 20th century, the false narrative equating nuclear energy with danger had become entrenched as unquestioned conventional wisdom, despite overwhelming evidence that nuclear power, when responsibly managed, posed no significant threat at all. In stark contrast, the routine pollution from coal, oil, and natural gas was actively causing immense, widespread harm—resulting in millions of premature deaths and severe environmental degradation each year. In hindsight, the anti-nuclear campaign was fundamentally built upon deliberate distortions and myths that systematically misled the public and policymakers alike:

Safety: Anti-nuclear activists routinely characterized nuclear power as inherently unsafe, invoking high-profile accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima as proof of nuclear’s supposed perpetual risk. Yet the empirical record tells a starkly different story:

Nuclear energy is demonstrably one of the safest forms of electricity generation when measured by fatalities per unit of energy produced. Rigorous analyses show nuclear power results in approximately 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour, making it safer than wind (0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour) and hydroelectric power (0.1 deaths per terawatt-hour), though slightly less safe than solar power (0.02 deaths per terawatt-hour). By stark contrast, fossil fuels such as coal (24.6 deaths per terawatt-hour) and oil (18.4 deaths per terawatt-hour) cause fatalities at rates hundreds of times greater per unit of energy generated. This data underscores that nuclear energy, contrary to longstanding claims of danger, provides significant safety advantages over most other major energy sources, particularly fossil fuels, and stands close to solar power in terms of safety.

(Data source: Ritchie, Hannah. “What are the safest sources of energy?” Our World in Data, 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)

Indeed, the total number of deaths resulting from all nuclear incidents combined pales in comparison to the annual global toll from fossil fuel-related air pollution, which causes approximately 8 million premature deaths each year—roughly one in every five global deaths. Notably, in countries such as the United States, commercial nuclear reactor operations have maintained a flawless public safety record, with no member of the public ever harmed.

Waste: Environmental groups have relentlessly portrayed nuclear waste as an insurmountable, eternal threat, frequently employing sensationalized imagery of leaking barrels and catastrophic contamination to foster public fear. In stark contrast, as the authoritative MIT Energy Initiative report, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World, clearly establishes, nuclear waste represents a small, thoroughly manageable byproduct, especially relative to the massive amount of energy generated. In fact, an individual’s lifetime electricity consumption powered entirely by nuclear energy would yield waste roughly the size of a soda can. Furthermore, all spent fuel from a typical 60-year, 1000-megawatt nuclear plant can be safely stored in approximately 80 robust dry casks, securely contained on a single concrete storage pad, requiring minimal maintenance. Crucially, solutions for permanent nuclear waste disposal have already been successfully implemented in practice: Finland currently operates a secure deep geological repository, while France has effectively managed waste through advanced recycling and reprocessing technologies, significantly reducing both its volume and long-term radioactivity. Contrary to decades of misleading anti-nuclear rhetoric, nuclear waste disposal is thus not merely solvable—these nations have conclusively demonstrated that it is already solved.

Cost: Opponents of nuclear energy have persistently and falsely portrayed it as prohibitively expensive, deliberately ignoring that historically inflated nuclear costs were driven overwhelmingly by regulatory burdens imposed due to fearmongering campaigns by legacy environmental groups. The authoritative MIT Energy Initiative report, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World, explicitly demonstrates that excessive regulatory complexities, artificially inflated risk perceptions, and delays—direct outcomes of anti-nuclear misinformation—have unnecessarily inflated nuclear project expenses. Crucially, the MIT study underscores that these costs are not intrinsic to nuclear technology but result from avoidable policy and regulatory barriers influenced by decades of misleading activism. Implementing standardized reactor designs, factory-based modular construction, streamlined licensing processes, and innovative financial frameworks would reliably decrease nuclear project costs by 30% or more, placing nuclear energy among the most economically viable sources of electricity generation.

Additionally, fossil fuel interests have deliberately skewed public and political perceptions by presenting distorted cost comparisons between nuclear and fossil fuels. They systematically highlight the comprehensive lifecycle costs of nuclear power, while simultaneously excluding or significantly downplaying their own extensive lifecycle costs. A truthful, comprehensive accounting of fossil fuel costs—including resource exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, global geopolitical conflicts, military protection of resource supply chains, public health impacts, environmental degradation, and massive climate-related damages—would reveal fossil fuels to be economically catastrophic. Indeed, credible economic analyses consistently indicate that fossil fuels’ true lifecycle costs, once externalities are included, far exceed those of nuclear power, making nuclear a substantially more economically advantageous choice.

Real-world evidence robustly confirms these conclusions: France, which has generated approximately 75% of its electricity from nuclear sources since the 1980s, enjoys electricity prices about 40% lower than Germany, which aggressively phased out nuclear power under pressure from legacy anti-nuclear groups. Germany's resulting overdependence on intermittent renewables, supplemented heavily by coal and natural gas, has produced significantly higher electricity prices and increased carbon emissions. Thus, anti-nuclear misinformation campaigns not only artificially inflate the perceived costs of nuclear energy, but they directly result in higher actual costs, delayed climate action, continued environmental degradation, and persistent fossil fuel dependence.

(Data Sources: MIT Energy Initiative, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World, 2018; International Energy Agency, "Energy Prices and Taxes", 2022.)

Historical Context and Consequences: The consequences of the anti-nuclear movement have been profound. Campaigns against nuclear facilities, such as Diablo Canyon in California, Indian Point in New York, and Vermont Yankee, have successfully pressured closures or prevented expansions, resulting in immediate and demonstrable increases in fossil fuel reliance and carbon emissions. Notably, after the closure of Indian Point, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions sharply increased, underscoring the direct environmental harm caused by anti-nuclear activism. Moreover, many legacy environmental organizations have historically received funding or indirect support from fossil fuel interests, which further enabled the persistence and impact of anti-nuclear narratives. Globally, the contrasting outcomes between nations like France, which embraced nuclear power, and Germany or Japan, which abandoned or scaled back nuclear programs, starkly illustrate the severe environmental, economic, and public health consequences of rejecting nuclear energy.

Despite the clear evidence supporting nuclear energy’s safety, waste manageability, and economic feasibility, anti-nuclear rhetoric became entrenched as accepted orthodoxy within environmental circles. Legacy “Big Green” organizations promoted these harmful myths—often, whether intentionally or not, aligning with fossil fuel interests seeking to protect their market dominance. Instead of partnering with nuclear advocates to effectively displace coal and oil, these groups spent decades vilifying a proven, zero-carbon solution, inadvertently prolonging reliance on fossil fuels. Tragically, in their attempt to protect the environment from a misunderstood nuclear threat, they enabled far greater environmental harm, allowing coal and gas pollution to continue largely unchecked. As one critical analysis aptly summarized, the traditional environmental movement, by battling against nuclear energy, inadvertently fed a far more destructive adversary—the deadly reality of fossil fuel pollution.

The French Nuclear Success Story: A Model of Safety, Affordability, and Sustainability

Following the 1973 oil embargo, France embarked on an ambitious national energy strategy focused on rapidly developing nuclear power to ensure energy independence and security. Within just two decades, France had successfully transitioned to generating nearly 75% of its electricity from nuclear sources—a proportion it maintains to this day. This commitment has resulted in extraordinary environmental, safety, and economic achievements.

From a safety perspective, France’s nuclear program has established a remarkable record: it has operated its extensive reactor fleet for decades without a single major incident that posed any significant risk to public health. The rigorous regulatory oversight and standardized reactor designs have ensured consistently safe operations.

In terms of nuclear waste management, France has implemented highly effective storage and reprocessing solutions. The French approach reduces both the volume and the longevity of nuclear waste, storing all high-level waste safely in secure, closely-monitored facilities. France has also developed advanced technologies for waste recycling and reprocessing, further demonstrating that nuclear waste, far from being unmanageable, is a fully solvable and carefully managed issue.

Economically, France’s investment in nuclear power has produced stable and affordable electricity prices, making its power system one of the most cost-effective and least carbon-intensive globally. The economies of scale achieved through standardized reactor construction, efficient regulatory frameworks, and sustained government commitment have successfully contained costs and prevented the overruns often cited in other nations.

Overall, the French nuclear program illustrates how nuclear energy, when responsibly managed and supported by coherent public policy, can deliver unparalleled benefits in safety, waste management, cost efficiency, and climate sustainability. France stands as a compelling global model, starkly contrasting with countries that rejected nuclear energy and consequently faced higher emissions, greater fossil fuel dependence, and significant economic disadvantages.

Fossil Fuel Funding and the Hidden Alliance

Why would environmental nonprofits and fossil fuel companies find themselves on the same side of an issue? History reveals a disturbing pattern: fossil fuel interests quietly encouraged and bankrolled the anti-nuclear movement from its earliest days. During the 1960s and 70s, as nuclear energy emerged as a serious competitor to oil and coal, certain oil executives saw an opportunity. For example, Robert Anderson, the CEO of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), provided significant funding to launch anti-nuclear environmental groups in that erafile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. It was a tactical marriage of convenience – oil barons fanning public fears about nuclear energy, while environmentalists, sincerely afraid of radiation, became unwitting foot soldiers for the fossil fuel cause. Declassified industry documents and investigative research indicate that this “dark alliance” continued for decades, often behind the scenes. The American Petroleum Institute (API), Big Oil’s lobbying arm, was recently caught orchestrating clandestine campaigns against pro-nuclear policies, such as state laws to support nuclear plants at risk of closurefile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. In other words, even in the 2020s the fossil lobby still works to undermine nuclear – typically under the cloak of front groups or by feeding talking points to anti-nuclear advocates.

None of this implies that every anti-nuclear activist was consciously on Big Oil’s payroll. Many were earnest people genuinely concerned about atomic weapons or reactor meltdowns. But fossil fuel interests skillfully exploited these fears – and in some cases literally funded them – to neutralize a threat to their market dominancefile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. It was a brilliantly cynical strategy: paint the clean competitor (nuclear) as dirty and dangerous, and keep the truly dirty business (fossil fuels) running unabated. The result was that two generations of environmental advocacy were steered away from the real enemy. While green organizations battled nuclear plants with protests and lawsuits, coal plants and oil companies enjoyed decades of comparative impunity. As climate attorney Eric Schlosser quipped, “In the fight over nuclear power, ExxonMobil never had to lift a finger – Greenpeace did the work for them.”

The consequences of this fossil-fueled anti-nuclear disinformation campaign have been nothing short of catastrophic. It stalled nuclear projects across the Western world, especially in the United States. By the 1980s, U.S. utilities had canceled hundreds of planned reactors, snuffing out the promise of abundant clean electricityfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Some cancellations were due to economic and regulatory factors, but organized anti-nuclear activism played a “significant role” in halting U.S. nuclear expansionfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. In place of those nuclear plants came coal-fired and gas-fired power plants – each one pumping out greenhouse gases and toxic air pollutants. The fossil industry quietly rejoiced as their supposed environmental adversaries did them an enormous favor. As one section of the Earthrise Accord’s legal analysis notes, there is evidence of a “concerted effort by fossil fuel interests to stoke anti-nuclear sentiment” as a means of protecting their turffile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. In the 1970s, Big Oil lied about climate science and simultaneously lied about nuclear power – a unified campaign of deception to sabotage any threat to oil, gas, and coalfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees.

France vs. United States: A Tale of Two Energy Paths

Nothing illustrates the real-world cost of anti-nuclear ideology better than the divergent paths taken by France and the United States after the 1970s. Both nations were hit by the 1973 oil crisis. France responded by committing to a bold national nuclear energy program to secure energy independence and cut pollutionfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Within two decades, France built a fleet of standardized nuclear reactors that today provide ~70–75% of its electricity. The payoff has been enormous: France now enjoys reliable, low-cost, low-carbon electricity on a scale few nations have achieved, with per-capita electricity emissions a mere fraction of those in countries reliant on fossil fuelsfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. By one estimate, France’s nuclear build-out prevented “billions of tons” of carbon emissions that would have been emitted had France instead built coal and gas plantsfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. France’s air quality benefited as well – replacing fossil fuels with nuclear slashed the soot and smog that cause respiratory illness. Importantly, France proved that a rapid, full-scale decarbonization of the power sector is possible in a single generation, given political will. The oft-repeated claim that “we don’t have time to build nuclear” is ahistorical – France did it quickly in the 1970s–1980s, and did so without internet, without advanced manufacturing, and amid much higher interest rates than today. The French experience stands as a real-world refutation of the idea that only renewables can lead the clean energy transition. It shows that nuclear power can deliver rapid, mass decarbonization when it is embraced as a solution rather than feared as a problem.

The United States, by contrast, stumbled and stalled on the nuclear path. In the 1960s, U.S. utilities had plans for hundreds of reactors, envisioning nuclear supplying most of the nation’s electricity. But this vision unraveled. A powerful mix of anti-nuclear activism, high-profile accidents (Three Mile Island in 1979), regulatory bottlenecks, and cheap fossil fuels led to most projects being abandoned by the 1980sfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Essentially, the U.S. succumbed to the anti-nuclear movement at the very moment France was pressing ahead. The legacy today is stark: the U.S. gets a mere 20% of its electricity from nuclear, a figure unchanged since 1990, while roughly 60% comes from fossil fuelsfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Had the U.S. replicated France’s effort – building dozens of reactors to greatly expand nuclear generation – American power-sector emissions could have been dramatically lowerfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Instead, U.S. emissions remained high for decades, only starting to fall in the 2010s when old coal plants began switching to natural gas and some renewablesfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. That belated shift reduced CO₂ somewhat, but it was “a slower and more fossil-dependent route than an early nuclear build-out would have provided.”file-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o In short, America chose the long, dirty road when a faster, cleaner highway was available.

To grasp the human cost of this choice, consider the health impacts. Fossil power plants pump out particulates, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and other pollutants that shorten lives. A study by MIT found that in 2005, air pollution from U.S. power generation caused about 52,000 premature deaths in that single yearlae.mit.edu. (Coal was the major culprit, with the worst impacts in regions that burned high-sulfur coallae.mit.edu.) If the United States had aggressively replaced coal with nuclear in the 1980s and 90s, tens of thousands of Americans each year would not have died from power-plant pollution. Over a few decades, that likely adds up to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths – lives that would have been saved by cleaner air. Globally, the numbers reach into the millions. Climate researchers note that air pollution from fossil fuels kills around 8 million people annuallyfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o; had nuclear energy not been stigmatized and stymied, a significant share of those lives “could have been avoided” by displacing fossil fuelsfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. As the Environmental Legacy report bluntly concludes, “billions of tons of avoidable carbon emissions were released… and millions of lives were cut short” due to the anti-nuclear policies in the U.S., Germany, Japan and elsewherefile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. This is the grisly ledger of misinformation’s toll: when fear won out over facts, we got a warmer world and widespread suffering that could have been preventedfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o.

Even today, we see mini-replays of the same story. In early 2021, under pressure from activists, New York State closed the Indian Point nuclear plant, which for decades had safely supplied about a quarter of New York City’s electricity. Groups hailed the shutdown as a “green” victory. The result? New York’s carbon emissions immediately jumped as gas-fired plants ramped up to replace Indian Point’s powerfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Analysts calculated an extra 12–15 million metric tons of CO₂ are spewing out each year because of the closurefile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Local air pollution worsened too – more asthma attacks, more heart problems, “and yes, more premature deaths in downwind communities,” as one analysis noted grimlyfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. In California, the planned closure of Diablo Canyon (the state’s last nuclear plant) was recently reversed at the 11th hour – only after blackouts and rising emissions convinced lawmakers that they could not afford to lose the reactor’s carbon-free power. Over and over, reality is delivering the same message: shutting down nuclear plants in a fossil-dependent grid is an environmental disaster. It is the logical endgame of a misinformed policy, and it underscores how critical nuclear energy is to any serious climate solution.

The IPIE Report’s Blind Spot – and the Cost of Misinformation

Given the evidence, one would expect any comprehensive study of climate misinformation to highlight the decades-long campaign against nuclear energy as a prime example of disinformation obstructing climate action. After all, the IPIE report recognizes that climate denial has “evolved into campaigns focused on discrediting solutions”theguardian.com. What better example of a discredited solution than the ongoing vilification of nuclear power, which has directly delayed or derailed climate progress? And yet, the IPIE’s landmark climate disinformation review – at least as summarized by news reports – failed to mention anti-nuclear propaganda at all. The report extensively documents fossil fuel companies sowing doubt about climate science and pushing “greenwashed” PR. It flags lies about renewable energy (like blaming wind and solar for outages) as harmful new forms of denialtheguardian.com. It calls out right-wing ideologues and even foreign troll farms for spreading false climate narrativestheguardian.comtheguardian.com. But the massive, well-documented misinformation effort to discredit nuclear – a key climate solution – is nowhere to be found in the discussion. This omission is as perplexing as it is alarming. By ignoring the anti-nuclear disinformation campaign, the IPIE panel effectively validates one of its core falsehoods – the notion that nuclear energy lies outside the toolbox of acceptable climate solutions, even when that notion stems from decades of misleading claims.

Why would the IPIE leave this out? We can only speculate, but the answer may lie in how deeply the anti-nuclear narrative penetrated elite climate circles. The UN climate community and many Western governments have long been influenced by the traditional environmental NGOs – the very groups who treated “nuclear = bad” as gospel. Thus, what was misinformation came to be seen as conventional wisdom. If the authors of the disinformation report themselves assumed (however unconsciously) that nuclear power is too problematic, they might not even recognize that stance as a product of propaganda. In other words, the success of the anti-nuclear lobby is demonstrated by its absence in the report – its talking points became so normalized that a report on climate “information integrity” didn’t question them. This blind spot demonstrates how misinformation can infect institutions: even well-meaning researchers can overlook a biased framing if it’s been the water they’ve been swimming in for decades.

But make no mistake: excluding anti-nuclear falsehoods from the definition of climate misinformation is itself dangerous misinformation. It sends the message that sabotaging a carbon-free energy solution through lies and fear-mongering is somehow different from other climate lies. It’s not – if anything, it’s worse. Denying climate science delays action; but denying a solution not only delays action, it actively blocks a direct path to cutting emissions. The outcome is the same: more fossil fuel combustion, more emissions, more climate damage. The IPIE report rightly concludes that “misleading information has undermined public trust … exacerbating the climate crisis.”theguardian.com Yet what is more misleading, and more corrosive to climate progress, than convincing the public that one of the safest, cleanest energy sources on Earth is too dangerous to use? What could be more disempowering than instilling fear of a technology that could decarbonize our grids and save lives? By omitting the anti-nuclear campaign from its review, the IPIE unwittingly perpetuated the very problem it seeks to fight – it left the public with an incomplete and distorted picture of the climate misinformation landscape.

Accountability: Climate Crimes of Omission

In her recent remarks, UN Special Rapporteur Elisa Morgera urged nations to “defossilise” information systems after decades of lies from Big Oiltheguardian.com. She specifically said governments should “criminalise misinformation and greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry” and even punish media firms that amplify those liestheguardian.com. This call reflects a growing sentiment that knowingly spreading climate falsehoods – which imperil all our futures – is not a victimless act but a grievous wrongdoing. If we accept that principle, then we must also ask: What about the misinformation that discourages viable climate solutions? If a company or organization has systematically deceived the public about nuclear energy – exaggerating its dangers, denying its benefits – and thereby extended the reign of coal and oil, should that not also be seen as a crime against our planet and people?

Emerging climate justice initiatives think so. The Earthrise Accord, for instance, explicitly denounces the “decades of fossil-fuel-funded disinformation that undermined the promise of nuclear power,” and calls for “powering the transition with truth and atoms.”file-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o This new movement argues that accountability must extend to all who “knowingly deceived the public or obstructed solutions” in the climate fightfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. That means not just fossil fuel companies, but also their enablers and allies – including any legacy environmental groups that propagated falsehoods about clean energy alternatives. If a prominent NGO spent years spreading untruths that nuclear energy “can never be safe” or “will bankrupt us” – contrary to scientific evidencefile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5olabmanager.com – and if those falsehoods led to nukes being shuttered and coal plants running longer, contributing to deaths and climate damage, shouldn’t that NGO be held accountable? This is a provocative question, and it makes many uncomfortable, but the principle of accountability for misinformation cannot be selectively applied. One cannot condemn Exxon for lying about climate change while giving Greenpeace a pass for lying about nuclear energy. Both lies had the effect of prolonging fossil fuel dominance; both have exacted a horrific price in human lives and ecological destructionfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o.

Of course, assigning legal liability in such cases is challenging. The IPIE report itself stops short of naming specific groups like Greenpeace or the Sierra Club – it focuses on fossil corporations and political actors. And to be sure, free speech protections mean that not every instance of advocacy, even if misleading, can be prosecuted. But the tide is turning. In 2019, a U.S. jury did find an environmental group (Greenpeace) liable for spreading false claims that harmed a company’s project, awarding $667 million in damagesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. That case, though unrelated to nuclear, set a precedent that advocacy organizations are not above the law if they knowingly propagate falsehoods that cause real harmfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. Likewise, numerous cities and states are suing Big Oil for climate deception, arguing that lies that delay action have tangible costsfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. By analogy, a future lawsuit could frame anti-nuclear disinformation as a wrongful campaign that led to increased emissions, public health harms, and a worsened climate crisisfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees. Even if lawsuits falter, the moral argument stands: those who orchestrated the anti-nuclear fear campaign have blood on their hands – not figuratively, but literally, measured in asthma attacks, cancer cases, and premature deaths from the pollution their crusade indirectly prolongedfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o.

At the very least, we must demand truth and reconciliation in our climate discourse. The IPIE’s omission needs correction. Anti-nuclear propaganda is climate misinformation, and it must be called out as such. Climate communicators, scientists, and honest environmentalists should be forthright in acknowledging this history. Media coverage of climate misinformation should give equal weight to the suppression of solutions alongside the denial of problems. Policymakers crafting “climate misinformation” laws or pledges (like those Brazil is championingtheguardian.comtheguardian.com) must ensure they cover all forms of deceit that impede climate action – including the fear-based lies that have hamstrung nuclear energy. Anything less would effectively legitimize one kind of deadly disinformation even as we penalize another.

Conclusion: No Climate Solution Left Behind

The stakes could not be higher. Humanity has roughly five years to halve global emissions and a few decades to reach net-zerotheguardian.com. Achieving this is impossible if we shun our most powerful tools. Nuclear power, alongside renewables, efficiency, and emerging technologies, is indispensable to ending our fossil fuel addictionfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. To finally break free of coal and gas, we need every low-carbon solution in play, deployed at massive scale – and nuclear is the proven backbone of deep decarbonization. Those who continue to spread outdated or false claims against nuclear energy are not advancing “safety” or “environmentalism”; they are (whether knowingly or not) advancing the interests of the fossil fuel industry, to the detriment of us allfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o.

Climate truth must cut through decades of fear. The facts bear repeating: nuclear energy is extraordinarily safe compared to the deadly pollution of fossil fuelsfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. Its waste is meager and well-managedforonuclear.org. Its costs can be reduced and are outweighed by the staggering costs of unchecked climate changelabmanager.com. And its potential to slash emissions quickly has been proven in the real worldfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. As long as we allow old myths to cloud this reality, we tie one hand behind our back in the fight against climate catastrophe.

The IPIE report was right about one thing: misinformation poses a dire threat to climate progresstheguardian.com. But climate misinformation comes in more forms than just denying the science – it also includes denying or demonizing the solutions. We have paid an unspeakable price for the anti-nuclear misinformation of the past. Millions have died prematurely, billions of tons of greenhouse gases have been emitted, and precious time has been lost because society was duped into abandoning nuclear powerfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o. To repeat that mistake, or to let its architects off the hook, would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations.

Our path forward must be grounded in truth and courage. We must be brave enough to re-examine long-held prejudices about nuclear energy, and honest enough to call propaganda by its name – even when it comes from those we once considered allies. The goal is not to villainize environmental groups or glorify nuclear uncritically; it is to ensure that our climate strategy is based on facts, not fear. Without embracing nuclear power as central to our climate survival, we will simply never fully rid ourselves of fossil fuels – a point the MIT analysis underscores plainlylabmanager.com. It is time to say loudly: No climate solution – especially not one with nuclear’s proven value – should be sidelined by misinformation.

History will judge the climate community not just for what it did, but for what it failed to do. Let it not be said that we had a tool to prevent a climate apocalypse and we refused to use it because we fell for a fear campaign. Let it not be said that even as we decried Exxon’s lies, we ignored a lie that may have cost even more lives. The IPIE report’s blind spot must be a wake-up call. We cannot allow “climate misinformation” to dominate a Climate Misinformation Report – or any aspect of climate policy – ever again. Instead, let us demand integrity across the board, confront all the falsehoods that hinder action, and move forward with clear eyes and every viable solution in hand. That means setting the record straight on nuclear energy. The hour is late, but by dispelling the myths and ending the propaganda war, we can finally unleash nuclear power’s potential in the fight for a livable planet. It’s time to tell the truth: in the story of climate change, atoms are not the enemy – in fact, they may well save us.

Sources:

1. Guardian (2025) on IPIE findings and calls to criminalize fossil-fuel misinformationtheguardian.comtheguardian.comtheguardian.com

2. The Environmental Legacy of Legacy Environmentalism report on anti-nuclear misinformation’s impactfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o

3. Earthrise Accord legal analysis on fossil fuel funding of anti-nuclear campaignsfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6eesfile-sbrstqbihotb57bjlt6ees

4. MIT Energy Initiative (2018) on nuclear’s role in cost-effective deep decarbonizationlabmanager.comlabmanager.com

5. Data on France’s nuclear decarbonization vs. U.S. path and outcomesfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o

6. Health/emissions consequences of anti-nuclear policies (Indian Point, pollution deaths)file-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5olae.mit.edufile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o

7. Earthrise/Energy Analysis on accountability for anti-nuclear disinformationfile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5ofile-8xjq1mecnbmvefgfdfmx5o