As Canada pledges to meet the NATO defense spending target, aiming for 5% of GDP by 2035, the moment calls for a broad reassessment of what truly constitutes a threat to national and allied security. Among the most urgent, yet persistently underrecognized, is the systemic threat of climate disinformation – and it is one that Canada and the United States must confront together.
Climate disinformation is not simply a matter of public opinion or political disagreement. It is an active vector of geopolitical manipulation. As recently emphasized by the International Panel of the Information Ecosystem, disinformation around climate change weakens democratic cohesion, obstructs efforts to build adaptation and resilience, and undermines public trust in science and institutions. It poses a profound risk not just to progress on environmental action, but to the national security of both Canada and the United States.
The Weaponization of Climate Disinformation
In today’s information landscape, falsehoods spread faster than facts – and climate lies are strategically weaponized. From Russian disinformation campaigns to influence operations backed by fossil fuel interests, misleading narratives about the reliability of renewable energy, climate policy costs, or the causes of extreme weather are being seeded to confuse, polarize, and delay action. Such campaigns are coordinated, targeted, and well-funded by fossil fuel profits as well as both state and non-state actors seeking simply to sow divide. These are not abstract risks. They are deliberate efforts to fracture the public consensus required to build climate resilience across North America.
Consider Russia’s strategic position. Its economy remains heavily reliant on fossil fuel exports, giving it every incentive to stall global decarbonization. In 2022, the European External Action Service detailed how Russian actors promoted falsehoods framing climate policies as economically destructive and renewable energy as unreliable – narratives aimed squarely at weakening transatlantic unity and undermining NATO allies from within. Canada and the U.S. are not immune. Disinformation campaigns find fertile ground in polarized media environments and underregulated social platforms, where anti-climate content often goes viral and unchecked.
This dynamic is particularly evident in the current U.S. context, where a highly polarized media environment amplifies divisions in public understanding of climate change. Major media outlets often present climate issues through partisan lenses, shaping public opinion along ideological lines rather than scientific consensus. At the same time, coordinated climate disinformation campaigns – many originating within the U.S. – have deliberately sown doubt about climate science and undermined support for policy action. These efforts are further reinforced by recent federal and state-level backlash against climate policies and even climate-related terminology, creating a challenging landscape for evidence-based environmental communication and policymaking.
Climate Disinformation is a National Security Threat
The security consequences are significant. Disinformation erodes civic trust and hampers the kind of coordinated action needed to manage climate shocks – from wildfires and floods to food insecurity and migration. It obstructs early warning systems, muddles crisis response, and weakens social cohesion – an essential element of domestic resilience and strategic readiness. And when the public is misled into believing that climate disasters are just misfortunes of fate, not symptoms of a global crisis, urgency fades, policy lags, and vulnerabilities multiply.
Canada and, until recently, the United States have already begun to recognize climate change as a security issue. Both countries face growing challenges tied to extreme weather, critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, and water scarcity. From British Columbia to California, shared ecosystems are under stress. Our energy grids, transportation networks, and border operations are increasingly affected by climate-linked events. But all of these risks are compounded by information warfare that undermines collective response.
If Canada and the U.S. are to strengthen their bilateral security partnership for the 21st century, they must address the disinformation dimension head-on.
That means integrating climate disinformation into threat assessments and counter-intelligence strategies. It means investing in public education campaigns that increase information literacy and scientific understanding. It means funding interdisciplinary research and cross-border collaborations between climate scientists, defense analysts, and communication experts. And it means leveraging Canada’s deep bench of climate science and natural resource expertise to help shape a joint North American strategy for combating climate-related falsehoods and malign influence.
Canada Has the Potential to Lead on This Important Issue
The good news is that Canada is well-positioned to lead in this space. With our scientific institutions, strong relative public trust in government, and growing investments in climate resilience, we can model how to integrate climate intelligence into broader defense and security planning. By coordinating with U.S. counterparts when the time is right, especially through NORAD and NATO frameworks, Canada can help catalyze a continental approach to the information threats that now accompany environmental ones. Critics may argue that disinformation doesn’t belong in the same category as kinetic threats. But in today’s hybrid warfare landscape, the tools of disruption include not only missiles and malware, but memes and misinformation. Disinformation is a soft weapon with hard consequences – and in the case of climate, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
If we are to meet the dual challenges of climate change and geopolitical instability, Canada and the United States must treat climate disinformation not as a secondary issue, but as a core threat to national resilience. Our bilateral cooperation has always evolved in response to new risks – from NORAD in the Cold War to cybersecurity in the digital age. The climate era demands nothing less.
In an age when the line between environmental crisis and security threat is vanishing, confronting the information war over climate is not just good strategy – it’s necessary for our survival.
Dr. Andrew Heffernan is a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa specializing in International Relations and comparative politics. He is also Climate Associate at the Information Integrity Lab, Rapporteur for the Forum on Information and Democracy, and a regular contributor to the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Andrew’s major research interests include climate disinformation, African politics, global environmental governance, community-based conservation, and the politics of food. Andrew is active in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning which he is continuously publishing on, presenting on at academic conferences, as well as implementing in his teaching in university classes. Andrew is also Chair of the African Studies Association’s Emerging Scholar Network.
