Threat Intelligence Assessment
How dark money and conspiracists are subverting public opinion: ClimateWatch is an open intelligence hub for forensic investigations into the funders, amplifiers, and networks subverting public understanding of climate across the continent.
The Barometer
The ten highest-threat actors peddling disinformation across Africa, ranked using open methodology, based on verifiable evidence and updated quarterly. The Toxic 10 barometer exposes the often covert actors who are subverting public opinion.
Sourced from Africa Fact Checking Alliance. Updated continuously.
Forensic mapping of climate disinformation actors, narratives, platforms, and financial flows across 54 African countries.
The first comprehensive continent-wide mapping of who is spreading climate disinformation in Africa, how, and why — covering 54 countries, 8 documented narrative clusters, and the platform vectors driving reach.
Read the baseline →Corporate funds funnelled into government lobbying and social media campaigns triggering state security suppression of climate defenders.
View the ratings →Climate action is being deliberately paralysed across southern Africa by a sophisticated "discourse coalition" that systematically pollutes the information ecosystem to protect vested fossil fuel interests.
View Category A actors →A small network of South African social media accounts acts as a crucial "bridging layer," importing global climate denial narratives and embedding them within domestic right-wing extremism.
View Category B actors →Three new field studies by CAAD find that the more religious a community, the more susceptible it is to climate disinformation.
View Category F actors →Individuals and organisations under active iLAB surveillance for climate disinformation operations across the continent.
Latest: $100K FARA-registered US lobbying contract (Jan 2025) · Africa Energy Week 2026 keynote confirmed
Latest: Addis Ababa editorial centre operational (Feb 2025) · AI fake academic "Dr. Manuel Godsin" exposed (2026)
All 5 African MOUs failed. Liberia "non-compliant," Zambia "lapsed." No payments delivered. Advisor convicted fraudster.
IRR wins 2025 Africa Liberty Award. ExxonMobil grant flows to Nigeria/Kenya think tanks documented (DeSmog Dec 2024).
Still posting. Cross-pollination with anti-vax networks documented. Peterson amplification ongoing.
Continues to publish in SA business press. CLINTEL SA cluster: 9 signatories identified. Parliamentary access maintained.
Documented tropes, frames, and narratives used to subvert climate conversation across Africa. Each term is a weapon — understanding it is the first defence.
Frames climate action as a Western imposition designed to keep Africa poor and fossil-fuel-dependent. Exploits genuine historical grievances about development inequality to manufacture opposition to renewable energy transitions.
Attributes observed climate change to natural variability (solar cycles, volcanic activity) while denying the 97%+ scientific consensus on human causation. Al-Sabban's direct formulation: "Climate change has nothing to do with human activity."
Positions climate science as a coordinated globalist conspiracy to control economies and populations. Bridges climate denial with broader conspiracy ecosystems (anti-vax, QAnon-adjacent). BBC Verify documented cross-pollination in Machogu's follower network.
Weaponises Africa's genuine energy access crisis to argue that fossil fuels are the only solution — ignoring that renewables are now cheaper per kWh in most African markets. Used to delay renewable energy policy and block international climate finance.
Misuses Africa's small share of historical emissions (3–4% cumulative) to argue the continent has no responsibility to act and that action would be disproportionate. Ignores that Africa is the most climate-vulnerable region while contributing least to warming.
Attributes droughts, floods, and crop failures to witchcraft, divine punishment, or ancestral anger rather than climate change — particularly prevalent in rural East and Central Africa. Diverts community response away from adaptation and mitigation.
67% of the 468 journalists surveyed by EJN across Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda reported seeking out climate skeptics for "balance" — treating scientific consensus as a contested opinion. Creates manufactured controversy where none scientifically exists.
Corporations and states claiming climate leadership by purchasing African forest carbon credits while continuing fossil fuel expansion — effectively using African ecosystems to launder emissions. Blue Carbon's $450M UAE pledge is the definitive case study.
Live monitoring of emerging weaponised narratives, threat actors, platform vectors, and fact-check research across 54 African countries. Designed to power frontline climate defenders, civic journalists, info-integrity researchers, and counter-disinformation operations.
All major platforms scored below 25% of maximum accountability standards on climate disinformation policies.
CAAD Full Report →Fact-checks are 8 times more effective at improving accuracy than misinformation was at degrading it — effects lasting 2+ weeks (Nigeria & South Africa field experiment)
of Africans are "climate literate" — heard of climate change AND attribute it to human activity (Afrobarometer 2024). Nigeria: only 27%.
Cluster Threat Level by Narrative Type
Priority Alert
A coordinated cross-continental advocacy network using fossil fuel messaging to suppress African climate policy. Backed by dark money, amplified across East Africa and diaspora channels. Highest-scoring active cluster: threat score 9.2.
Full cluster dossier →ClimateWatch brings together forensic investigators from African Digital Democracy Observatory (ADDO) member institutes with climate debunkers from African Fact Checking Alliance (AFCA) newsrooms, to pool their resources and data — creating a live monitoring dashboard that tracks climate disinformation campaigns across Africa using global evidentiary standards.
Open Observatory →