A United Nations climate expert is calling for people who question the goal of avoiding a climate catastrophe by rapidly eliminating fossil fuels to face criminal penalties. The experts who would be targeted for these penalties say these calls for censorship are part of a broader, growing effort to stop people from speaking out against climate activists’ political agenda. 

“It seems very desperate. I find it very ironic that we can’t debate what we’re told is settled science. If it’s so convincing, surely you wouldn't need to jail people because they disagree,” Dr. Matt Wielicki, a geologist and author of the “Irrational Fear” Substack, told Just the News. 

Elisa Morgera, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, authored a report, “The imperative of defossilizing our economies,” which was released in June. The report calls for the banning of all oil production and infrastructure development by 2030. According to Morgera, fossil fuels, which provide 86% of the energy consumed in 2024 and are the basis for thousands of products people consume every day, cause “significant and pervasive risks and harm to the right to life.” 

Criminalizing opinion by deeming it "misinformation"

Morgera argues that nations have an obligation to not only eliminate fossil fuel use and production very quickly, but they also need to “defossilize information systems to protect human rights in the formation of public opinion and democratic debate from undue commercial influence and from information distortions.” 

In order to ensure people have the right information and form the right opinions about energy and climate, Morgera argues that oil companies need to be banned from advertising or lobbying for their industry, and “misinformation” by the fossil fuel industry would need to be criminalized. 

Additionally, Morgera demands that any media companies running such ads or anything deemed “misinformation” would also face criminal penalties. Finally, nations need to criminalize “attacks against environmental human rights defenders.” 

Exactly what constitutes misinformation or “attacks” on environmentalists is never defined in the report, but based on the recommendations she lists and her rhetoric against fossil fuels, it appears that anyone who questions or criticizes the efficacy or reasoning for the rapid elimination of fossil fuels would be deemed as spreading “misinformation.” 

Climate activists have been losing ground with public opinion for some time now. In November, U.S. voters elected a president who promotes fossil fuel development and who calls climate change a “hoax.” Polls showed voters rated climate change at the bottom of their priorities, and the policies of "The Green New Deal" promised by Kamala Harris did not rate highly enough for her to avoid a crushing defeat.

After Trump won the election, investment firms pulled out of net-zero alliances, and many companies are scaling back their net-zero commitments. The Trump administration has also taken numerous actions to roll back the Biden-Harris administration’s climate agenda, including ending the EV mandate and reviewing climate regulations. 

Protests for the climate once drew large crowds. Despite the second Trump administration’s actions against net-zero emission plans, protests in the U.S. have been preoccupied with other issues. Just Stop Oil — the group notorious for throwing soup on paintings, blocking roads, disrupting events, and gluing themselves to various antiquities — announced in March it would stop such high-profile protests. 

Who decides what the "settled" science is?

Climate activists, however, are ramping up their efforts to force people to stop questioning their agenda. In April, Tortoise Media, considered a leftwing news site, launched a campaign called "Hot Air" which blamed the shift in public support for climate policies on the spread of what it calls “misinformation.” 

Just as with the other censorship campaigns, “Hot Air” never defines exactly what is “misinformation.” The campaign used AI to identify what content online that questioned their political agenda in hopes of pressuring social media companies to remove it. 

Among those deemed to be spreading “misinformation” were Wielicki, the geologist quoted earlier, energy expert Robert Bryce, Daniel Turner who founded Power the Future, and entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Bryce points out in an article on the project that it’s funded by Octopus Energy, and among the financial backers of the firm is a company co-chaired by Al Gore.

The list of climate offenders that “Hot Air” identifies includes anyone with a significant following who has ever questioned if climate change is the crisis activists make it out to be, or if we should rapidly eliminate fossil fuels to address its risk, whatever they might actually be. Wielicki called it “complete garbage.” 

“Half of the stuff they identified as misinformation was me posting peer-reviewed articles that basically question the narrative that the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] likes to ignore. Now we're calling peer-reviewed articles misinformation,” he said. 

The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) also released a study in June purporting to find that “powerful actors” are spreading “inaccurate or misleading narratives about anthropogenic climate change.”

As with “Hot Air” and the U.N. report, exactly what constitutes “inaccurate or misleading narratives” in the IPIE study is never defined. However, the authors contend that there is a “near-universal scientific consensus” that carbon dioxide is causing a crisis and anyone who questions it is spreading misinformation. 

To support its claim of a “near-universal scientific consensus” that climate change is causing a crisis, the report links to a synthesis report by the IPCC, which has been criticized for its highly politicized editorialization that doesn’t accurately reflect IPCC climate science. 

Our dissent is good, your dissent is bad

Chris Martz, a meteorologist who amassed a sizable following on X by presenting scientific data challenging the “climate crisis” narrative, said that his critics regularly accuse him of spreading misinformation. 

“They like to toss around the term misinformation or disinformation on a daily basis,” Martz told Just the News. 

He said calls to criminalize speech critical of the climate movement have been around for more than a decade, but he said it does appear the calls for censorship are becoming more frequent. 

The Guardian recently gave favorable coverage of the U.N. and IPIE reports. Oddly, at the bottom of the Guardian articles is a request for donations warning that dissent has become dangerous. “At the Guardian, we see it as our job not only to report on the suppression of dissenting voices, but to make sure those voices are heard,” the statement reads. Apparently, that doesn’t include those who question if climate change is a crisis, justifying the risks of rapidly eliminating fossil fuels. 

Following that article’s publication, Martz said two people on Facebook sent him private messages saying he should be arrested for spreading misinformation. 

“I don't know if that's just some bizarre coincidence, or if that has to do with the Guardian article. There seems to be some serious violence out there, vitriol towards people that don't think like them,” Martz said. 

Climate skeptics want to debate

While climate activists are more and more embracing the idea that their political opponents should be jailed or otherwise silenced, climate skeptics are asking for more opportunity to debate their opponents. 

Wielicki said he’s been asked to participate in public debates with supporters of the “climate crisis” narrative, only to have the event canceled because they couldn’t get anyone on that side of the debate to participate. 

Martz said that he welcomes debates on his X feed and only blocks people for excessive personal attacks or spamming the comments section. He said people on the other side of the debate seem less inclined to engage in good-faith discussions, even when they’re not calling for outright censorship of their opponents. 

“Skeptics seem to be much more receptive and open to debate. And you know, I'm very open to debate too,” Martz said. 

Practice what you preach 

Martz points out that those calling for the rapid elimination of fossil fuels aren’t giving them up in their own lives, even when challenged to do so.

“They say, ‘we need climate action now. We need to get rid of fossil fuels now.’ Okay, so why don't you go and do that? Why don't you be the change you want to see? Why don't you lead by example, show us all how it's done?” Martz said. 

The response he usually gets to the challenge, he said, is that it’s a strawman argument and no one is actually calling for fossil fuels to be eliminated right now. Though, as Martz points out, these are the same people calling for “urgent action” to address climate change. 

To reengineer the entire globe’s supply chains for millions of products to run on alternative energy sources in 5-20 years is a rapid elimination of fossil fuels. It’s reasonable to ask why the proponents of this policy don’t agree to live the lifestyle they want to impose upon others. 

Now some climate activists would prefer that questioning them and their positions be against the law.