Climate breakdown is accelerating. Millions march in their cities demanding their governments take action. Floods, fires and hurricanes are ravaging communities all over the world, and the call for action has never been stronger or more urgent. 

Climate has become a polarizing debate about beliefs and identity as much as about science. Leaders have begun to seize on climate change to advance ideologically rooted positions. Many take the side of climate skeptics to win votes. Big industries have undermined public discourse by funneling millions into groups denying climate change, threatening decades of research and climate consensus. 

Meanwhile, we watch as forest fires ravage Australia and climate change denialism dominates the social media, as quick-spreading and uncontrollable as the flames themselves.

In 2019, more than 40,000 fires swept through the Amazon rainforest, which absorbs two million tons of CO2 per year. The fires filled many of Brazil’s cities with acrid smoke. Yet the country is presided over by Jair Bolsonaro, a president who called his government’s scientific research on the Amazon “lies.”

In July 2019, United Nations poverty and human rights expert Philip Alston warned of a “climate apartheid” where 120 million more people would be living in poverty by 2030 as a result of rising temperatures, threatening democracy, and human rights.

As the climate crisis begins to exceed scientific expectations, Coda Story will hold to account individuals, institutions, and companies who seek to undermine climate science for profit or political gain. We will also examine how those campaigns impact policy around the world. We’re also going to visit the most climate-ravaged parts of the earth to understand how populations are being directly affected by climate denialism.