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AFP
21-07-2025
- Politics
- AFP
Italy is still a signatory of the Paris Agreement, as of July 2025
"After the United States, Italy is also withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement," says a July 9, 2025 post shared thousands of times on X. The account, "Update News," portrayed itself as media and shared a photo of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to accompany its claim. On July 18, the account was suspended. Image A screenshot of a post on X taken July 18, 2025 Similar posts circulated widely across social media platforms and in various languages, including French, Dutch, Turkish and Spanish. On his first day back in the White House in January 2025, Trump announced the United States would leave the Paris Agreement, which is managed by the United Nations climate change body and aims to keep global average temperature rise below a critical threshold (archived here). Under the far-right Brothers of Italy party, Meloni's government has repeatedly criticized multi-lateral climate agreements. She said the European Green Deal should be revised and could lead to deindustrialization, while her administration has sought to transform Italy into a "gas hub" for the Mediterranean. But online claims that the country withdrew in July 2025 from its commitment to reduce its emissions are not supported by governmental sources and have not been reported by credible media outlets, AFP found. Like most European Union member states, Italy was in the first batch of signatories of the accord in April 2016, after the treaty's adoption in December 2015 (archived here). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's ratification page and the United Nations treaty collection page are both publicly available and show Italy as a signatory, as of July 21, 2025 (archived here and here). A search for notifications pertaining to withdrawals from the Paris Agreement yielded results for the United States -- which officially withdrew from the accord January 27 -- but not for Italy. Image Screenshot of a United Nations treaty collection page taken July 18, 2025 "We have not heard anything about Italy withdrawing from the Paris Agreement," Leandro Vigna, data partnerships and outreach manager for the nonprofit Climate Watch, told AFP in a July 16 email. The group, which collects data on countries' progress in their climate targets established for the Paris Agreement, still displays the nation on its platform. Keyword searches of the Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, a governmental resource that publishes Italian legislation, as well as the Italian government website and the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research did not surface any relevant announcements about a withdrawal of the country from the treaty, either. In 2025, the European Commission -- of which Italy is a member -- reiterated its intent to make the bloc's economy carbon neutral by 2050 and promised to stick with targets set so far, including a 90 percent cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. AFP reached out to an Italian government spokesperson for comment, but no response was forthcoming. Other climate debunks can be found here.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How a fake news story about Islamist anti-dog-walking leaflets circulated in Canada and the UK
Did people really post Islamist anti-dog leaflets in Canada and the United Kingdom? Since early April, several photos of leaflets and fliers asking people to no longer walk their dogs out of respect for their Muslim neighbours have inflamed Islamophobic discussions online. However, all of these photos are old and were flagged as potential fakes even when they first came out. We take a look at how three different fake news items have circulated. "Do not walk your dog here! Muslims do not like dogs. This is an islamic area now,' reads a flyer shown in a photo posted on X on April 15 by Ashlea Simon, the chairman of the British far-right political party Britain First. "I'd prefer to keep the dogs and deport the Islamists if I'm honest,' she said in her post, which garnered more than 300,000 views in two days. Quite a few British social media accounts shared the photo, showing a piece of A4 paper taped to a sign near a park. 'Should we be told where we can walk our dogs?" reads a post by the X account Simon Scissorhands, who describes himself as a 'proud patriot' in his bio. But where did this flyer come from? It turns out that this flyer isn't recent. The conservative account Update News already shared it back in July 2024 in a post that garnered more than 1.5 million views on X. However, the article did provide more information about the photo, which the article reported was taken in the borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. Read more on The Observers - France 24
