The evolution of the climate change debate on Twitter: A focus on IPCC reports

Abstract

Due to its dramatic impact on people’s lives, climate change is one of the most debated topics of the recent past. Concurrently, social media have become increasingly important entrances to information and act as major mediators of public opinion formation for millions of people around the world. To study and detect solutions to mitigate the phenomenon of climate change, organizations like the Conference Of Parties (COP) and the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) have been established over the years. In particular, IPCC is the main international organism for the assessment of environmental changes and it provides quinquennial reports. In this thesis we explore how the debate around the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has evolved on Twitter, comparing Tweets about the 5-th and about the 6-th Assessment Reports. To this aim, we collect 2,5 million Tweets mentioning IPCC and analyze users’ engagement, finding an increase in the interest around IPCC over time. Moreover, we investigate the interconnections among the users, building networks of interactions. To identify the key subjects of discussion, we implement topic modeling techniques on the Tweets and analyze how interest in different topics evolves over time. Finally, we focus on politicians’ behavior, exploring their interconnections and their main interests on the subject. Our analysis shows that the social interest in climate change has been increasing between the two IPCC reports. Moreover, we highlight how the topics debated by both politicians and the general audience evolved, suggesting a change in the narrative around IPCC reports.