Attention, sentiments and emotions towards emerging climate technologies on Twitter

Area of Science:

• Climate Science
• Social Science
• Computer Science

Background:

• Public perception significantly impacts the development and deployment of emerging climate technologies.
• Traditional survey methods face challenges in assessing public opinion on novel, lesser-known technologies like greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and solar radiation management (SRM).
• Social media offers a valuable, complementary data source for analyzing unsolicited public opinions on these technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze public perception trends, sentiment, and emotions related to 16 GGR and SRM technologies using social media data.
• To investigate how public attention and discourse surrounding geoengineering have evolved over time.
• To compare public reception of GGR versus SRM technologies.

Main Methods:

• A large-scale analysis of 1.5 million tweets from 2006 to 2021.
• Utilized state-of-the-art deep learning models to track attention, sentiment, and emotion.
• Comparative study across 16 distinct GGR and SRM technologies.

Main Results:

• Public attention has increasingly focused on specific GGR methods, moving away from general geoengineering discussions.
• Specific SRM technologies receive limited attention and are frequently associated with conspiracy narratives.
• Tweets about GGR generally exhibit more positive sentiment, especially for methods perceived as natural, whereas GGR framed within geoengineering contexts show more negative sentiment.

Conclusions:

• Public discourse on climate technologies is dynamic and technology-specific.
• The framing of technologies (e.g., natural vs. geoengineering) significantly influences public sentiment.
• Social media analysis provides critical insights into public perception, informing future climate technology development and policy.