Climate Action During COVID-19 Recovery and Beyond: A Twitter Text Mining Study
This research addresses public opinion on climate policy for policymakers and environmental advocates, but it is incremental as it applies existing text mining methods to a new dataset.
The study analyzed Twitter discussions to assess public attitudes towards climate action during COVID-19 recovery, finding that most discussions support climate action and highlight lessons from the pandemic for future policy, though skeptics remain present.
The Coronavirus pandemic created a global crisis that prompted immediate large-scale action, including economic shutdowns and mobility restrictions. These actions have had devastating effects on the economy, but some positive effects on the environment. As the world recovers from the pandemic, we ask the following question: What is the public attitude towards climate action during COVID-19 recovery and beyond? We answer this question by analyzing discussions on the Twitter social media platform. We find that most discussions support climate action and point out lessons learned during pandemic response that can shape future climate policy, although skeptics continue to have a presence. Additionally, concerns arise in the context of climate action during the pandemic, such as mitigating the risk of COVID-19 transmission on public transit.