Social media engagement in people and climate change

Abstract

‘People’ are central both to populism, an ideology in which ‘people’ are pitted against corrupt elites, and to climate science and policy, which advocate ‘people-centred’ climate action. Our Brief Communication explores references to climate change and ‘people’ on Twitter (now X). Populist tropes (the people against corrupt elites) were not restricted to climate-sceptical tweets; they extended to tweets that recognised climate change was real but expressed mistrust about climate actions.