How Does the World View China’s Carbon Policy? A Sentiment Analysis on Twitter Data

Ning Xiang, Limao Wang, Shuai Zhong, Chen Zheng, Bo Wang and Qiushi Qu
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Ning Xiang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Limao Wang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Shuai Zhong: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Chen Zheng: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Bo Wang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Qiushi Qu: School of Economics, Hebei University of Geosciences, Shijiazhuang 050031, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-17

Abstract: China has recently put forth an ambitious plan to achieve carbon peak around 2030 and carbon neutrality around 2060. However, there are quite a few differences regarding the public views about China’s carbon policy between the Chinese people and the people from other countries, especially concerning the doubt of foreign people about the fidelity of China’s carbon policy goals. Based on Twitter data related to China’s carbon policy topics from 2008 to 2020, this study shows the inter- and intra-annual trends in the count of tweets about China’s carbon policy, conducts sentiment analysis, extracts top frequency words from different attitudes, and analyzes the impact of China’s official Twitter accounts on the global view of China’s carbon policy. Our results show: (1) the global attention to China’s carbon policy gradually rises and occasionally rises suddenly due to important carbon events; (2) the proportion of Twitter users with negative sentiment about China’s carbon policy has increased rapidly and has exceeded the proportion of Twitter users with positive sentiment since 2019; (3) people in developing countries hold more positive or neutral attitudes towards China’s carbon policy, while developed countries hold more negative attitudes; (4) China’s official Twitter accounts serve to improve the global views on China’s carbon policy.

Keywords: carbon policy; carbon neutral; Twitter; sentiments; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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