The Climate Conversation

The latest commentary (at 30 November):

As the news interest in Climategate decreases, the Climate Conversation once again became a discussion dominated by political audiences. Much attention has focussed on issues relating to China, but the Commonwealth Summit and right-wing bloggers have also put a focus on North America. Specifically, when looking at the most active print, blog and Twitter accounts commentating on the issues, the significant developments and observations were:

• The news that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabo will attend COP15 did not gain significant media coverage. However China’s announcement of intended 40-45% reduction in carbon intensity was a top story across both Chinese and global titles. This news story was reported alongside news of the US pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17%. Only on the blogosphere did people highlight that the US pledge is far more significant that that of China’s.

• An increasing emphasis on the role of the EU gained momentum, particularly as the upcoming meeting between the EU and China approaches. Debate over the proposed 20% cuts from the EU, as well as funding that the EU should give developing nations, all formed main areas for discussion.

• Contesting climate change evidence maintained prominence in the blogosphere, particularly by North American right-wing bloggers who are keen to keep the conversation around false scientific evidence in the public eye.

• COP15 discussions at the Commonwealth Summit around whether Canada should be excluded from the Commonwealth group for its non-environmental Climate Change policies gained hold in the media. Politicians, NGOs and academics called for its suspension, based on its exploitation of tar sands which cause three times the emissions of conventional oil extraction.

The COP15 Top 15

Obama maintains prominence

• Barack Obama remained the most prominent person to feature in the Climate Conversation, increasing his prominence by 25% in contrast to Danish PM Lars Loekke Rasmussen, who increased his media prominence by 22% in the same time frame.

French fighting spirit

• Described by some as a move to drive up his reputation in advance of COP15, Nicholas Sarkosy gained prominence in the influencer charts, moving up two places (from 7 to 5). Over the last three days, his profile grew following his urgings to the Indian PM Manmohan Singh to attend the summit, as well as commenting on Obama’s absence on key COP15 negotiation dates.

Model behaviour

• An eclectic group dominate the celebrity influencer rankings in the lead up to the COP15 summit. Contrary to expectations, the poll is led by Danish supermodel Helena Christensen. Hot on her heels in the celebrity top-5 is an actress (Lucy Lawless of Xena: Warrior Princess), a Royal (HRH Prince of Wales), an author and activist (Naomi Klein) and a musician (Paul McCartney).

Key media topics

Right-wing campaigners continue to contest climate change facts

• Contesting climate change evidence maintained prominence in the blogosphere, particularly by North American right-wing bloggers who are keen to keep the conversation around false scientific evidence in the public eye. The topic dominated 27% of the most active blogs, compared to 8% and 5% of the most active print and Twitter groups respectively.

Twitter working in tandem

• Climate conversations across print and Twitter can be seen to have moved in tandem with one another, while blogs have been lending themselves more to debate. For example, in the most recent analysis on discussions around leading topic ‘Expectations of COP15 outcomes’, print and Twitter comment both increased (from 64% to 79% of the most active print publications and from 45% to 56% of the most active Twitter accounts) while blogging on the same subject decreased (from 67% to 58% of the most active blogs).

NGOs stay true to their tweets

• NGO campaigners such as Greenpeace and WWF continue to favour Twitter as a means of communication. Most recent analysis shows a two-fold increase in the NGO voice (from 7% to 14% of the most active Twitter accounts).

Influencer groups by topics

New topic takes hold

• Following the Commonwealth Summit, the ‘role of developing nations’ has moved into the top five topics for discussion across the most active print, blog and Twitter accounts. It keeps an even share of voice between politicians (12% of most active print publications, blogs and Twitter accounts), NGOs (17%), academics (12%) and corporate representatives (8%)

Academics lose share of voice but keep talking

• As Climategate has dropped in prominence in the Climate Conversation, so too has the overall voice of academics – albeit they continue to comment on specific topics, notably the ‘US role at COP15 and beyond’ which has seen a four-fold increase from 2% of the conversation to 8% across most active print publications, blogs and Twitter accounts.  They have also increased their share of voice on three-fold on the ‘developed nations and their emissions’ topic, moving up from 5% to 16% across the same media sources.

Celebrities stay focused

• The favourite topic of celebrities is clearly ‘expectations of COP15 outcomes’, which gains nearly 2/3rds of all comment (68% of most active print publications, blogs and Twitter accounts)

Topics by influencer group

The Climate Conversation – a political one?

Politicians now dominate the Climate Conversation with at least ¾ of the share of voice in seven of the top ten topics. One topic is left to other influencers: ‘investment in green industries’, which is led by corporate representatives who dominate 35% of coverage across the most active print publications, blogs and Twitter accounts.