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Sensing climate change and energy issues: Sentiment and emotion analysis with social media in the U.K. and Spain

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  • Loureiro, Maria L.
  • Alló, Maria

Abstract

In this paper we assess the sentiments and emotions related to climate change in the U.K. and Spain during the first six months of 2019, and how these relate to different preferences and concerns about energy policies. In doing so, we analyze Twitter messages related to climate change occurring in both countries, using natural language processing (NLP) tools. We find that messages in the U.K. related to climate change are less negative than in Spain; whereas the most evoked feeling in the U.K. (Spain) is anticipation (fear). However, our results show quite similar views about preferences for energy policies in these two Western European countries. In particular, renewable sources of energy are associated with positive perceptions, and coal with negative; whereas heteregoneous preferences are present in the case of nuclear energy. Information of this type may be relevant in order to understand public reactions and preferences towards mitigation and adaptation policies across countries. Our results complement and correspond quite well with those previously published in European surveys. We advocate the use of social media in order to assess sentiment and emotion analysis in close to real time events or manifestation of opinions, not properly covered by official statistics.

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  • Loureiro, Maria L. & Alló, Maria, 2020. "Sensing climate change and energy issues: Sentiment and emotion analysis with social media in the U.K. and Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:143:y:2020:i:c:s0301421520302366
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111490
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Matthew R. Sisco & Valentina Bosetti & Elke U. Weber, 2017. "When do extreme weather events generate attention to climate change?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 227-241, July.
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    1. Nowakowski, Adam & Oswald. Andrew J, 2020. "Do Europeans Care about Climate Change? An Illustration of the Importance of Data on Human Feelings," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1303, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. So-Yun Jeong & Jae-Wook Kim & Han-Young Joo & Young-Seo Kim & Joo-Hyun Moon, 2021. "Development and Application of a Big Data Analysis-Based Procedure to Identify Concerns about Renewable Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-13, August.
    3. Prabhsimran Singh & Surleen Kaur & Abdullah M. Baabdullah & Yogesh K. Dwivedi & Sandeep Sharma & Ravinder Singh Sawhney & Ronnie Das, 2023. "Is #SDG13 Trending Online? Insights from Climate Change Discussions on Twitter," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 199-219, February.
    4. Kim, Byungjun & Yang, Soeun & Kim, Hana, 2024. "Voices of transitions: Korea's online news media and user comments on the energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
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    7. Wei, Yu & Zhang, Jiahao & Chen, Yongfei & Wang, Yizhi, 2022. "The impacts of El Niño-southern oscillation on renewable energy stock markets: Evidence from quantile perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
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    10. Istvan Ervin Haber & Mate Toth & Robert Hajdu & Kinga Haber & Gabor Pinter, 2021. "Exploring Public Opinions on Renewable Energy by Using Conventional Methods and Social Media Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-13, May.
    11. Núria Sánchez-Pantoja & Rosario Vidal & M. Carmen Pastor, 2021. "EU-Funded Projects with Actual Implementation of Renewable Energies in Cities. Analysis of Their Concern for Aesthetic Impact," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-24, March.
    12. Victoria Yantseva & Kostiantyn Kucher, 2022. "Stance Classification of Social Media Texts for Under-Resourced Scenarios in Social Sciences," Data, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-19, November.
    13. Nowakowski, Adam & Oswald, Andrew J, 2020. "Do Europeans Care about Climate Change? An Illustration of the Importance of Data on Human Feelings," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 510, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    14. Serena Y. Kim & Koushik Ganesan & Princess Dickens & Soumya Panda, 2021. "Public Sentiment toward Solar Energy—Opinion Mining of Twitter Using a Transformer-Based Language Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, March.
    15. Schallehn, Frauke & Valogianni, Konstantina, 2022. "Sustainability awareness and smart meter privacy concerns: The cases of US and Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).

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