Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Inferring the cross-platform structures of socio-political POLARization around CLIMATE change on social media

Project description

Confronting climate polarisation to bridge divides

As climate change poses an existential threat, urgent global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are imperative. However, political gridlock fuelled by societal polarisation often hinders effective action. This perpetuates scepticism towards climate science. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the POLARCLIMATE project will study interventions combating climate scepticism and fostering consensus. Specifically, it will address passive engagement with climate narratives and eliminate cross-platform analysis limitations. Through interdisciplinary methods blending data science and climate communications, POLARCLIMATE aims to provide evidence-based policy recommendations for a more unified global response to climate change. By analysing social media and financial data, the project seeks to drive meaningful action against climate polarisation.

Objective

Addressing climate change's existential threat demands a global effort to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. However, political gridlock fuelled by societal polarisation can stymie effective action. POLARCLIMATE confronts this challenge, studying interventions to curb climate scepticism and foster consensus.

POLARCLIMATE will use a social media lens to advance the current state-of-the-art on climate polarisation, tackling three key research challenges. First, existing studies of climate polarisation fail to consider how passive engagement with climate narratives shape climate opinions. Second, studies of climate polarisation are typically siloed to a single platform, limiting their demographic relevance and preventing a robust cross-platform analysis of content and structure. Finally, studies do not adequately consider the agents who drive climate polarisation, especially those organisations with a vested financial interest in maintaining the status quo.

To address these challenges, POLARCLIMATE will take an interdisciplinary, multi-modal approach drawing on quantitative methods from networks and data science, and qualitative methods from climate communications. The analysis of passive consumption and cross-platform structure will be studied using Bayesian inference and network reconstruction methods, and content will be analysed using taxonomies of climate scepticism and computer-aided topic modelling across various climate publics. Finally, organisational financial interests will be identified by using Bloomberg financial data, and compared to the rhetoric of corresponding organisations on social media.

POLARCLIMATE will balance scientific rigour with policy relevance. The project's outputs will offer multi-modal evidence to inform the development of concrete policy recommendations aimed at mitigating the adverse impacts of climate polarization. These recommendations aim to contribute to a more unified and effective global response to climate change.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

CEU GMBH
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 183 600,96
Address
QUELLENSTRASSE 51
1100 WIEN
Austria

See on map

Region
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Partners (1)

My booklet 0 0