Communicating Climate Change on TikTok During the Climate Summits: From the Environmental Issues to the Politicization of Discourse*

Abstract

ABSTRACT Climate Change (CC) communication is one of the most important areas to inform and raise awareness of the current climate emergency. This research studies how CC was communicated on the fastest growing platform, TikTok, during the Glasgow (2021) and Sharm el-Sheikh (2022) Climate Summits. Content analysis of the videos (N = 1013) showed a significant reduction in the number of CC-related videos during the Egypt Summit compared to its predecessor. While the Glasgow Summit was notable for addressing primarily environmental issues, the Sharm el-Sheikh one saw a politicization of the discourse, often unrelated to the climate issue. The results reveal that the main voices communicating CC on TikTok are influencers, media, and journalists, mostly men. The small number of sources of information cited in the videos is relevant. On the few occasions in which a source is mentioned, it is the media. These, in turn, do not report the origin of the information transmitted HIGHLIGHTS The results show a significant reduction in the number of CC-related videos published during Sharm el-Sheikh COP27 compared to Glasgow COP26. Videos addressing CC-related issues are not a majority. Both influencers and the media are the ones who published the most, and men are more likely communicating CC on the platform. Influencers and TikTok users no longer communicate environmental or socio-cultural issues at COP27. They create a discourse that revolves solely around information on political issues. In general terms, the research reflects the lack of an educational and informative function of the climate issue on TikTok.