Is Climate Change a Topic of Concern to Indians? Assessing and Predicting Sentiments Using Deep Learning Techniques

Abstract

Climate change is a significant concern to all of us. It is now becoming a hot topic of discussion among people around the world with social media being a ubiquitous platform for debate. As in other countries, the Government of India has started various initiatives to minimize the causes of climate change. But the success of all such initiatives depends on people’s participation and understanding. Therefore, this study’s aims are two-fold: (a) to capture the perception of Indian people towards different topics of climate change; (b) to mine the sentiment of Indian people using ‘deep learning’ algorithms. Data from various social media platforms have been used for this research. The study showed that people in India have demonstrated concern about topics related to climate change. The study also found that the convolutional neural network (CNN) was the most effective algorithm for sentiment classification. The results can help different stakeholders, including the Government of India, prioritize various actions to mitigate climate change’s causes and effects based on citizens’ sentiment.