Abstract
This article provides an empirical study of public engagement with climate change discourse in China by analysing how Chinese publics participate in the public discussion around two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and how individual users interact with state and elite actors on the pre-eminent Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. Using social network analysis methods and a temporal comparison, we examine the structure of climate communication networks, the direction of information flows among multiple types of Weibo users, and the changes in information diffusion patterns between the pre- and post-Paris periods. Our results show there is an increasing yet constrained form of public engagement in climate communication on Weibo alongside China’s pro-environmental transition in recent years. We find an expansion of public engagement as shown by individual users’ increasing influence in communication networks and the diversification of frames associated with climate change discourse. However, we also find three restrictive interaction tendencies that limit Weibo’s potential to facilitate multi-directional communication and open public deliberation of climate change, including the decline of mutually balanced dialogic interactions, the lack of bottom-up information flows, and the reinforcement of homophily tendencies amongst eco-insiders and governmental users. These findings highlight the coexistence of both opportunities and constraints of Weibo being a venue for public engagement with climate communication and as a forum for a new climate politics and citizen participation in China.
Highlights
Since its 13th Five-Year-Plan period (2016–2020), China has undergone a pro-environmental transition and a restructuring of its economy for greener growth
This is consistent with Liu and Zhao’s (2017) study, which found that Weibo discussions during the Paris Summit period were primarily about raising public awareness, and climate change was mostly presented as a global threat with little relevance to China’s national context
We found the top-down pattern of information diffusion was reinforced over time and individual accounts became less likely to be reposted by organizational accounts in climate communication on Weibo
Summary
Since its 13th Five-Year-Plan period (2016–2020), China has undergone a pro-environmental transition and a restructuring of its economy for greener growth. China pledged at COP21 to peak its emissions by 2030 and announced in 2020 to further strengthen its target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. These pledges have translated into a series of rapid climate policies and state-led programs, such as policies and investments to boost renewable energies and the nationwide “Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction” plan (State Council, 2011). China’s climate responses remain largely insufficient to meet climate targets, these initiatives demonstrate a positive shift in China’s environmental orientation.
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