Climate change is considered one of the most pressing issues of our time. A 2021 United Nations’ climate change report warned that all countries are not doing enough to limit CO2 emission into the atmosphere and that “we must cut global emission by 45 percent by 2030 from 2010 levels” (United Nations, 2021). In fact, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been assessing the conditions of climate change since 1988, and they too reported the severity of the current status of our lack of action against climate change and of the future problems the earth will face (Harvey, 2021; IPCC, 2021).
One strategy to reduce global emissions is to advocate the situation’s urgency to the public, who have dual roles in the matter of climate change. First, the public can act more responsibly through their behaviors, such as transportation, recycling, and purchasing habits. Second, and more importantly, the public can pressure politicians to create more environmentally responsible policies. This is necessary as “only [one hundred] investor and state-owned fossil fuel companies are responsible for around 70% [of the CO2 emissions worldwide]” (Hyman, 2020).
A number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promote issues related to climate change. These NGOs work with policy makers as well as the public. Some of these NGOs have existed since the 1970s; Greenpeace, for example, has influenced national and international discourses around the environment such as deforestation since 1971. More recently, the NGOs began taking advantage of ICTs, especially social media, to mobilize their campaigns (Comfort, 2019).
This paper addresses the use of social media, specifically Twitter, by climate change organizations and their interactions with the public.