Specifically, we are interested in how the climate discussion is structured on Twitter in terms of the plurality of views and the interaction patterns among ideologically opposed groups. In this paper, we analyse tweets related to the Conference of the Parties (COP) to clarify the nature of polarization in political debates on climate change. The study of online polarization has thus gained momentum in recent years 4, 5, 6. Monitoring polarization is important given that a highly polarized environment has the potential to drive antagonism between ideological groups, generate political deadlock and threaten pluralist democracies 3. The nature of this role is highly contested, with some pointing to its democratizing potential while others argue that social media is accelerating political polarization 2. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, provide important locations for the everyday discussion and debate of climate change 1. With future climate action reliant on negotiations at COP27 and beyond, our results highlight the importance of monitoring polarization and its impacts in the public climate discourse. Finally, we identify a broad range of ‘climate contrarian’ views during COP26, emphasizing the theme of political hypocrisy as a topic of cross-ideological appeal contrarian views and accusations of hypocrisy have become key themes in the Twitter climate discussion since 2019. Second, we show that this increase is driven by growing right-wing activity, a fourfold increase since COP21 relative to pro-climate groups. First, we reveal a large increase in ideological polarization during COP26, following low polarization between COP20 and COP25. Here we investigate their intersection by studying the discussion around the United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP) using Twitter data from 2014 to 2021. Climate change and political polarization are two of the twenty-first century’s critical socio-political issues.
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