Tweeting Against Climate Change

NGO’s use of Twitter to push their agenda in the public sphere

Team Members: Jeroen de Vos - Milan van Vugt - Isabelle van der Ende - Massimo Airoldi - Alberto Cossu - Christian de Bruijn - Christiaan Ate Paauwe -
Esta Kaal.

Introduction

COP21

From November 30^th to December 12^th, world leaders, researchers and specialists came together to discuss measures to make global warming come to hold during the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also known as the COP21 or the CMP11 (we will further refer to this event as the COP21). The COP21 was hosted and presided by France and was held in the Le Bourget exhibition centre in Paris. The strict goal of the conference was to come up with a resolution to the threat of global warming and find solutions as to how the global warming could be kept under 2ºC. On December 12^th the COP21 presented a report in which new global goals were described. In the report it was pledged, for the first time, to try and keep the global warming under 1,5ºC in order to save the small island states that are threatened the most by global warming and the rising sea levels it causes (“More details about” n. pag.).

During the climate top a range of NGOs and activists put effort in contributing to the on-going discussions with Greenpeace being one of them. Greenpeace is an international operating non-governmental organization (NGO) that states that: “A green and peaceful future is our quest” (“Our story” n. pag.). To achieve this future Greenpeace organizes campaigns to change current attitudes and behaviour. The goal of these campaigns is to protect and conserve the environment and promote peace. Currently one of Greenpeace’s main campaigns focuses on: “Catalysing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change” (“About Greenpeace” n. pag.). During the COP21 Greenpeace hosted several side events to educate people about green energy and to underline the importance of it. Spokespersons for Greenpeace have stated that in general they are very content with the outcome of the COP 21 conference, although they still feel that more should be done in the future. Kumi Naidoo, who was Greenpeace’s International Executive Director at the time of the COP21, communicated that view in a blog post on the Greenpeace website (n. pag.).

To get a clearer view on the topics that were covered at the COP21 conference, we have listed the key subjects of the conference per day. These topics are visualized in Table 1, along with side events hosted by Greenpeace’s as to get a better grasp on what exactly the organization has done during the COP21 (for a more elaborate idea of the topics covered by the COP21 and Greenpeace’s events, see Appendix I).

Table 1: Key topics per day of the COP21 and Greenpeace special side events.

30/11	1/12	2/12	3/12	4/12	5/12
Science Water Biodiversity	Forest Agriculture Carbon African Renewable Energy Initiative Greenpeace petition on forest fire.	Farmers’ Day Resilience Oceans Coastal ecosystems Technology Knowledge	YOUNGO Day Buildings Transport Energy efficiency	Ocean Day Education Green economy Fossil fuel Greenpeace renewable energy	District and Buildings Energy Efficiency GHG emission

6/12	7/12	8/12	9/12	10/12	11/12
South-South cooperation	Energy: efficiency, renewable, sustainable Finances Emissions gap report	Cities Business Innovations Carbon Air Greenpeace’s investigation on climate deniers (fossil fuel)	Forest Landscape Innovative technology Finances	Education Climate knowledge Human rights Human Mobility Finances	Mountain environment Closing press conference

Current research

The current research is initiated by Soenke Lorenzen, the research manager of Greenpeace International, and aims to examine the sub debate focused on renewables and green energy that Greenpeace set out to communicate on social media during the COP21. Lorenzen provided us with an overview of the focus points of Greenpeace’s communication during the COP21 (Wiedmann, Loeffelbein, Kaiser & Philippe). These focus points made it possible for us to focus our research on specific terms and agendas pushed by one of the most important NGOs involved in the renewable energy debate. In context of the COP21 Greenpeace’s communication narratives focused on: green actions, renewable energy, human rights and human movements. To convey these messages Greenpeace employed several slogans within their communication. These were:

• “Rise up for renewables”
• “Nothing stops climate change faster than our actions”
• “100% renewable energy for all by 2050”
• “100% renewables: A promise for peace”
• “Emissions anywhere affect people everywhere”

These slogans were translated into hashtags for Greenpeace’s communication on Twitter. The hashtags Greenpeace employed on a regular basis during these two weeks were the following: #go100percent, #go100percentre, #renawables, #COP21, #climate, #climatechange, #indigenous, #justice, #peace, #humanrights, #fossilfuels, #climatemarch, #marchforme, #actionsforclimate. There were several other NGOs that made use of the same hashtags to contribute to the integration of the green energy narrative into the larger COP21 narrative.

Within this research we will focus in particular on the broader question of the role of NGOs in the energy related debate reflected on Twitter during and after the COP21. The project will be informed by NGO stakeholders who will provide the meta­narratives developed and disseminated as part of their communications strategy. These stakeholders have defined their research needs that include an analysis into whether these narratives have successfully made their way into new media sites and platforms, and if so, whether they were primarily shared by actors within, what is dubbed the NGO "bubble", or whether some actors were migrating this conversation into the larger COP21 narrative on social media (Lorenzen n. pag.).

Research Questions

This research is build around one particular question, tapping into Greenpeace’s (and other NGOs’) desire to know what influence they had on the larger narrative on Twitter about COP21 in general and the energy debate in particular. In addition, this research focused on mapping the presence of NGOs in the sub narrative about renewables and green energy, hence our research question was:

To what extent was the effort of NGOs to situate the renewable energy debate within the larger narrative about COP21 successful and visible on Twitter?

In turn, this question has been operationalized into two sub questions. These questions allowed us to focus on different parts of our main question to eventually accurately formulate an answer to our research question as a whole.

RQ 1: To what extent is the energy debate visible and integrated within the larger COP21 narrative?

RQ 2: Which NGOs are part of the top influencers in the energy debate?

At the beginning of the process we expected to find a sub narrative about renewable energy within the larger narrative that had place on Twitter surrounding the COP21. However, we were not sure if that narrative was very visible and expected it to not be very connected to the larger COP21 narrative, as it seems to address a very specific sub focus of the climate top. As to the second part of our research question, we expected to find a lot of NGOs heavily invested in the sub narrative about green energy. We also expect to find Greenpeace, which is a world renowned NGO, to be very present in this sub debate and for it to be a large influence in connecting the renewable energy sub narrative to the larger narrative about COP21.

Methodology

Twitter

For this research we will draw upon Digital Methods for our methodology. Digital Methods is a term coined by Richard Rogers, who is the founder of the Digital Methods initiative, and refers to an internet-related research method whereby the web is approached as being a large dataset (Rogers, “Digital Methods for” 1). One of the main principles of Digital Methods is to build upon existing, dominant devices to extract relevant data from the web and subsequently turn that data into “indicators and findings” (Rogers, “Digital Methods” 3). Within this research we aim to repurpose data extracted from the social networking and micro blogging website Twitter and subsequently turn them into indicators and findings.

Debanalization of Twitter

In order to give meaning to our data set we have to debanalize Twitter and give meaning to the data we extracted from the platform. Research focussing on the Iran elections in 2009 already showed that Twitter data can very well be remodelled to tell interesting stories (Rogers, “Debanalizing Twitter” 5). 2009 was also the year that Twitter changed its slogan from “what are you doing?” to “what’s happening?”, emphasizing Twitter’s change from a banal social network to a more newsworthy medium on which current events as (natural) disasters and elections can be followed in detail (Rogers, “Digital Methods for” 19). According to Rogers the change in tagline was not only caused by a shift in how twitterers used the platform, but he also dubbed it a “nudge” to the Twitter users to comply the information sharing character of the platform (Rogers, “Debanalizing Twitter” 4). This shift in interpretation of Twitter’s characteristics is also the root of a new research approach to the platform. It can now be studied as a way to follow online conversation regarding offline events (Rogers “Debanalizing Twitter” 4). This is made relatively easy, because of Twitter’s built-in means of analysis. Collections of tweets can easily be organised and interpreted based on retweets, followers/followings, mentions, hashtags, replies, and shortened URL’s (Rogers, “Debanalizing Twitter” 7). This debanalization of Twitter and the real time character of it make it a very suitable platform to study the online public narrative on that surrounds the COP21.

Program and anti-program

A second interesting aspect as to chose Twitter as a medium for this research is about a specific mode of interaction that is possible on the social networking site due to the large dependence on hashtags for conversation ordering and labelling. Rogers dubbed this interaction “program versus anti-program” (“Foundations of” 5). The idea is that there is a keyword, a hashtag in this case, that represents one side of the debate. This keyword or hashtag is dubbed the program. In this research Greenpeace set out to promote the green energy program by using specific hashtags. It is very possible though that lobbyists who support fossil fuel based energy set out to fight Greenpeace’s program by launching a so-called anti-program. In this anti-program hashtags that convey an opposite view are employed (Rogers “Foundations of” 5). Within the current research this insight in program versus anti-program can really clarify different sub debates in the energy discourse on Twitter.

Authority on Twitter

The last motive as to why we ought Twitter to be a suitable platform to focus our research on, revolves around authority. Individuals, political parties, NGOs and researchers all have a say in the public debate on Twitter. Twitter itself does not categorize the different types of profiles; all tweets are seen as equal by the platform. However, over time some tweets become more influential than others, as do the people who tweeted them.

If a profile is followed by a large number of users it can give a first insight in the influence of the profile. However as Anger and Kittl state: “followers are without doubt important as they amplify the content, but quantity does not equal quality and a small audience of engaged users is worth more than a large audience of less active users” (4).

One way to measure the engagement of a user is by looking to the directed traffic it generates. We can do so by mapping the extent the user was mentioned either through addressing a message, retweeting its message or replying on the message. As for retweeting Haewoon Kwak, Changhyun Lee, Hosung Park, and Sue Moon have found that a retweeted tweet will reach an average of 1000 people, no matter how little followers the sender of the original tweet has. Moreover, retweeted tweets will almost always be retweeted by 2nd, 3rd and 4th parties, expanding the reach of the tweet even further (600).

These different ways to measure and indicate the ‘authority’ of twitterers will help us to indicate who is really influential within the COP21 debate as a whole, but even more important, within the sub discourse around green energy. As emphasized earlier, all these different ways to measure the authority of twitterers are built-in to the Twitter-platform and are thereby naturally an essential part of our dataset.

Dataset

The data we used in this research was gathered with the DMI-TCAT tool, which is a tool developed by the Digital Methods Initiative to gather and analyse tweets (Borra & Rieder 266). The tool relies on the Twitter API and Borra and Rieder therefore stress that the tool is bound to the limitations and possibilities this API brings forth (267). For this research the DMI-TCAT tool was instructed to collect all the tweets containing either “#COP21” or “COP21”. The gathering of the data started on November 29th 2015. The tool was still collecting tweets at the time we started our research. Within our research we focused on a specific time period beginning at the start of the conference (the 30^th of November) until a week after the conference (19^th of December) to capture how the discussion changed over time and ended in a new equilibrium after the actual event. Within this time period the TCAT-tool collected a total of 4.006.316 tweets.

The TCAT-tool allowed us to explore this dataset of tweets in several ways. Because the data set was too big to compute the entire database at once, we decided to focus on four particular days. Hereafter we will explain the different decisions we made starting the research process and which datasets we exported and studied with the help of the TCAT-tool.

Dates

The COP21 conference lasted from the 30^th of November until the 12^th of December. These begin and end dates were also the days that people tweeted the most about the COP21, as is visible in Figure 1. Therefore we choose to focus part of our analysis on those dates.

Figure 1: The amount of Tweets (blue line) from 29th of November until the 23rd of December. The two biggest peaks in Twitter activity are on the 30^th of November and the 12^th of December.

We also decided to focus on the 7^th of December since on this day the central topic of the COP21 debate were green and renewable energy sources (illustrated by Table 1 and Appendix I). To get an idea about the energy debate surrounding the COP21 after the conference, we decided to analyse the collected tweets of the 19^th of December as well, which is exactly one week after the final report of the conference was presented.

Renewable energy sub narrative

To determine if and how the energy narrative was situated within the larger debate about COP21 we exported several specific datasets from the TCAT-tool (Borra & Rieder). All these datasets were then either explored within Gephi (Bastian, Heymann & Jacomy), or studied and processed within Excel.

Top hashtag streamgraph

In a way to grasp the presence of the renewable energy debate within the debate as a whole, we employed the associational profile function within DMI-TCAT. This TCAT-tool output let us focus on the shifts in hashtag associations. To really get an overview of the “trending” hashtags within the COP21 debate we focused this part of the research only on the top fifteen hashtags that were used in association with COP21. By exploring the frequency of the top fifteen hashtags associated to COP21 of each day of the conference we were able to trace the evolution of the different facets of the discourse surrounding COP21 over time. In particular, this provided us to see the relative relevance of the energy related debate in relation to the whole COP21 debate on Twitter. This part of our research was not specifically focused on our four chosen research dates, but covered all the dates of the conference, so to not miss relevant information and to provide a context for the dates we later zoomed in on. We visualized this data in a streamgraph. The streamgraph was created online with the Raw data visualization tool created by members of the Density Design Research Lab (Caviglia et al.).

Top energy related hashtags

To get a first grip on the content of the data and to get an idea about the larger debate that surrounds COP21, we exported the data files that showed us the most used hashtags for our focus dates within this research. We then manually tagged the specifically energy related hashtags to explore how these hashtags are situated within the larger debate in terms of usage frequency. The following table, Table 2, shows how the various energy-related hashtags evolve over time in terms of usage.

Table 2: Usage frequency of the hashtags that were associated with the green energy debate.

Energy related hashtags	30-nov	07-dec	12-dec	19-dec	Total usage
keepintheground	1509	1045	1945	0	4499
auspol	1283	463	1345	103	3194
renewables	1159	695	841	32	2727
dkgreen	1117	333	750	6	2206
energy	584	955	288	112	1939
fossilfuels	963	257	666	12	1898
solar	845	523	340	50	1758
cleanenergy	823	244	331	7	1405
green	791	251	303	28	1373
carbon	346	668	243	75	1332
coal	628	218	297	58	1201
renewableenergy	258	576	117	14	965
co2	336	267	218	24	845
fossilfuel	355	221	262	4	842
go100percent	245	386	108	9	748
fracking	326	171	189	33	719
reenergise	136	515	58	3	712
nuclear	233	327	96	23	679
cleantech	224	308	96	8	636
water	211	294	81	12	598
divest	269	150	166	3	588
pollution	237	218	107	21	583
sustainable	221	210	85	20	536
renewable	211	127	71	12	421
oil	187	57	69	18	331
transport	117	120	38	3	278
emmission	45	123	6	0	174
nonukes	106	27	30	9	172

Based on this list we made an animation in the shape of a word cloud that would show the priority of the hashtags on every specific date. The hashtag that was used the most on that date has the largest font size, whereas the hashtag that was used the least has the smallest size. The font size differs with 4% in a range of 232-400 per cent of the original size of 22pt.

Co-hashtag network analysis

To determine if and how the energy related sub debate was part of the larger narrative around COP21 we exported co-hashtag network analysis from DMI-TCAT for all of the four studied dates. This kind of network provided us the opportunity to determine how the energy related debate was situated within the whole conversation around COP21. The networks were processed In Gephi and formed with the Forceatlas2 algorithm. To declutter the networks we set the degree range setting to 30 for the three days during the COP21. For the 19^th of December we adjusted that setting to 15, because there were less tweets send and therefore there was less data available. When we adjusted the degree setting to 30, we lost almost all nodes in the network. The node size within these networks is based on how often the hashtags are used.

The hashtag COP21 was automatically included in the network, but since the condition to be in the network was that the hashtag was used together with #COP21 all of the nodes in our networks were connected to it and the COP21 node stood central in our network. We therefore decided to delete this node from all four of the co-hashtag networks to get a better view of the modularity and connections between the other nodes.

Subsequently we studied the networks and coded the different nodes that were energy related (1) or not energy related (0), based on Table 2. This added dimension to the dataset enabled us to give the energy related and non-energy related terms different colours within the network. This colour dimension made it possible to clearly identify the sub narrative about energy and how it was positioned within the larger debate about the COP21 on the specific dates.

Renewable energy sub narrative top influencers

The second part of our research question is focused on the visibility of NGOs within the energy debate and how successful they were in pushing this debate outside of the NGO and experts “bubble” in which it normally seems to reside. To answer this part of our research question we exported additional datasets from the TCAT-tool.

NGO ratio analysis

Using the TCAT-tool we have generated a list of the users who were mentioned most often on the four researched dates. The 100 users who were mentioned most on each date were manually researched. Subsequently we categorized them into eight different groups. We had set up some categories before we started categorizing, but adjusted these as we found necessary while analysing. Eventually the categories we used where the following:

• Activists
• Governmental Organizations
• NGOs
• Public Figures
• Political Figures
• Press
• Researchers
• Other

Based on the results we calculated which percentage of the top of the overall Twitter debate about COP21 seemed influenced by each type of category. Based on this calculation we could distillate a ratio that would represent the influence of the NGOs in the top of the debate.

Top influencers within the energy debate

In order to get insight into the top 500 mentioned users within the energy related debate, the TCAT-tool was used to look into which parties were ascribed the most authority of the day the energy debate was on the agenda (December 7^th); and on December 12^th, the day the conference report was presented. These @mention user graphs give us insight in the most mentioned actors of the days. These days, the tool was queried with our list of energy related hashtags. Adding this query provided us with a network in which only the top mentioned people that are involved in the sub narrative concerning renewable energy. The query we utilised within DMI-TCAT was the following:

“renewableenergy OR renewable OR fossilfuels OR nuclear OR green OR cleantech OR coal OR keepintheground OR renewables OR co2 OR emmission OR carbon

OR pollution OR reenergise OR sustainable OR fossilfuel OR fracking OR divest OR auspol OR solar OR oil OR dkgreen OR nonukes OR energy OR cleanenergy OR water OR transport OR go100percent”

The user mention network was compiled for further analysis in Gephi. Users occurring in this most mentioned list are actually based on tweets containing at least one of the above keywords. Therefore one can interpret the top mentioned users to have a certain authority in this sub debate (Anger & Kittl 4). Within Gephi the number of mentions determined the node size and the colour was derived from whether the node was one of the larger NGOs coded in the overall discussion (as specified in Appendix II). We did this in order to compare the effort of NGOs presence in both the sub debate concerning renewable energy and the overall COP21 discourse. The Forceatlas2 algorithm has been used together with stronger gravity and LinLog mode to show the top 500 mentioned users all in one sphere while showing the connectedness of the actors.

Findings

Renewable energy sub narrative

In order to answer the first part of our research question, focusing on the reach of the energy debate outside of the so-called “bubble” of experts, we looked at the discourse about COP21 on Twitter in several ways.

Top hashtag streamgraph

To get an initial idea of the debate on Twitter surrounding the COP21 we visualized the top fifteen hashtags that are used in combination with COP21 in a streamgraph. This graph presented below in Figure 3. Within the streamgraph we marked the hashtags that are specifically related to the debate around energy (as specified in Table 2) in a bold green. The other hashtags are visualized in a lighter green.

Figure 3: Streamgraph of the top fifteen hashtags associated to COP21 on Twitter. The energy related hashtags are visualized in a bold green, whilst the non-energy related hashtags are visualized in a lighter green.

By looking at the top fifteen hashtags associated to COP21 in each day of the conference, we can argue that energy-related hashtags are quantitatively marginal in the overall discourse. This visualization then indicates that, although energy-related hashtags are present, on ‘busy’ Twitter days (visualized here in terms of hashtags used by the length of the graph over the y-axis) they seem to be overshadowed by more general and popular hashtags in usage frequency (e.g., climate change etc.). However the absence of the energy related hashtags on most days does not mean that the debate surrounding energy was not present, it only indicates the hashtags associated with this debate were not among the most used hashtags.

Top energy related hashtags

The screenshot of our animation in Figure 4 is supposed to give insight in the evolution of the energy related hashtags on the four dates we examined. The animation shows us how topics regarding renewable energy (as was the focus of Greenpeace) grow on the 7^th of December, compared to the two prior dates, whereas the hashtags concerning fossil fuels where the most used on the last day of the conference. From this animation it is not clear however in what context these fossil fuel hashtags were used. The animation does however tell us that the 7^th was the day where the discourse about renewable energy was the most popular. This is not that surprising, as we know on December 7^th the renewable and green energy debate was a central topic of the conference (See Table 1 and Appendix I).

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KagjuTqbH2Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Figure 4: The animation of the top energy related hashtags and their evolution between November 30^th and December 7^th, 12^th and 19^th. For the full video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KagjuTqbH2Q

Co-hashtag network analysis

By visualizing the hashtags that users frequently used together in a network graph we hoped to complement the insights that the streamgraph in Figure 3 provided us with. Co-hashtag networks are also able to give us a lot more in depth knowledge of the specific energy related debate on Twitter and how it is situated within the whole COP21 debate.

The co-hashtag networks are shown in Figures 5, 6, 7 and 8. In these networks we marked the energy related hashtags in green and the non-energy related hashtags in pink. What is visible in all the networks is that there are a few, very general, hashtags in the centre of the network graphs. These hashtags are used the most, as becomes clear from the node size, and are also used with all the different side debates concerning the COP21, as is pointed out by the central position of the nodes.

Figure 5: Co-hashtag network of the 30^th of November, the start of the climate top. The energy related hashtags are visualized in green, while the non-energy related hashtags are visualized in pink.

In the co-hashtag network of the 30^th of November, Figure 5, the energy related and non-energy related debate are very much separated. The debate concerning (renewable) energy is centred on the right outer side of the graph, but shows some connections to the centre of the network, illustrating that there were actors that tried to connect the energy related debate to the more general debate around COP21. A few non-energy related terms can be found in the middle of the energy related hashtags cluster, such as: canada, innovation, youth and science. This implies that these hashtags are used as well in the energy related debate.

On the opposite site of the network there is a political cluster detectable in which hashtags concerning political leaders (barackobama, merkel, putin) and countries (usa, afrique, russia) are clustered. This seems to be a clear effect of the presence of the world leaders at the COP21 that day. What we can assume then is that twitterers reacted not only to the central topics of the COP21 debate, but were also talking about which world leaders were present and presumably also about what they said during their visit to the conference. On the bottom of the graph a cluster of more general environmentally focused hashtags is formed. It seems like the majority of these hashtags are ‘tried out’ now and after this first day several of these hashtags persist, while others fade out in favour of the more widely used hashtags.

Figure 6: Co-hashtag network of the 7^th of December, the day renewables and green energy were the main topics of the conference. The energy related hashtags are visualized in green, while the non-energy related hashtags are visualized in pink.

The co-hashtag network of the 7^th of December, Figure 6, is slightly smaller than the network of November 30^th. This can be attributed to the decline in the total number of tweets send that day. December 7^th was the day that green energy resources were the main topic of the COP21. This seems to have translated in a wider and more diverse use of the energy related hashtags focused on in this research. In Figure 6 it is noticeable that the green, energy related, hashtags are less clustered and spread over the whole network in comparison with Figure 5. The hashtags energy, renewables and carbon are situated very near the centre of the network, suggesting usage in combination with a lot of different other hashtags. The hashtags keepitintheground, fracking, coal, divest and fossilfuels form a sort of sub cluster on the lower right part of the network. These hashtags all concern non-green ways of generating energy and seem to present itself as kind of an anti-program (Rogers “Foundations of” 5) to the narrative about green energy that is clustered on the upper part of the graph.

Figure 7: Co-hashtag network of the 12^th of December, the last conference day. The energy related hashtags are visualized in green, while the non-energy related hashtags are visualized in pink.

The co-hashtag network of the 12^th of December, Figure 7, is again slightly bigger then the network of December 7^th. Since the 12^th was the day that the final report of the COP21 was presented, hashtags like parisagreement and accorddeparis have surfaced as big nodes in the network. The network also shows far more outliers than on the other days. A few of the energy related hashtags have moved more towards the centre of the network, meaning they have entered a more general debate about the COP21, others are situated along the outer skirts of the network still residing in the earlier introduced “bubble”. The hashtag keepitintheground is surrounded by hashtags that are non-energy related, meaning that it, again, can be interpreted as some kind of anti-program as opposed to the green energy hashtags. It should also be noted that the hashtags renewables, energy and sustainable are quite big, indicating that although they are not centred in the graph they are used relatively often.

The hashtag renewableenergy, which Greenpeace often deployed, is situated far from the centre, indicating that there is only a subgroup of users for this hashtag who sparsely use it in combination with other hashtags. Other energy related hashtags, that were also amongst the hashtags Greenpeace incorporated in their communication, are now located closer to the centre then at the begin of the conference, meaning that they are integrated further into the larger COP21 narrative. Within this network there also surfaced a greenpeace hashtag, which is situated amongst hashtags that concern the energy debate, for example: auspol, green, coal, renewables and solar. This indicates that Greenpeace is associated with the hashtags it set out to push during the COP21.

Figure 8: Co-hashtag network of the 19^th of December, a week after the conference ended. The energy related hashtags are visualized in pink, while the non-energy related hashtags are visualized in blue.

In Figure 8 the co-hashtag analysis for the 19^th of December is portrayed. It is noticeably smaller than all the other networks, which is quite logical because the COP21 ended a week earlier and therefore the COP21 has lost some of its newsworthiness. The figure makes clear that although the most used hashtags used in combination with COP21 are still general hashtags like climate and climatechange, the energy related hashtags really lingered in the narrative. These hashtags are now scattered amongst the whole graph and overshadow the smaller non-energy related hashtags in numbers. This observation indicates that Greenpeace and the other NGOs managed to create momentum for the energy related hashtags around the COP21 and were successful in highlighting the importance of this debate as well. In this network the program anti-program use of specific hashtags (solar and green versus fracking, divest and fossilfuels) seems to have faded out.

Recapitulating we can say that the co-hashtag network graphs really provided us with more insight in how the energy related debate is related to the larger COP21 debate. Although the debate started out as a clear sub debate, we can see that on December 7^th this sub debate permeates to the centre of the co-hashtag networks. On December 12^th parts of the debate remained their central position and other hashtags are centred again more on the outskirts of the network. However the usage of the hashtags increases, as implied by their node size. A week after the presentation of the conference’s final report the energy hashtags seem to be the only hashtags that are still used on a frequent base with the COP21 hashtag, illustrating that the NGOs have succeeded in promoting these hashtags together with COP21.

Renewable energy sub narrative top influencers

The second focus of our research was on the top influencers within the energy debate. Our aim is to identify the important and authoritative figures within this sub debate, but also to determine what role Greenpeace and the other NGOs have in the spreading of this discourse.

NGO ratio analysis

We started answering this part of the research question by mapping out the top 100 influencers in the overall COP21 debate, to get an idea about the role of NGOs within this debate. To do so we grouped the 100 most mentioned Twitter accounts per researched day in several categories. In Figure 9 this information is summarized and visualised.

Figure 9: Visualization of the top 100 mentioned within the whole COP21 narrative on Twitter for the four researched dates.

This figure shows us that governmental parties (blue) take up the largest part of the top mentioned list on each of the four days, even on the 19^th of December, a week after the conference ended. This can either be interpreted as that people attribute the governmental organisations some kind of authority, or twitterers try to focus the attention of these parties on COP21 related issues by tagging them in certain messages.

Another large share of the 100 top mentioned is taken up by political figures, visualised in pink. It is noticeable that the political figures are mentioned the most on the first day of the conference, when a lot of world leaders were present at the conference, and on the last day, when the final report was presented. As with the governmental parties this high mentioning rate might be attributed to either some sort of authority, or the pinpointing of their attention on COP21 related debates. On the 7^th of December the political figures however gather less attention and a week after the conference their mentioned-ness is even smaller. Concerning the political figures the attention-grabbing hypothesis therefore seems more probable than the authority hypothesis.

The figure reveals that the NGOs take up a smaller or larger part amongst the top mentioned depending on the total amount of tweets that have been sent each day. On the first day they seem to be totally overshadowed in terms of mentions and retweets by the political figures and governmental institutions. On the 7^th of December, when significantly less tweets have been send, the NGOs have quite a big share amongst the top mentioned. In addition to the total amount of tweets, this can also be attributed to the main COP21 topics that day which were focused on green/renewable energy. This share dwindled a bit on the 12^th of December, when the total number of tweets increased again, but is even bigger a week after the conference, on the 19^th of December. It therefore seems that the NGOs have a very steady count of mentions, but are overshadowed by other parties in terms of mentions on the days that more people are meddling in the COP21 debate. They do however have some kind of authority, which becomes clear on December 19^th, when they are mentioned very often. The NGOs also seem to have more authority within the COP21 debate then public figures, press, researchers, activists and other parties.

Top influencers within the energy debate

The 7^th of December was the most important day for the energy debate, as renewables and green energy were amongst the agenda points of that conference day. This means major challenges for all energy related actors to have their interests being pushed. The following @mention network represents a network of the 500 most mentioned users. Being mentioned can mean one is retweeted or addressed specifically, but in most general terms a certain form of authority within the discussion is ascribed to the most mentioned players (Anger & Kittl 4)). Note that it does not have to imply that these actors have actually been (most) active participants in the debate.

Figure 10: An @mention network graph of the top 500 mentioned users in the energy related debate of the 7^th of December 2015. Node size relates to how often the users have been mentioned within the top 500 actors.

As we can see in the network, the top 500 mentioned users actually form quite an extensive network by themselves. Although the major nodes are quite scattered and there are little specific clusters to be found, the network reaches most of the nodes. At the outer spheres there are some less connected actors which actually means they have been mentioned, but did not mention other nodes in the network often enough to create a link.

Within the same network, the node colour represents the presence of one of the top NGOs active in the overarching debate (based on the table in Appendix II), those NGO’s are shown in green. The fact that there are few green nodes dispersed over the network which actually represents NGOs quite present in the overarching COP21 debate, means they form a link between the energy related sub debate and the larger narrative of COP 21. Although they represent an effort to integrate the two narratives, their node size tells us this debate is still somewhat differentiated from the overall COP21 discussions.

In addition to this observation we checked the most prominent actors within this network: of the top 10 biggest nodes, most of them actually represent NGOs that were not very visible in the overarching debate. It implies the online discussion of energy is largely NGO driven, or at least ascribed to NGOs' efforts. This strengthens the former observation on integratedness of the energy debate.

Figure 11: An @mention network graph of the top 500 mentioned users in the energy related debate of the 12^th of December 2015. Node size relates to how often the users have been mentioned within the top 500 actors.

Figure 11 shows the @mention network of the 12^th of December, which was the last day of the COP21 and had no particular agenda other than the presentation the Paris agreement. This network analysis is connected around a series of top players, however, compared to the 7^th of December, the top 500 actors are less densely connected. There are more nodes actually lingering on the side of the sphere without being connected to other more central nodes. This can be explained by the huge volume of tweets send this day because of the release of the final agreement, causing a greater variety of actors involved in covering the COP21 without actually contributing to the most central conversation.

Another important observation to make is the apparent suppression of the most important NGOs. In comparison with the 7^th, there are few NGOs present at all in the top energy discussion, as is indicated by the absence of green nodes in the network. Looking at the background of the top ten mentioned nodes (explicated for both Figure 10 and 11 in Appendix III), there are only few NGOs involved. Moreover, there seems to be a particular territorial bias in the top ten most mentioned users: 4 users are actually affiliated with Australia or Australian policymaking. This could be explained by the strong Australian voice pro-coal in the overall climate top, realized in the hashtag auspol we encountered in the co-hashtag network graphs.

The graphs in Figures 10 and 11 represent the main drivers of the discussion. However, when the same graphs are rendered with the node size relating to how often the respective users have been mentioned in total, additional information can be drawn from the graphs. Those graphs tend to reflect the reach of the NGOs outside the debate. Unfortunately, due to the limit of this paper we could not include these graphs and an interpretation of them. Since the graphs were however made and are very interesting, they have been included in Appendix IV.

Limitations and Suggestions

This paper has been an effort to explore the relevant actors into the COP21 climate conference. The climate top included many different themes, a great variety of actors discussing future climate policy the entire scale from macro supranational policies to micro local implementation. The leading initial hashtag by which this event has been captured in Twitter promises to include everything related to COP21. However, though COP21 is a selection criteria general enough to scrape different voices in the debate it also forms the selection bias too. Looking at the graphs one has constantly take into the fact that only narratives co-evolving with COP21 have been presented. That is to say, any prominent sub-debate that has not tagged itself into the entire debate will not turn up in our results. Therefore the entire research is slightly biased towards an interpretation that the sub narrative is integrated within the larger debates of COP21: they are only visible when co-tagged.

This observation taps into the question of interpreting networks. This investigation has been build upon a range of network analysis, that are tightly confined through our methods. Nevertheless these images do not speak for themselves. When working with this kind of spatial analysis, one constantly has to change level between the visual network, the meaning of the nodes and the implication for the interpretation of the network. In other words, what exactly can one conclude looking at visualizations, or the more prominent question, what can one not conclude from this kind of data. This calls for close integration between the different key members in the research team, collaborating in the process of sense-making. And this cannot be stressed enough. Data visualisation does not exists on its own, it is an actual empirically driven research practice in which changing to the level of sense-making is a necessity.

Another obvious limitation of this research is the constricting time limit. This research is the result of one week of intensive data analysing and visualising and another week of writing. Therefore this paper needs to be read as an exploration, touching upon the various questions of interpretation. In extension, the potential for analysis of the data gathered and framed are non-exhaustive and therefore the described analysis provided is only a tip of the iceberg in terms of potential. Suggestions for further research could directly be build on top the of previously produced frameworks. More in specific this research reflects on the role of NGOs in operating influencing, tuning and adapting the discourse in question through acts of presence, interaction and providing a lingual framework for discussion. By zooming into the role of particular NGOs into case studies this research might be used to measure influence and see how different programs and anti-programs are being accentuated or discouraged.

Last but not least the reach of this investigation went beyond the initiator of the project; Greenpeace. Instead, it set out to map the role of NGOs, both in order not to be too biased and to put the enquiry into a larger framework. And this is where categories are getting messy. Manually mapping the set of Twitter users into a range of categories calls for clear definition of the categories in question. The Non-Governmental Organizations group in this case are not as self-explanatory as one would hope. Therefore the choice to treat them as a group has major implication for the way the graphs need reading. As more often the case, this category is not as monolithic as presented (for example by the singular colour), they represent a diverse group of organizations with different motivations agendas and backgrounds.

Conclusion

This research has been an effort to look into the role and effort of Greenpeace, along with other NGOs, to push the debate about renewables and green energy to the centre of the larger narrative concerning the COP21 on Twitter. Limited by the finite amount of time we had to make sense of our dataset containing over 4 million tweets, we set out to answer the following research question:

To what extent was the effort of NGOs to situate the renewable energy debate within the larger narrative about COP21 successful and visible on Twitter?

Issued by the large scope of this research question we divided it up into two sub questions, focused on exploring different parts and angles of our main question. The first one of these sub questions was: To what extent is the energy debate visible and integrated within the larger COP21 narrative? As for this question we can conclude that the energy debate is very visible in the larger COP21 narrative (although not in the very top of trending topics around the conference) from the beginning of the COP21. However the sub narrative was not always as integrated within the larger debate as it is one week after the COP21 ended. There was however an upward trend visible in regards to the integratedness with the energy related hashtags moving to more and more central positions in the different co-hashtag networks. We would dub the efforts of the NGOs to gather momentum around these energy related hashtags very successful, since on the December 19^th these hashtags make up the larger part of hashtags that are still used in combination with COP21.

The second research question we aimed to answer with this research was the following: Which NGOs are part of the top influencers in the energy debate? In regards to this question we argued that the larger NGOs are very much present and visible in the narrative surrounding the whole COP21, but that these have less influence within the energy debate. There it seems that the smaller, lesser-known, NGOs are very much integrated with each other. The larger NGOs do however have a role in transferring the sub debate into the larger narrative. We also came to the conclusion that the NGOs have some sort of authority ascribed to them in regards to the energy subject, especially in the aftermath of the climate top. The NGOs do tend to get overshadowed however when the buzz around the conference was the biggest (on the first and last day of the conference). The NGOs had the most influence and presence on December 7^th, the day the energy debate was a central topic for the conference.

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Appendices

Appendix I: COP21 schedule overview

This schedule overview is an adapted version of the official Paris 2015 UN Climate Change Conference COP21/CMP11 Events Schedule, as retrieved from the UNEP homepage.

*Highlighted in bold are dates selected for detailed look in TCAT queries.

Day and date*	List of main events and Greenpeace representative remarks
Monday, 30.11.2015	COP21 opening, opening ceremony of the Leaders Event, and Leaders’ Event . From Science to Policy: Contributions from Science to the Management of Water Resources, Biodiversity and Climate Change Sustainable use of natural resources: An essential solution to climate change. Side events: „The 360° Exhibition“(oceans science) and „We have the power“(by Magnum photographers). Both exhibitions exposed during COP21 period. **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: Modi, Prime Minister of India presented the International Solar Alliance Bill Gates’ R&D initiative, Climate Vulnerable Forum Initiative.
Tuesday, 1.12.2015	Forest - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) High-Level Event on Carbon Pricing Delivering the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: Resilience in Action Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Achievements and Opportunities for Developing Country Involvement. Agriculture - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: Heads of States 2nd day at the COP. Lima to Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) focus day on Forest (first half of the day); main organizer: Peru and partners– LPAA focus on Agriculture (second half of the day); Main organizer: France and FAO. On forest day, President of Indonesia, Jokowi, gave a speech and Greenpeace delegates delivered to him the global petition on forest fires.

Wednesday, 2.12.2015	Farmers' Day - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Resilience - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Global understanding of country-level impacts to support action on climate change: the CLICC project. /Projects aims to facilitate global and national understanding of country-level climate impacts to support climate action through the development of an approach for communicating these impacts and risks/. One Ocean, One Climate, One UN: Working together for a healthy and resilient ocean. Coastal ecosystems, the first line of defence for adaptation. The importance of coastal ecosystems for adaptation: Experiences from Small Island Developing States. UNEP/SEAN-CC Lead: Climate Knowledge Networks and Partnerships. UNFCCC Technology Mechanism: Enhancing Climate Technology Action GCCA - Myanmar Climate Change Alliance (MOECAF/UNEP/UN-Habitat): key elements of Myanmar Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. UN Oceans side event. Side events: Coastal EBA in SIDS - Focus on Seychelles and Grenada. **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: LPAA focus day on Resilience + Oceans; main organizer: Peru and partners.
Thursday, 3.12.2015	YOUNGO Day - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Lima Adaptation Knowledge Initiative in the Southern African Sub-region CTCN Technical Assistance in Practice (focus on private sector investments and breaking barriers to technology innovation and transfer). OECD Insurance and Private Pensions Committee LPAA: Mobilizing and building the construction sector for climate action; Transport and building; NAP-GSP - Cambodian Government. Side events: Young and Future Generations Day, YOUNGO Day (LPAA), Transport (LPAA); Mobilizing the Building and Construction Sector for Climate Action. **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: LPAA focus day on Transport and Building Energy Efficiency; main organizer: Paris Process on Mobility and Climate (Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport –SloCat- + Michelin Challenge Bibendum) for Transport and UNEP and France for Building Energy Efficiency. Greenpeace side event in collaboration with the World Future Council and REN21.
Friday, 4.12.2015	Ocean Day Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) BINGO Day Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Momentum for Change event on the Global Investor Platform on Climate Change Global Adaptation Network Private Finance - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA); Harnessing private finance to INDC’s and national decarbonisation pathways Education Day; Learning to live with climate change - accelerating climate change education and awareness-raising Fiscal policies for a low carbon and Inclusive green economy: The role of fossil fuel subsidy reform Science-based climate information – bringing climate science and climate policy closer. Call to Action: Support today's young generation in developing their knowledge and skills. Key findings of the UNEP Adaptation Finance Gap Update and the UNEP Emissions Gap Report. **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: LPAA focus day on Private Finance and Short-Lived Climate Pollutants; main organizer: France + UNSG for Finance and Climate and Clean Air Coalition for Short-Lived Climate Pollutants. Launch of Cities initiative by Paris Mayor Hidalgo on 100% renewable energy in cities. Letter by Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace Executive Director, to Prime Minister Modi is Published.
Saturday, 5.12.2015	District Energy and Buildings Efficiency - Cities enabling countries to meet their climate objectives. The Adaptation Finance Gap – An Update (UNFCCC and UNEP). International Shipping GHG emissions: recent trends and future projections. Joint side-event of UNFCCC and UNEP: Presentation of UNEP 2015 Adaptation gap report. Monitoring and Evaluation Adaptation: challenges and opportunities. Defying Disasters: A Tri-Continental South-South Dialogue for Climate Change Solutions Reducing GHG emissions through Sustainable Public Procurement. Side events: Global Landscapes Forum RADIO FRANCE Concert Action Day - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: LPAA focus day – Action Day: events on various themes organized by France and LPAA partners. Activities outside of the negotiations venue during the weekend.
Sunday, 6.12.2015	China South-South cooperation African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) Key findings of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report and implications for global adaptation goals and targets.
Monday, 7.11.2015 Energy Day	Caring for Climate Business Forum (full day event) 6th Annual Sustainable Innovation Forum 2015 Energy Efficiency Accelerator event Earth To Paris—Le Hub, 7 December, will convene at the Petit Palais in partnership with the City of Paris Solutions for Led Public Lighting Renewable Energy - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Sustainable Stock Exchanges Role of the financial system in the transition to a low–carbon economy Innovative Capital Market Solutions for Climate Change One UN Side Event on Food security under a changing climate Joint side-event of UNFCCC and UNEP: Presentation of UNEP 2015 Emissions gap report Looking Forward: REDD+ and the UN-REDD Program post-2015 /Forest) The pivotal role of water in climate change adaptation and mitigation Solutions for financing low carbon economy: the European experience Energy Efficiency and Access - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Oil & Gas Side Event - Reducing methane emissions from oil & gas operation Pathways to Sustainable Energy for a Climate Friendly World, **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: LPAA focus day on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency; main organizer: IRENA and Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL)
Tuesday, 8.12.2015	Network of Women Ministers and Leaders for Environment The Business Case for Carbon Neutral Cities Earth To Paris (held at UNESCO headquarters.) UN Women and UNEP "Women's Sustainable Energy Entrepreneurship" Cities and Subnational Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Caring for Climate High-Level Business Forum Waste Side Event: Mitigating methane emissions: from science to innovative solutions Climate Innovators: Empowering a Global Generation of Young People Exploring Co-benefits of Climate Finance for Development: Building on successes for post-2015 action The future of global carbon markets – Impact on businesses A presentation on CLICC: Facilitating global understanding of country-level climate impacts by Jacqueline McGlade Business - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) GLOBE EU side event on Climate Financing Innovation - Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) CCAC High Level Assembly (launch the implementation plan of the Coalition’s 5-Year Strategy 2020). Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative Sustaining the World’s Food-Producing River Basins Stimulating private investment in the low carbon economy: what solutions? Health Event on Air Pollution One UN solutions for Cities and Climate Change. The new climate agreement and the new urban agenda Why the climate change agreement is critical to Public Health **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: LPAA focus day on Cities and Subnational: main organizer: France and UNSG LPAA focus day on Business and Innovation; main organizer: Caring for Climate and UN Global Compact for Business and International Energy Agency and the Climate Technology Centre and Network for Innovation. NB! Greenpeace undercover investigation on climate deniers is published: Exposed: Academics-for-hire agree not to disclose fossil fuel funding http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/
Wednesday, 9.12.2015	The CTCN Technology Transfer Initiative Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative: The cost of inaction - recognizing the value at risk from climate change National and Regional Adaptation to Mediterranean Climate Change: Forests, Landscape and Beyond EU Side Event: Technology transfer for climate change mitigation and adaptation: Building an innovative technology bridže The Global Assessment of Bamboo and Rattan (GABAR) Program Addressing Near-term Climate Change with Multiple Benefits
Thursday, 10.12.2015	What is needed to unlock the power of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to help address the global climate challenge? EU Side Event: Decision making for a climate resilient future: Climate Knowledge Brokers FICCI side event (in partnership with FICCI) Can public procurement be an effective tool for fighting climate change? Climate Change: One of the Greatest Human Rights Challenges of our Time Human Mobility and climate change Side Event on the Canfin-Grandjean Report Engaging the trillions – getting institutional investors into climate finance (in partnership with EIB) **Events highlighted by Greenpeace representative: Outside of the COP: Philippines Human Rights Commission announces investigation on carbon majors for impacts on human rights and climate
Friday, 11.12.2015	High-level side event on mountains and CC adaptation: Presentation of outcomes of 5 UNEP Outlooks Promoting International cooperation on climate change adaptation in mountain environments - from Rio to Lima to Paris Closing Press Conference Adapting and building resilience to climate change in mountain communities
Saturday, 12.12.2015	Final day of negotiations. Announcement of adoption of the Paris Agreement in the evening (around 19:30)

Appendix II: List of top NGOs within overall debate

The data in Figure 9 of the main report is based on the top 100 mentioned Twitter accounts within the whole COP21 debate. We coded those accounts according to their nature. Hereunder we have made a table of all the NGOs that were represented in the top 100 mentioned on one of the four researched dates. These NGOs were colour coded within the @mention network graphs that are shown by Figures 10 and 11.

Table II.1: List of all the NGOs present in the top 100 mentioned lists on one or more of the researches dates with the total number of mentions on all four days.

Twitter account name	Number of mentions
350	4989
greenpeace	4610
unicef	3414
wikileaks	2747
climatereality	2036
climategroup	1952
sierraclub	1886
oxfam	1798
avaaz	1734
wef	1594
fondationhulot	1513
india4climate	1398
greenpeacefr	1205
wwf	1191
gov_app	1182
foeint	1145
greenpeace_esp	1095
brandalismuk	1066
1000alternatiba	953
world_wildlife	919
climat21	892
climatewwf	883
democracynow	861
wmbtweets	851
amigostierraesp	788
terraeco	786
climatehome	715
nrdc	697
racfrance	654
wwffrance	641
nrdc	594
efeverde	583
who	541
earthhour	429
asteiner	370
amazonwatch	365
wecan_intl	365
greenpeaceusa	363
solarimpulse	327
mrfcj	324
c40cities	321
jhatkaa	132

Appendix III: Background analysis of top influencers

In Figure 10 and 11 of the main report two @mention network graphs are presented. To get a better idea of who the top influencers are within that network we have done some minor background research on these actors, by looking up their Twitter bio’s and categorizing them into the groups as used for our initial exploration of the actors within the COP21 debate (see Figure 9).

Table IV.1: Table with background information on the top influencers within the @mention network of the 7^th of December. See Figure 10 in the original report.

Top users - 07/12	Twitter Bio	Category
@irena	The International Renewable Energy Agency is an intergovernmental organisation that supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future.	NGO
@unep	The official Twitter account of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Environment for development.	NGO
@iea	The International Energy Agency (IEA) facilitates the global energy dialogue, providing research, statistics & recommendations.	NGO
@rkyte365	Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy and CEO SE4ALL	Political Person
@se4all	Sustainable Energy for All is a multi-stakeholder initiative launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to transform the world’s energy systems.	NGO
@lpaa_live	Official account of the Lima-Paris Action Agenda, showcasing transformational climate action initiatives from across the world. #LPAA	NGO
@royalsegolene	Ministre de l’Ecologie, du Développement durable et de l’Energie	Political Person
@un	Official twitter account of #UnitedNations. Get the latest information on the #UN. #GlobalGoals	NGO
@stateofgreendk	State of Green is your gateway to Denmark's green solutions. Follow us to learn how Denmark is to become fossil free by 2050. Join the Future. Think Denmark	Governmental
@richardbranson	Tie-loathing adventurer, philanthropist & troublemaker, who believes in turning ideas into reality. Otherwise known as Dr Yes at @virgin!	Public Figure

Table IV.2: Table with background information on the top influencers within the @mention network of the 12^th of December. See Figure 11 in the original report.

Top users - 12/12	Twitter Bio	Type
@juliebishopmp	Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Canberra	Political Person
@cop21	Conférence des Nations unies sur les changements climatiques à Paris en 2015. Compte officiel. Follow @cop21en our English account.	Governmental
@turnbullmalcolm	Prime Minister of Australia and Federal Member for Wentworth. retweet is not an endorsement	Political Person
@laurentfabius	Ministre des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international / Foreign Affairs and International Development http://facebook.com/laurent.fabius.5 …	Political Person
@mikehudema	#Greenpeace Canada #Climate and #Energy Campaigner focusing on #tarsands, #greenjobs & #solar. Time to #go100re. Loves #Alberta, brunch, and wine!	Activist
@yes2renewables	Friends of the Earth Australia's campaign for 100% renewable energy: good jobs | community power | climate action	NGO
@johnnordbowwf	Klima- og miljøchef, WWF Verdensnaturfonden. Conservation Director, WWF Denmark. Tweets about @WWFdk #climate #dkgreen #dkpol #arctic #greenland	Activist
@climateguardia	The Climate Guardians are a community campaign using Guardian Angel imagery to create visibility for #ClimateJustice. Also known as the #ClimateAngels	NGO
@carbonbubble	Carbon Tracker. Objective - aligning the financial markets to tackle climate change	NGO
@takvera	Citizen Journalist at #Nofibs, climate blogger @Camoreland, Webadmin @Melbpoly, parent, cyclist, NTEU, Eureka Australia Medal. NGO Paris #COP21 observer	Activist

Appendix IV: Top influential actors based on all mentions

In Figures 10 and 11 in the original report two @mention networks are shown. In these networks the node size is based on the number of mentions only between the nodes within the network (the top 500 mentioned). In Figures III.1 and III.2 we based the node size on the numbers of mentions within the whole dataset. This provides a different, complementary view on the data represented.

Figure III.1: @mention network graph for the 7^th of December, based on all the mentions in the energy related dataset.

Figure III.2: @mention network graph for the 12^th of December, based on all the mentions in the energy related dataset.