Mapping and quantifying engagement levels of governments in IPCC approval meetings by topic from text
4 affiliations
- 1School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
- 2Department of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
- 3Department of International Politics, University of Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom
- 4CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway
Abstract
We introduce a text-as-data approach from natural language processing that allows mapping and quantifying topic-level variation in engagement levels of member governments in intergovernmental meetings. Building on research that characterizes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approval process as a key site for legitimating knowledge input into negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), we illustrate this method for two key topics from the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) that became identified policy approaches for national mitigation and adaptation plans in the outcome of the first Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement: “carbon management” and “nature-based solutions.” Our analysis provides robust evidence that governments’ engagement levels vary by topic, which allows us to nuance existing findings that IPCC meetings are dominated by a few large country delegations across all agenda items. Our proposed method can be applied to other intergovernmental meetings and complements qualitative research methods.
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BibTeX
@article{bayer2026mapping,
title = {{Mapping and quantifying engagement levels of governments in IPCC approval meetings by topic from text}},
author = {Patrick Bayer and Lorenzo Crippa and Hannah Hughes and Erlend A. T. Hermansen},
journal = {PLOS Climate},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pclm.0001057},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0001057},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Mapping and quantifying engagement levels of governments in IPCC approval meetings by topic from text
AU - Patrick Bayer
AU - Lorenzo Crippa
AU - Hannah Hughes
AU - Erlend A. T. Hermansen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
JO - PLOS Climate
DO - 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001057
UR - https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0001057
AB - We introduce a text-as-data approach from natural language processing that allows mapping and quantifying topic-level variation in engagement levels of member governments in intergovernmental meetings. Building on research that characterizes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approval process as a key site for legitimating knowledge input into negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), we illustrate this method for two key topics from the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) that became identified policy approaches for national mitigation and adaptation plans in the outcome of the first Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement: “carbon management” and “nature-based solutions.” Our analysis provides robust evidence that governments’ engagement levels vary by topic, which allows us to nuance existing findings that IPCC meetings are dominated by a few large country delegations across all agenda items. Our proposed method can be applied to other intergovernmental meetings and complements qualitative research methods.
SN - 2767-3200
ER -