Category: Uncategorized

Reimagining Climate Media Research: Current Challenges and Future Directions

Co-organised by the IAMCR Environment, Science, and Risk Communication Section and the Climate Social Science Network (CSSN) Working Group on Critical Studies of Climate Media, Discourse, and Power, this pre-conference—co-organised by Dr Marc Esteve del Valle, Director of the EcoMediaLab—brought together scholars and practitioners working across climate change communication to reflect on where the field […]

Climate Disinformation Bingo: Workshop at the New Energy Forum 2026

Misinformation about climate change is no longer just about outright denial. It has evolved into a set of subtle tactics designed to slow down climate action. On June 18th, our lab presented the Climate Disinformation Bingo, an interactive workshop designed to help participants recognize and counter common disinformation techniques. The workshop was organized and presented by Marc Esteve […]

Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.
Research

Large language model reveals an increase in climate contrarian speech in the United States Congress

Coan, T., Malla, R., Nanko, M.O, Kattrup, W., Roberts J.T., Cook, J. and Boussalis, C.
Read Full Paper

Abstract

Using 30 years of Congressional floor speeches (1994–2023), we built an AI-powered system to track how — and how often — members of Congress push back on climate science and policy. A few highlights: 🔬 Updated CARDS taxonomy: We revised and extended the CARDS framework (Coan et al., 2021) to better capture solutions-focused skepticism and explicitly link contrarian claims to the “discourses of delay” identified by Lamb et al. (2020) — bridging two major frameworks in the climate communication literature. ⚙️ New method — RECoT fine-tuning: We introduce Reverse Engineered Chain-of-Thought (RECoT) fine-tuning, a procedure that teaches a smaller, scalable model to “reason” through complex, multi-label classification tasks. The result: near frontier-model accuracy at roughly 1/10th the cost — making large-scale claims classification feasible. 📊 Key findings: • Republicans are ~12x more likely than Democrats to make contrarian claims in floor speeches. • “Solutions increase costs” accounts for roughly one-third of all contrarian claims. • Contrarian speech has spiked around major climate policy moments (1997, 2009, 2015), surged during the Biden era, and was driven by a dramatic increase in discourses of delay. • More conservative Republicans, younger members, and those representing fossil fuel-dependent districts are significantly more likely to make contrarian claims.