Social Media Reveals Gaps Between Climate Action and Public Perception from National to City Scales

Many studies have examined either governmental climate priorities or public perceptions of climate issues, yet the extent and implications of the gaps between the two remain unclear. This study integrates the analysis of 195 Nationally Determined Contributions with approximately 400,000 climate-related Twitter posts from January to December 2022. Employing ClimateBERT–a language model fine-tuned for climate-related text–we quantify global and city-level mismatches between policy priorities and public discourse, focusing on gaps in attention (topics emphasized) and stance (supportiveness towards climate actions). We find significant variations across countries and topics: gaps are particularly pronounced in topics related to governance and regulation, which are under-discussed by the public, and social inclusion and climate finance, which are over-discussed. Developing and climate-vulnerable countries generally exhibit smaller policy-public gaps for official climate actions, while many developed nations show larger policy–public gaps, potentially due to technocratic governance approaches and political polarization. Quantitative regression analyses further reveal that higher public-policy divergence significantly correlates with increased CO₂ emissions, especially in land-use sectors, while stronger public support is consistently associated with lower emissions and energy consumption. At the city scale, policy-public gaps are influenced by urban characteristics such as coastal proximity, population density, income level, and sustainability orientation. These findings partially confirm previous studies emphasizing citizen-centric governance and local engagement, while providing novel insights into the specific topics and contexts where misalignment most undermines policy effectiveness. Narrowing these gaps will require interventions such as reducing technocratic barriers, enhancing international and local accountability frameworks, ensuring equity-focused policy implementation, and tailoring city-level strategies to local contexts.