Can citizen pressure influence politicians’ communication about climate change? Results from a field experiment

Urgent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions depend on governments implementing and enforcing rigorous climate policy. Individuals in democracies seeking to persuade government officials to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can take steps such as voting, protesting, and contacting officials directly, but it is unclear how effective each of these actions is in changing the behavior of elected officials. Here we take advantage of the public nature of social media to evaluate the actual efficacy of climate campaign emails using an original, real-world experiment where 335 Members of Canadian Parliament were asked by constituents to post a pro-climate message to their Twitter account. Only one Member of Parliament posted the exact text suggested by the campaign. After scraping and coding 18,776 tweets, we first find no evidence that a public health messaging frame is more effective than a standard environmental frame in eliciting pro-climate posts. Furthermore, we find only a marginally significant relationship between volume of constituent contact and increased pro-climate tweeting from Members of Parliament. Follow-up interviews with political staffers suggest that analog alternatives may be more effective than campaign emails in some cases. Interview findings also reveal that some offices receive low levels of constituent communication on climate change, indicating that increased pressure from constituents could still be consequential. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10584-021-03215-9.