A computational analysis of the media coverage of the European Parliament's ‘green' Designation on sustainable energy and climate change

Abstract

Energy is pivotal to the sustainable development agenda for 2030. In this context, nuclear energy emerges as a potential solution for renewable energy development and carbon dioxide mitigation. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 exacerbated global energy concerns, leading to a surge in fuel prices and an economic slowdown, prompting the European Parliament to designate nuclear energy investments as “green.” Despite the potential of nuclear energy in advancing sustainability goals, public perception, influenced by historical negative narratives and media coverage, remains a challenge. This article examines the impact of the European Parliament's decision on the news flow and coverage about sustainability, climate change, and nuclear energy in the global media. By analysing seven months of global news coverage, a total of 7822 news stories in English were selected. Through descriptive analysis and unsupervised topic modelling Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) machine learning techniques, this study explores trends in news content and coverage, shedding light on the intersection of energy policies, and media coverage.