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Three maps and three misunderstandings: A digital mapping of climate diplomacy Tommaso Venturini, Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Jean-Philippe Cointet, Ian Gray, Vinciane Zabban, Kari de Pryck To cite this version: Tommaso Venturini, Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Jean-Philippe Cointet, Ian Gray, Vinciane Zabban, et al.. Three maps and three misunderstandings: A digital mapping of climate diplomacy. Big Data & Society, SAGE, 2014, 1 (2), pp.1-19. 10.1177/2053951714543804. hal-01672306 HAL Id: hal-01672306 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01672306 Submitted on 23 Dec 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Big Data & Society http://bds.sagepub.com/ Three maps and three misunderstandings: A digital mapping of climate diplomacy Tommaso Venturini, Nicolas Baya Laffite, Jean-Philippe Cointet, Ian Gray, Vinciane Zabban and Kari De Pryck Big Data & Society 2014 1: DOI: 10.1177/2053951714543804 The online version of this article can be found at: http://bds.sagepub.com/content/1/2/2053951714543804 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Additional services and information for Big Data & Society can be found at: Email Alerts: http://bds.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://bds.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav >> Version of Record - Aug 5, 2014 What is This? Downloaded from bds.sagepub.com by guest on August 6, 2014 XML Template (2014) [30.7.2014–5:48pm] [1–19] //blrnas3/cenpro/ApplicationFiles/Journals/SAGE/3B2/BDSJ/Vol00000/140014/APPFile/SG-BDSJ140014.3d (BDS) [PREPRINTER stage] Original Research Article Big Data & Society July–September 2014: 1–19 ! The Author(s) 2014 Three maps and three misunderstandings: DOI: 10.1177/2053951714543804 A digital mapping of climate diplomacy bds.sagepub.com Tommaso Venturini1, Nicolas Baya Laffite1, Jean-Philippe Cointet2, Ian Gray1, Vinciane Zabban3 and Kari De Pryck1 Abstract This article proposes an original analysis of the international debate on climate change through the use of digital methods. Its originality is twofold. First, it examines a corpus of reports covering 18 years of international climate negotiations, a dataset never explored before through digital techniques. This corpus is particularly interesting because it provides the most consistent and detailed reporting of the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Second, in this paper we test an original approach to text analysis that combines automatic extractions and manual selection of the key issue-terms. Through this mixed approach, we tried to obtain relevant findings without imposing them on our corpus. The originality of our corpus and of our approach encouraged us to question some of the habits of digital research and confront three common misunderstandings about digital methods that we discuss in the first part of the article (section ‘Three misunderstandings on digital methods in social sciences’). In addition to reflecting on methodology, however, we also wanted to offer some substantial contribution to the understanding of UN-framed climate diplomacy. In the second part of the article (section ‘Three maps on climate negotiations’) we will therefore introduce some of the preliminary results of our analysis. By discussing three visualizations, we will analyze the thematic articulation of the climatic negotiations, the rise and fall of these themes over time and the visibility of different countries in the debate. Keywords Digital methods, climate negotiations, climate change, science and technology studies, text analysis, network analysis Introduction Stanhill, 2001) and social media (Niederer, 2013; Rogers and Marres, 2000). Compared to these ‘‘trad- This article proposes an original analysis of the inter- itional’’ datasets, our corpus is novel for its conditions national negotiations on climate change through the of production – the reports are digital summaries of use of digital methods. Its originality is twofold. roundtable discussions of the UNFCCC meetings – First, it examines a corpus of reports on climate and for its challenging format – each summary com- negotiations never explored before through digital tech- piles statements made by all the participating parties. niques. This corpus is particularly interesting because it Second, in this paper we test an original approach to provides the most consistent and detailed reporting of text analysis that combines automatic extractions and the proceedings of the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1Sciences Po, me´dialab, Paris, France (UNFCCC) between 1995 and 2013. Though digital 2INRA, Marne-la-Valle´e, France data have been already employed to analyze the discus- 3LATTS, Marne-la-Valle´e, France sions on global warming, their use has been so far lim- Corresponding author: ited to more ‘‘traditional’’ datasets extracted from Tommaso Venturini, Sciences Po, 27 rue St Guillaume, 75337 Cedex 07, bibliographic archives (see, for example, Anderegg Paris 75337, France. et al., 2010; Bjurstro¨m and Polk, 2011; Li et al., 2011; Email: [email protected] Creative Commons CC-BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (http://www.uk. sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm). Downloaded from bds.sagepub.com by guest on August 6, 2014 XML Template (2014) [30.7.2014–5:48pm] [1–19] //blrnas3/cenpro/ApplicationFiles/Journals/SAGE/3B2/BDSJ/Vol00000/140014/APPFile/SG-BDSJ140014.3d (BDS) [PREPRINTER stage] 2 Big Data & Society manual selection of the key issue-terms. Through such Firestone, 2010; Boyd and Crawford, 2011; an approach, we wanted to avoid the drawbacks of Carr, 2014; Cresswell, 2014; Dalton and Thatcher, grounding the extraction of the terms uniquely on 2014; Gayo-Avello, 2012; Harford, 2014; Law et al., quantitative indicators or on the qualitative judgment 2011; Lazer et al., 2014; Manovich, 2012; Marcus and of experts. Iterating the interactions between expertise Davis, 2014; Marres, 2012; Rieder and Ro¨hle, 2012; and computation, we let the dictionary of analysis Savage and Burrows, 2007; Uprichard, 2012, 2013). In emerge from our texts, but not in a purely automatic the first part of this article, we will address these three way. Through this mixed approach, we tried to obtain misunderstandings by describing how we came across relevant findings, without imposing them on our them in our work on climate negotiations. corpus. The originality of our corpus and of our approach First misunderstanding: Which digital traces? encouraged us to question some of the habits of digital research and confront three common misunderstand- The creation of a ‘‘diplomatic’’ corpus. Adopted in 1992 at ings about digital methods that we discuss in the first the Earth Summit,1 enforced in March 1994, and rati- part of the article (section ‘Three misunderstandings on fied by 195 countries, the UNFCCC aims at digital methods in social sciences’). In addition to reflecting on methodology, however, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the we also wanted to offer some substantial contribution atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous to the understanding of UN-framed climate anthropogenic interference with the climate system diplomacy. In the second part of the article (section [ ...] within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems ‘Three maps on climate negotiations’) we will there- to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that fore introduce some of the preliminary results of our food production is not threatened and to enable eco- analysis. By discussing three visualizations, we will nomic development to proceed in a sustainable analyze the thematic articulation of the climatic manner.2 negotiations, the rise and fall of these themes over time and the visibility of different countries in the Although UNFCCC’s discussions are often docu- debate. mented by NGOs, political constituencies, and researchers, these traces are not systematically collected Three misunderstandings on digital and easily exploitable by digital research. Therefore, we methods in social sciences first had to identify traces sufficiently representative and sufficiently structured to be processed by the avail- The appearance of digital traces has triggered contra- able tools of analysis. dictory feelings among social scientists. While optimists Among the available documentation, the most inter- welcome enthusiastically a new source of information, esting is Volume 12 of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin potentially richer and less expensive than traditional (ENB).3 Released by the International Institute for datasets (Kleinberg, 2008; Watts, 2007), pessimists Sustainable Development (IISD), the

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