Politicians and Climate Change: A Bibliometric Analysis
Abstract
This research aims to carry out an in-depth bibliometric analysis of literature discussing politicians' role in climate change. Using bibliometric methods, this research aims to identify developing research trends, the main focus of research, and the contribution of various countries or regions to the literature. The method includes searching and analyzing relevant documents in academic databases such as Scopus using appropriate keywords such as "politicians and climate change." The analysis tool used is Vosviewer. In its findings, this research reveals that interest in the relationship between politicians and climate change is still limited, although there has been a positive trend in recent years. This trend reflects increasing awareness of the role of politics in addressing increasingly pressing global environmental challenges. The main findings from the discussion on politicians and climate change highlight that politicians' understanding of and responses to these environmental challenges are strongly influenced by political party affiliation, ideology, and the integration of science in the policy process. Though rarely discussed, themes such as climate advocacy, climate politics, climate policy, climate policy, and pollution policy require further attention in future research to fill existing knowledge gaps and lead to more effective policies addressing global climate change's complexities.
References
Baharuddin, T. (2025a). From Disaster Response to the Political Stage: Disasters as Arenas for the Reproduction of Power Ahead of Elections. Citizen and Government Review, 2(2), 197–211. https://cjrjournal.com/index.php/cgr/article/view/23
Baharuddin, T. (2025b). Political Arena: Construction and Legitimation of Green Political Capital. Citizen and Government Review, 2(3), 206–221. https://cjrjournal.com/index.php/cgr/article/view/22
Baharuddin, T., Nurmandi, A., Qodir, Z., & Jubba, H. (2022). Bibliometric Analysis of Socio-Political Research on Capital Relocation: Examining Contributions to the Case of Indonesia. Journal of Local Government Issues (LOGOS), 5(1), 17–31. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.22219/logos.v5i1.19468
Calyx, C., & Low, J. (2020). How a climate change sceptic politician changed their mind. Journal of Science Communication, 19(3), 19030304. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19030304
Christoff, P. S., Lewis, N. D., Lu, M. H., & Sommer, J. M. (2017). Women and political participation in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam: A preliminary analysis of the local impact of transnational advocacy networks in climate change adaptation. Asian Women, 33(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.14431/aw.2017.06.33.2.1
Eneji, C.-V. O., Onnoghen, N. U., Acha, J. O., & Diwa, J. B. (2021). Climate change awareness, environmental education and gender role burdens among rural farmers of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, 13(4), 397–415. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-06-2020-0070
Falck, R. (2023). How politicians and the population attribute responsibility for climate change mitigation: no indication of a ‘governance trap’ in Norway. Environmental Politics, 9644016. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2023.2274721
Fielding, K. S., Head, B. W., Laffan, W., Western, M., & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2012). Australian politicians’ beliefs about climate change: Political partisanship and political ideology. Environmental Politics, 21(5), 712–733. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2012.698887
Hügel, S., & Davies, A. R. (2020). Public participation , engagement , and climate change adaptation : A review of the research literature. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 11(4), e645. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.645
Ibrahim, A. H. H., Baharuddin, T., & Wance, M. (2023). Bibliometric Analysis of E-Government and Trust : A Lesson for Indonesia. Jurnal Borneo Administrator, 19(3), 269–284. https://doi.org/10.24258/jba.v19i3.1303
Iskandar, I., Anas, A., Bahri, S., Menne, F., & Baharuddin, T. (2024). Social vulnerability and climate change: a bibliometric analysis. Cogent Social Sciences, 10(1), 2402849. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2024.2402849
Karinda, K., & Baharuddin, T. (2024). Climate change policy based on global study evolution 1979-2023: An insight and direction for Indonesia. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1388(1), 012054. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1388/1/012054
Lestaluhu, S., Baharuddin, T., & Wance, M. (2023). Indonesian Policy Campaign for Electric Vehicles to Tackle Climate Change: Maximizing Social Media. International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning, 18(8), 2547–2553. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18280/ijsdp.180826
Lim, V., Stubbs, J. W., Nahar, N., Amarasena, N., Chaudry, Z. U., Weng, S. C. K., Mayosi, B., van der Spuy, Z., Liang, R., Lai, K. N., Metz, G., Fitzgerald, G. W. N., Williams, B., Douglas, N., Donohoe, J., Darnchaivijir, S., Coker, P., & Gilmore, I. (2009). Politicians must heed health effects of climate change. The Lancet, 374(9694), 973. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61641-X
Malik, I., Prianto, A. L., Roni, N. I., Yama, A., & Baharuddin, T. (2023). Multi-level Governance and Digitalization in Climate Change: A Bibliometric Analysis. In S. Motahhir & B. Bossoufi (Eds.), International Conference on Digital Technologies and Applications (pp. 95–104). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29860-8_10
Nagel, M., Stark, M., Satoh, K., Schmitt, M., & Kaip, E. (2019). Diversity in collaboration: Networks in urban climate change governance. Urban Climate, 29(May), 100502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2019.100502
Normawati, Muhtar, Baharuddin, T., & Wance, M. (2024). Global Government Policies on Climate Change: A Bibliometric Analysis. International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning, 19(7), 2661–2671. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18280/ijsdp.190722
Rousell, D., & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, A. (2020). A systematic review of climate change education: giving children and young people a ‘voice’ and a ‘hand’ in redressing climate change. Children’s Geographies, 18(2), 191–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2019.1614532
Rudman, L. A., McLean, M. C., & Bunzl, M. (2013). When Truth Is Personally Inconvenient, Attitudes Change: The Impact of Extreme Weather on Implicit Support for Green Politicians and Explicit Climate-Change Beliefs. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2290–2296. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613492775
Sundblad, E. L., Biel, A., & Gärling, T. (2009). Knowledge and confidence in knowledge about climate change among experts, journalists, politicians, and laypersons. Environment and Behavior, 41(2), 281–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916508314998
Willis, R. (2017). Taming the Climate? Corpus analysis of politicians’ speech on climate change. Environmental Politics, 26(2), 212–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2016.1274504
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Rossi Maunofa Widayat (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Authors(s) retain copyrights of the Article published on CGR. However, before publishing, it is required to obtain written confirmation from Author(s) in order to ensure the originality (Author Statement of Originality). The statement is to be signed by at least one of the authors who have obtained the assent of the co-author(s) where applicable. This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
