Digital Climate Diplomacy on X: Perceived Outcomes, Opportunities and Challenges in Kenya and the United States

Abstract

This study examined how platform visibility and engagement by themselves, demonstrate no diplomatic influence. It examined the perceived outcomes, opportunities and structural challenges associated with Kenya’s and the United States’ use of X for climate diplomacy during the Africa Climate Summit (ACS) and COP28. The study employed a qualitative, interpretivist comparative case study research design  that drew on 16 semi-structured interviews with diplomatic and senior government actors (eight from each country) and a documentary corpus of 284 posts from four official government X accounts, supplemented by summit documents. Analysis was informed by Strategic Narrative Theory, Framing Theory, the Dialogic Communication Model and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Participants associated Kenya’s communication with equity, historical responsibility, African leadership and climate justice, while United States communication was described as more continuous and solution-oriented. Across both cases, interviewees identified diplomatic presence, narrative projection and access to policy conversations as potential benefits. Still, they stressed that these were conditioned by staffing, approval procedures, coordination, media systems and geopolitical position. Participants also cautioned that visible engagement cannot establish changes in public perception, media uptake or negotiation outcomes without independent evidence. The study recommends an outcome-oriented, platform-specific framework for analysing how communication mechanisms interact with institutional and geopolitical conditions. It also recommends closer coordination between negotiators and communicators, stronger capacity for responsive and multilingual communication, and evaluation beyond vanity metrics. The study’s significance lies in an outcomes-oriented, platform-specific framework for evaluating diplomatic communication without conflating visibility with influence.