Concern about climate change is not observable, so it has to be proxied. The paper builds a daily index from major US newspapers and newswires that combines the level of risk and the sentiment expressed in climate-related articles, weighted by media attention, and shows that unexpected increases in that index move green stocks relative to brown ones.
The index behind the paper is the Media Climate Change Concerns index, updated annually. National Bank of Belgium research award 2020. Covered by The New York Times in November 2021.