Introducing GeoCPC: A Geo-referenced Climate Policy Conflict Event Dataset

This article presents the GeoCPC (Geo-referenced Climate Policy Conflict) Event Dataset. The GeoCPC disaggregates climate policy–related social contention both spatially and temporally. Each event—defined as an instance of organized civic action or protest linked to climate-change mitigation or adaptation policie s—includes information on its date, location, actors, motivations, climate policy sector, and event type, allowing it to be merged with other spatial and socio-economic datasets. The first version of the dataset covers 3,489 events across ten countries that have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, spanning the period 2018–2024. This article first outlines the rationale for constructing the dataset and describes the data collection, coding procedures, and inclusion criteria. Second, it presents basic descriptive statistics summarizing the distribution of events across time, space, and policy domains. Third, it provides an illustrative application linking GeoCPC to external spatial data on energy infrastructure, showing that protest activity occurs more frequently in areas hosting operational renewable energy facilities, rather than in regions with high greenhouse gas emissions. The GeoCPC dataset offers a new empirical foundation for analyzing the societal dimen sions of decarbonization, enabling researchers to study the geography, timing, and drivers of social contention surrounding the global transition to carbon neutrality.