Micro-competition and macro-coevolution: knowledge-production dynamics of China’s climate-change issues under policy-led mode 3

How public attention enters knowledge production on climate change is central to understanding the relationship among scientific agendas, social demand and policy orientation. Using monthly data from December 2011 to November 2025, this study combines Baidu Index, Google Trends, CNKI title searches and Web of Science title searches to examine the dynamic relationship between search attention and article output. We first use the single title term “climate change” as an exploratory micro-level sample, then extend the Chinese analysis to an eleven-keyword macro issue system for ecological and environmental governance, with an eight-keyword specification and an international aggregate benchmark used for robustness and comparison. The results suggest that the single Chinese “climate change” term is associated with a negative coupling pattern, whereas the eleven-keyword macro system shows a positive relationship; the eight-keyword robustness specification preserves this direction. We therefore propose a cautious, exploratory interpretation of policy-led Mode 3: policy discourse and planning cycles may reorganize issue boundaries and naming entries, so that micro-level keywords may appear to compete while the macro issue system continues to coevolve. The argument is not that policy events provide a single causal explanation, but that multiple layers of evidence are consistent with a policy-axis mechanism of issue reorientation.