The concept of “carbon neutrality” is becoming a central focus in the global climate change conversation. How this idea is received by governments and the public will significantly influence the political debates around climate policies. In this study, we map and analyze how carbon neutrality has emerged in public discussions across Europe and worldwide. By using Natural Language Processing, we examined nearly 3.4 million carefully selected online news articles from 2018 to 2021, covering 138 countries that together represent 94% of the global population. Our findings underscore the importance of national climate debates in shaping how this concept is received, while also revealing a complex, non-linear relationship between a country’s wealth, climate vulnerability, and its response to carbon neutrality. Crucially, our results highlight the need to include both the Global North and Global South when analyzing how the climate regime functions. We specifically compare media coverage of carbon neutrality in Europe with other regions, offering insights from 2018 through early 2024, including the lead-up to the European Parliament elections.