From Paris to Sharm el-Sheikh: : A Framing Analysis of Climate Justice

Sammanfattning: While UNFCCC negotiations generally have adopted a neoliberal version of the contestedconcept of climate justice in the last 30 years, the acceptance of the Loss and Damage Fundduring COP27 indicates a possible shift in the climate justice discourse. To examine possibleshifts in the portrayal of climate justice, statements delivered by state representatives fromfive coalitions during COP21 and COP27 have been analyzed using a qualitative framinganalysis. The coalitions represent both victims of climate change and the causers of it. Theanalysis has been based on a theoretical framework consisting of six different climate justiceframes: neoliberal, distributive, intergenerational, rights-based, transformative, and ecologicaljustice. During COP21, a clear division appeared between ‘victim coalitions’ who portrayedtheir own vulnerability and partly described the injustice of climate change, and the ‘causercoalitions’ who foremost used neoliberal framings of the issue. During COP27, the divisionwas less obvious. Rights-based framings increased in prominence, but fragmentation withinthe coalitions was observed. The controversy did no longer seem to revolve aroundportraying vulnerability. Rather the division was split between the critical states demanding atransformative shift in the global climate regime, and the uncritical ones. The study indicatesthat alternative justice norms continue to break new grounds in the UNFCCC framework, butthe specific implications on politics are yet to be seen.