Framing in Climate Change Communication and its Influence on Ideological Divides

The Need for a Black Feminist Climate Justice

The article examines the conceptual component of climate communications and emphasizes that in the current conditions of global climate change, climate communications is an integral element of the implementation of climate policy and is defined as a process related to increasing public awareness of global climate changes and the formation of understanding and support climate policy, measures for adaptation and mitigation of the consequences of global climate change at all levels. Theories and concepts that make up the basis of climate communications are considered, in particular, the theory of globalization and globalization of communication, new humanism, sustainable development, ecological culture, climate justice, and climate theory. It is shown that all climate theories can be conditionally divided according to their explanation of the causes of global climate change, in particular, anthropogenic causes, causes independent of human activity and denial of climate change and proposing ways to solve global climate challenges. The definition of “climate change” in the UN’s basic documents shows that the UN recognizes both approaches and agrees that climate change can be caused by both human activities and natural causes. The concept of climate humanism in relation to climate communications is proposed, which combines two key ideas: the need to solve global climate challenges and the importance of humanity’s participation in this process for the protection and well-being of humanity in the context of a changing climate environment. In the author’s opinion, in the context of the concept of climate humanism, climate communications can be considered as its component and a universal tool that unites approaches to the implementation of information and communication campaigns. It is concluded that the presence of many theories and concepts regarding the understanding of the causes and methods of overcoming global climate change has led to a state of uncertainty in modern scientific thought, which should be taken into account when implementing climate communications.

Climate justice is increasingly prominent in climate change communication and advocacy but little is known about public understanding of the concept or how widely it resonates with different groups. In our global survey of 5,627 adults in 11 countries spanning the global north and south, most participants (66.2%) had never heard of climate justice. Nonetheless, endorsement of climate justice beliefs was widespread (for example, acknowledging the disproportionate impact of climate change on poor people and the underpinning roles of capitalism and colonialism in the climate crisis). Climate justice beliefs were also associated with various indices of climate action and policy support. These associations tended to be stronger in countries with high GHG emissions and where social inequality is also more politically salient. The results highlight the value of climate justice as a motive for climate action across diverse geographical contexts.

In a context in which national and international policy-making have been inadequate and insufficient for dealing with climate change, more recently courts have become a critical forum in which the climate crisis and the consequences of inaction are under debate. Climate change litigation (CCL) is emerging as a valuable strategy to hold governments and private entities accountable for their lack of action and to advance policy and regulation in both, mitigation and adaptation. In addition, CCL also appears to be a powerful tool for communicating the urgency of climate change. Win or lose, climate-related cases can help to promote a better understanding of climate change, raise awareness and enhance dialogue and public engagement in the debate over the actions needed to confront the challenges linked to it. Against the backdrop of the climate change communication discourse, this paper explores how CCL assists in communicating climate change issues. By looking at the experience of some of the most significant climate-related cases that have set important precedents in recent years, this paper highlights that CCL contributes to the public understanding of the causes, risks and consequences of climate change, as well as the adaptation needs, by bringing its realities closer to people—within and outside courtrooms—and by presenting complex related issues in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Thus, as climate-related cases are reported in a variety of sources gaining national and international attention, they help to increase the public’s understanding of climate issues, raise public and politic awareness and inspire action.

Background: Climate change research has established a clear requirement for policy and policymaking: (1) transformational changes in policy and policymaking to foster (2) ‘climate justice’, including a ‘just transition’ (a movement towards environmental sustainability with equitable processes and outcomes). However, there is a major gap between these requirements and actual policies and policy processes. We identify how researchers use policy theories to understand this gap. Methods: We conducted a qualitative systematic review (2022) to identify peer reviewed journal articles on climate change, policy, justice, and equity in three databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Proquest). Each article had to provide a non-trivial reference to policymaking. We used an immersive and inductive approach to identify key themes and show how the use of policy theories informs climate change research. Results: A total of 108 texts meet the inclusion criteria (with some bias towards Global North research since all texts are in English). Most provide general definitions of climate justice, require fair outcomes and processes, and list what is required to meet those aims. However, they also identify unjust processes and outcomes in relation to who is recognised, gets to define the problem, and wins or loses from solutions. Researchers contrast their preferred social justice approach (informing ‘civic environmentalism) to a dominant neoliberal approach (corresponding to weak ‘ecological modernization’). Conclusions: Researchers focus on what they need from policy and policymaking to produce climate justice. Few engage meaningfully with policy theories to describe how policymaking actually works. More engagement would help to set meaningful expectations regarding policy change and avoid a needless tendency to treat policymaking like a ‘black box’.

Climate change research has established general requirements for policy and policymaking: transformational changes in policy and policymaking to foster 'climate justice', including a 'just transition' or movement towards environmental sustainability with equitable processes and outcomes. However, there is a major gap between these requirements and actual policies and policy processes. We identify how researchers use policy theories to understand this gap. We conducted a qualitative systematic review (2022) to identify peer reviewed journal articles on climate change, policy, justice, and equity in three databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Proquest). Each article had to provide a non-trivial reference to policymaking concepts or theories. We used an immersive and inductive approach to identify key themes and show how the use of policy concepts and theories informs climate change research. A total of 108 texts meet the inclusion criteria (with some bias towards Global North research since all texts are in English). Most provide general definitions of climate justice, require fair outcomes and processes, and list what is required to meet those aims. However, they also identify unjust processes and outcomes in relation to who is recognised, gets to define the problem, and wins or loses from solutions. Researchers contrast their preferred social justice approach (informing 'civic environmentalism) to a dominant neoliberal approach (corresponding to weak 'ecological modernization'). Researchers focus on what they need from policy and policymaking to produce climate justice. Few engage meaningfully with policy theories to describe how policymaking actually works. More engagement would help to set meaningful expectations regarding policy change and avoid a needless tendency to treat policymaking like a 'black box'.

In the Anglophone discursive space, there is a variety of actors, such as the public at large, media, politicians, and independent environmental organizations (e.g. Greenpeace) that are engaged in climate change communication. In particular, Greenpeace and its national branches, for example Greenpeace Australia Pacific (further – GAP), seem to utilize social networking sites (SNSs), for instance Facebook, in communicating their opinions, calls for action, and news on the issue of climate change. Currently, however, little is known about how GAP frames its climate change communication on Facebook, which is considered one of the leading SNSs worldwide. To fill the existing research gap, the article describes and discusses a qualitative study that aims at learning about how GAP’s climate change communication is framed on Facebook. This is done by means of applying a qualitative framing methodology developed by Entman (1993, 2007, 2010) to the corpus of GAP’s status updates on Facebook. The results of the qualitative framing analysis have revealed that GAP utilizes the following frames in its climate change communication on Facebook: Climate Justice, Climate Strike, Deep-Sea Mining, Extreme Weather Events, Fossil Fuel, Fossil Fuel Corporations, Green Technology, Rising Sea Levels, and Urgency. These findings are further discussed and illustrated in the article.

This chapter focuses on the tensions between state-driven climate change governance and civil society activism in Thailand and the resultant impact on climate justice. For almost a century, governance in Thailand has oscillated between illiberal military rule and more liberal elected governments. The coup in May 2014 resulted in the latest military regime, which, through constitutional and legal means, largely retained power after the 2019 national elections. This chapter engages with the literature on environmental authoritarianism to analyse the mixed image of stability and change in climate policy, and associated energy policy, over the last two decades. Since 2014, the military government has primarily focused on fossil fuel development, although there is evidence of recent shifts towards renewable energy. Nevertheless, these shifts are occurring through a bypassing of the traditional bureaucratic channels, which is likely to further entrench the military within society, both politically and economically, at the expense of equity, efficiency, and justice. Thai environmental activists have often been at the forefront in Southeast Asia when it comes to climate and energy justice, but since the 2014 coup, a range of factors has resulted in the dissipation of this activity, epitomized by the Thai Climate Justice Network. This chapter analyses the factors that influence (il)liberalism in climate and energy governance and justice and assesses the risks and likely outcomes of recent developments in Thailand.

Climate justice provides a crucial framework to embed issues of equity and justice into COVID-19 recovery strategies. The pandemic, alongside climate change, is disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable and marginalized people across the globe, and particularly exposing Black, Brown, and Indigenous people to ill-health and economic hardship. However, there is a risk that economic considerations will take precedence over climate action in recovery strategies and avoid addressing climate and racial injustices. Yet, it is vital that climate and racial justice and just transition principles inform post-COVID-19 recovery strategies to avoid compounding inequalities. This paper unpacks the layers of injustice surrounding the pandemic, along with their relation to climate policy and finance. It advocates for policymakers to adopt climate justice and just transition principles as a framework for COVID-19 recovery strategies to ensure existing inequalities in society are recognized and addressed in the run-up to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in 2021 and beyond. Key policy insights The COVID-19 pandemic and climate change intersect to further compound inequalities between and within nations. Current vulnerabilities and historical racial injustices undermine the ability of individuals, communities and nations to cope with, and adapt to, climate change. Economic considerations have dominated climate and development policy, and this must change to include justice and equity as key criteria to ensure a green and just recovery. Policymakers should pursue climate policymaking designed with broad and diverse communities in mind, recognizing diversity and intersectionality, to empower marginalized groups. Just transition principles should be mainstreamed into investment and financing criteria for climate finance and recovery strategies to ensure funding reaches those who need it most.

ABSTRACTThe concept of climate justice is frequently discussed in academic literature focusing on the societal impacts of climate change and climate policy. Less attention has been paid to the public's understanding of the concept. In this paper, we investigate whether the public acknowledges a link between climate change and (in)justice, and, if so, what they consider unjust. A representative sample of the Norwegian public (N = 1923) was asked what, if anything, they think can be unjust about climate change, in an open‐ended survey question. Categorizing the responses in line with conventional climate justice dimensions, we found that the majority of respondents referred to some type of distributional justice, while few referred to procedural or recognition justice arguments. Analysing the responses in a bottom‐up manner, by identifying recurring themes, revealed a frequent emphasis on international distribution, followed by distribution between rich and poor and unjust climate policies. We also identified arguments diffusing Norway's responsibility, typically focusing on Norway being a small country. Our findings give insights into the type of justice arguments likely to be recognized and accepted by the Norwegian public, and how this may vary between social groups.

Tools for a new climate conversation: A mixed-methods study of language for public engagement across the political spectrum

Responsive land-use policy amid climate change in urban settings includes infrastructure transformation and necessitates recognizing community- and individual-level vulnerabilities as well as climate-driven injustices, which are isolated in the existing literature. This paper highlights how climate policies set in the nine cities of Turkey identify vulnerable groups and individuals, and develop land-use policy to address the identified vulnerabilities and climate justice concerns. Employing policy content analysis and expert interviews, we find critical relationships between the identified vulnerable groups, responsive land-use policy, and climate justice. While social-aid municipalism-related vulnerabilities dominate the districts’ climate policies, nature-based solutions (NBS), especially green infrastructure and urban agriculture, emerge as the dominant climate adaptation solutions. The way urban vulnerabilities are prioritized in the climate and sustainability plans put less emphasis on intersectionality and urban infrastructure-related vulnerabilities. With tokenism of justice taking place in policy documents, the plans do not incorporate vulnerable communities in land-use planning. Ultimately, the complexity of responsive land-use policies for cities must cultivate a greater awareness of how to support vulnerable communities practically.

The Paris Agreement on climate change recognizes, reluctantly albeit, the importance of ‘climate justice’ in its Preamble. Despite a change from a top-down burden-sharing approach to a bottom-up pledge and review regime, concerns of distributive justice remain central to the evolution of climate research, regime, and policy. The Paris Agreement also proposes a new market-based mechanism to promote ambition. Reasserting the unavoidability of ‘climate justice’ concerns, and responding to the suggestion that the proposed new market-based mechanism could learn from the experience of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), this paper argues that such a recommendation should be tested against a comprehensive understanding of compatibility between justice and the market. This paper postulates that both justice and the market have institutional underpinnings, which embed them into deeper, and interconnected, layers of values and relations. Arguing that ‘climate justice’ is best understood as ‘an agreed ensemble of values,’ we propose that the architecture of the UNFCCC in which these values are articulated, negotiated, and agreed upon needs to be conceptualized as consisting of four distinct, but evolving, institutional spheres: ambition, obligations and entitlements, mechanisms, and deliberation. The approach is illustrated using the case of the CDM, and implications are suggested for the proposed market-based mechanism under the Paris Agreement. The paper argues that the concerns of ‘climate justice’ have multiple institutional dimensions, and the market-based mechanisms may contribute to realizing certain dimensions of ‘climate justice,’ while considerably subverting others. The extent of both outcomes depends greatly on the ‘agreed’ conception of justice, design of mechanisms, and capabilities of the participants. Our findings suggest a judicious combination of non-market mechanisms with the market-based mechanisms would better serve the desired goal.

Climate change communication tailored to different target groups aims at creating awareness of climate change and willingness to engage in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and transformation, thus fostering a development towards a low-carbon society. As there is a long way to reach these goals, the question remains how to create effective communication strategies and topics. This paper identifies the status quo of climate change communication including existing challenges by taking the example of Austria. 101 stakeholders from science, civil society, public administration, media, and economy, who are actively communicating climate change, were questioned on their goals, target groups, strategies, and topics of communication. Further, they were asked to assess existing challenges in climate change communication from their experience as communicators. In order to derive recommendations for a practical application, the results were discussed in expert interviews. Recommendations include a stronger institutionalisation of climate change communication as well as target-group-specific communication strategies. The findings presented in this paper contribute to a greater understanding of climate change communication in its practical dimension. They can support stakeholders in applying climate change communication approaches aiming towards sustainable development, by contributing to the implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

A marked feature of the political tactics of the transnational School Strike 4 Climate movement (also known as Fridays for Futures and Youth Strike for Climate) has been the use of humour on cardboard signs, digital memes and social media posts. Young people’s cardboard signs, memes and social media posts have frequently mobilised humour as public pedagogy and political intervention – to emotionally stir and to politically engage others. In this article, we argue that the school strikers’ creation and mobilisation of humour demonstrate a critical affective climate justice literacy that educators committed to pursuing climate justice have much to learn from. In analysing examples of humour in contemporary student climate justice activism, this article brings previous analyses of the potential of humour in social movement studies and climate change communication into conversation with calls from environmental education scholars to pay greater attention to the potency of emotion for climate justice education, beyond a rationalistic focus on climate science literacy. We outline four pedagogical propositions for working with humour, accompanied by their own perplexities, in moving towards critical affective climate justice literacies.