Global Climate Talks from Failure to Cooperation and Hope: Swedish News Framings of COP15 and COP21

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to offer an analysis of how two UN Conferences of Parties, COP15 in Copenhagen 2009 and COP21 in Paris 2015, were covered and debated in Swedish newspapers. Two national and two regional newspapers were selected for the study, and a qualitative frame analysis was conducted on 309 articles. A typology of frames applicable to science-related policy and climate change debates was used and its relevance for global climate summit context was discussed. Having territory in the Arctic region, indigenous populations affected by climate change measures, and political and public sensitivity to environmental issues, the climate debate has particular significance in the Swedish case. Findings indicate a trust in the role of national and supra-national governance to address climate change problems, but also that newspapers in Sweden maintained a focus on the global aspects of the two meetings, rather than framing them as surrogate battlefields for domestic politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Frame analysis
• COP15, COP21
• media and climate change
• news and climate talks
• environment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to thank Annika E. Nilsson and the Swedish Research Council FORMAS projects [211-2014-1020] and [209-2008-1045] for the partial funding of this study and resulting paper; and, the project research assistant Tom Buurman for his help with the harvesting of the data using mediearkivet.