Narratives for Climate Change Communication in Official Policy Reviews and Suggested Improvements to Aid Sustainable Energy Transition

Abstract: There is a considerable gap between what scientists argue is necessary to avoid the most dramatic consequences of climate change and what governments around the world are currently achieving with their mitigation strategies and national pledges. This is partly due to the general inability to communicate solutions to climate change in a desirable way. Strategic narratives have been found to be a great tool to improve the effectiveness of climate change communication. Common narratives in climate change communication are the “Gore” narrative, “End of the World” narrative, “Climate Target” narrative and the “Green Living” narrative. Sweden has been considered a leading country in the field of sustainability in recent years. However, the newly formed government does not seem to be overly concerned with improving environmental sustainability, considering that their proposed policies would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions for Sweden for the first time in decades. The Swedish Climate Policy Council has been formed in order to evaluate whether Swedish policies are aligned with Sweden’s national climate targets on an annual basis. This thesis examines recent reports of the Swedish Climate Policy Council through a document analysis in order to estimate the effectiveness of their climate change communication. The reports were coded using framework analysis and corresponding narrative statements were identified and categorized in the above mentioned narrative categories. Relative frequency of different types of narratives is analyzed and, based on recent climate change communication research, recommendations for improvements are given. It has been found that the Swedish Climate Policy Council should create a strategic narrative for climate change communication, based on the values of the current government.