Abstract
This article addresses the relationship between how discourses are framed, how they influence processes of change and stability, and how liberal democracies— here, the UK—govern the risks posed by climate change. It analyses divergent ways in which ‘emergency framing’ is employed in the UK’s climate governance field—a contested, multi-actor field where strategic communications works to influence processes of goal setting, policy making, standard setting, and implementation. The article inquires who is and who is not using emergency frames at varying levels of intensity, and why.
It concludes that ‘incumbent’ actors are more inclined to reject the emergency frame; they tend to employ implicit ‘techniques of emergency’ only when in support of adaptation and resilience measures. Conversely, explicit emergency framing is the defining discursive characteristic of disempowered ‘challengers’, who employ it confrontationally in their fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Keywords—strategic communications, strategic communication, framing, frame analysis, climate governance, climate change communications, climate emergency
About the Author
Quentin Wight is a researcher at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE) in Riga, Latvia and holds an MA in Strategic Communications from King’s College London.
157 Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio, ‘No to Bio-Political Tattooing’, Le Monde, 10 January 2004. [Accessed 2 March 20].
______, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Al-Dahash, Hajer F., Menaha Thayaparan, and Udayangani Kulatunga, ‘Understanding the Terminologies: Disaster, Crisis and Emergency’ in P.W. Chan and C. J. Neilson (eds) ‘Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ARCOM Conference, 5–7 September 2016, Manchester, UK, Association of Researchers in Construction Management, Volume 2, p. 1191–200.
Alexander, David, ‘Towards the development of a standard in emergency planning’, Disaster Prevention & Management: An International Journal Volume 14 № 2 (2005) 158–75.
Aradau, Claudia and Rens van Munster, ‘Governing Terrorism Through Risk: Taking Precautions, (un)Knowing the Future’, European Journal of International Relations Volume 13 № 1 (2007): 89–115.
______, ‘Politics of Catastrophe: Genealogies of the Unknown’ (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011).
Attenborough, David, Climate Change – The Facts, BBC One, (2019). [Accessed 12 August 2020].
Bäckstrand, Karin and Eva Lövbrand (eds), Research Handbook on Climate Governance (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015).
Barthes, Roland, Writing Degree Zero (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1967) translated from the French Le Degre Zero de L’Ecriture (Editions du Seuil, 1953).
Beck, Ulrich, The Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1992).
______, ‘Risk Society and the Provident State’ in S. Lash, B. Szerszynski and B. Wynne (eds), Risk, Environment and Modernity. (London: Sage, 1996), p. 27–43.
______, ‘Risk Society Revisited: Theory, Politics and Research Programmes’, in Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck and Joost van Loon (eds), The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory, (London: Sage, 2005), p. 211–29.
Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash, ‘Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order’ (Stanford University Press, 1994).
Department for Business , Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Clean Growth Strategy, GOV.UK, [policy paper], 12 October 2017. [Accessed 10 July 2020].
______, (2020). ‘What the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy does’, GOV.UK, [web page].[Accessed 13 August 2020].
Benford, Robert D. and David A. Snow, ‘Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’, Annual Review of Sociology, 26 (2000): 611–39.
Boin, Arjen and Mark Rhinard, ‘Managing Transboundary Crises: What Role for the European Union?’, International Studies Review, Volume 10 (2008): 1–26.
Boin, Arjen, Paul ‘t Hart, and Allen McConnell, ‘Crisis Exploitation: Political and Policy Impacts of Framing Contests’, Journal of European Public Policy, Volume 16 № 1 (2009): 81–106.
Bounegru, L., K. De Pryck, T. Venturini, and M. Mauri, ‘“We Only Have 12 Years”: YouTube and the IPCC report on global warming of 1.5°C’, First Monday Volume 25 № 2/3 (2020).
Boykoff, Maxwell T., David Frame, and Samuel Randalls, ‘Discursive Stability Meets Climate Instability: A Critical Exploration of the Concept of ‘Climate Stabilization’ in Contemporary Climate Policy’, Global Environmental Change, Volume 20 № 1 (2010): 53–64.
Buzan, Barry, ‘Rethinking Security After the Cold War’, Cooperation and Conflict, Volume 32 № 1 (1997): 5–25.
Buzan, B, O. Waever, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
Club of Rome, Climate Emergency Plan: A Collaborative Call To Action, December 2018.
Council Action in the Climate Emergency (CACE) ‘The Climate Emergency’, caceonline.org, [web page] n.d. [Accessed 6 December 2020].
159 Committee on Climate Change (CCC), ‘About the Committee on Climate Change’, theccc.org.uk, [web page] n.d. [Accessed 8 January 2020].
______, An Independent Assessment of the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy: From Ambition to Action, [policy paper], 17 January 2018. [Accessed 20 August 2020].
______, Net Zero: The UK’s Contribution to Stopping Global Warming, [policy paper], (2019). [Accessed 12/20/06]
______, Reducing UK Emissions: 2019 Progress Report to Parliament, [policy paper], (2019). [Accessed 13 July 2020].
Connolly, William E., Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming (London: Duke University Press, 2017).
Conservative Party, Conservative Party Manifesto 2019. [Accessed 12 August 2020]
Corbyn, Jeremy, ‘Jeremy Corbyn Declares Environment and Climate Emergency’, [speech], 1 May 2019. [Accessed 11 July 2020]
Dalby, Simon, ‘Climate Change and the Insecurity Frame’ in Shannon O’Lear, and Simon Dalby (eds), Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics (Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2015).
de Goede, Marieke and Samuel Randalls, ‘Precaution, Preemption: Arts and Technologies of the Actionable Future’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Volume 27 № 5 (2009): 859–78.
de Goede, Marieke, Stephanie Simon, and Marijn Hoijtink, ‘Performing Preemption’, Security Dialogue, Volume 45 № 5 (2014): 411–22.
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017, GOV.UK, [policy paper], 18 January 2017. [Accessed 2 July 2020].
______, ‘National Adaptation Programme, GOV.UK, [policy paper], 19 July 2018. [Accessed 20 July 2020].
______, 25 Year Environment Plan, GOV.UK, [policy paper], 11 January 2018. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/25-year-environment-plan [Accessed 20 July 2020].
Denyer, Carla, Declare a Climate Emergency, Full Council Motion, Bristol City Council, 13 November 2018.
Diez, Thomas, Franziskus von Lucke and Zehra Wellmann, The Securitisation of Climate Change Actors, Processes and Consequences, (Oxford: Routledge, 2016).
Doulton, Hugh and Katrina Brown, ‘Ten Years to Prevent Catastrophe? Discourses of Climate Change and International Development in the UK Press’, Global Environmental Change Volume 19 № 2 (2009): 191–202.
Dörries, Matthias, ‘Climate Catastrophes and Fear’, WIREs Climate Change Volume 1. (2010).
Dowling, John and Jeffrey Pfeffer, ‘Organizational Legitimacy: Social Values and Organizational Behavior’, Pacific Sociological Review Volume 18 № 1 (1975): 122-136
Entman, Robert M., ‘Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’, Journal of Communication Volume 43 № 4 (1993): 51–58.
Extinction Rebellion, The Emergency, [manifesto] n.d. [Accessed 13 July 2020].
Fischer, Frank, Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Fligstein, Neil, ‘Markets as Politics: A Political-Cultural Approach to Market Institutions’, American Sociological Review Volume 61 № 4 (1996): 656–73.
Fligstein, Neil and Doug McAdam, ‘Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields’, Sociological Theory Volume 29 № 1 (2011): 1–26.
Friends of the Earth, 12 Years to Save Our Planet: The Solutions to the Climate Crisis, [policy report], 2018. [Accessed 10 June 2020]
Gamson, William A. and Andre Modigliani, ‘Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: a Constructionist Approach’, American Journal of Sociology, Volume 95 № 1 (1989): 1-37.
Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1990).
______, Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
161 Gills, Barry and Jamie Morgan, ‘Global Climate Emergency: After COP24, Climate Science, Urgency, and the Threat to Humanity’, Globalizations Volume 17 № 6 (2020): 885–902.
Gitlin, Todd, The Whole World is Watching (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
Greenpeace, Climate Manifesto [policy paper], August 2019. [Accessed 20 August 2020]
______, Government Investment For A Greener and Fairer Economy, [policy report], September 2019. [Accessed 12 June 2020]
Hajer, Maarten, ‘Discourse Coalitions and the Institutionalization of Practice’ in John F. Forester and Frank Fischer, (eds) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning (Duke University Press Books, 1993).
______, The Politics of Environmental Discourse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Hall, N. L. and R. Taplin, ‘Revolution or Inch-by-Inch? Campaign Approaches on Climate Change by Environmental Groups, The Environmentalist Volume 27 № 1 (2007): 95–107.
Hallahan, Kirk, ‘Strategic Framing’ in W. Donsbach (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).
Hartzell-Nichols, Lauren, ‘Precaution and Solar Radiation Management’, Ethics, Policy & Environment Volume 15 № 2 (2012): 158–71.
Heng, Y., ‘War as Risk Management: Strategy and Conflict in an Age of Globalised Risks’ (London: Routledge, 2006).
Hodder, Patrick and Brian Martin, ‘Climate Crisis? The Politics of Emergency Framing’, Economic and Political Weekly, Volume 44 № 36 (2009): 55–60, p. 53.
Horton, Joshua B., ‘The Emergency Framing of Solar Geoengineering: Time For a Different Approach’, The Anthropocene Review, Volume 2 № 2 (2015): 147–51.
Hulme, Mike, Against Climate Emergency, [web page], (2018). [Accessed 11/08/20].
Dissolution’, Geographical Journal, Volume 174 № 1 (2008): 5–16.
Ish-Shalom, Piki, Beyond the Veil of Knowledge: Triangulating Security, Democracy, and Academic Scholarship (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2019).
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, H.- O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J.B.R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M.I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, and T. Waterfield (eds.)]. In Press. (2018).
Labour Party. (2019). ‘Manifesto – The Labour Party’, available at: https://labour. org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Real-Change-Labour-Manifesto-2019. pdf [Accessed 20 August 2020]
Labour Party, (2018). ‘The Green Transformation: Labour’s Environment Policy’, [policy paper], available at: https://www.labour.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2018/09/The-Green-Transformation-.pdf [Accessed 12 June 2020]
Lacy, Mark, Security, Technology and Global Politics: Thinking with Virilio (Oxford: Routledge, 2014).
Lash, Scott and John Urry, Economies of Signs and Space (London: Sage, 1994).
Law, John and Annemarie Mol, ‘Situating Technoscience: An Inquiry Into Spatialities’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Volume 19 № 5 (2001): 609–21.
Lenton, T. M., H. Held, E. Kriegler, J.W. Hall, W. Lucht, S. Rahmstorf, and H.J. Schellnhuber, ‘Tipping Elements in the Earth’s Climate System’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Volume 105 № 6 (February 2008): 1786–93.
Lieven, Anatol, ’Climate Change and the State: A Case for Environmental Realism’, Survival Volume 62 № 2 (2020): 7-26
Matthes, J. Framing. (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2014).
the World’s Leading Communication Journals, 1990–2005’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly Volume 86 № 2 (2009): 349–67.
Matthes, J. and M. Kohring, ‘The Content Analysis of Media Frames: Toward Improving Reliability and Validity’, Journal of Communication, Volume 58 (2008): 258–79.
Markusson, Nils, Franklin Ginn, Navraj Singh Ghaleigh, and Vivian Scott, ‘In Case of Emergency Press Here: Framing Geoengineering as a Response to Dangerous Climate Change’, WIREs Climate Change, Volume 5 № 2 (2014): 281–90.
McDonald, Matt, ‘Discourses of Climate Security’, Political Geography Volume 33 (2013): 42–51.
Methmann, Chris and Delf Rothe, ‘Politics For The Day After Tomorrow: The Logic of Apocalypse in Global Climate Politics’, Security Dialogue, Volume 43 № 4 (2012): 323–44.
Methmann, Chris and Angela Oels, ‘From “Fearing” to “Empowering” Climate Refugees: Governing Climate-induced Migration in the Name of Resilience’, Security Dialogue, Volume 46 № 1 (2015): 51–68.
Ministry of Defence, Global Strategic Trends, GOV.UK, [policy paper], 2 October 2018. [Accessed 10 July 2020]
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004. [Accessed 5 June 2020]
Nisbet, Matthew C., ‘Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter to Public Engagement’, Environment Volume 51 № 2 (2009): 514–18.
Oels Angela, ‘From “Securitization” of Climate Change to “Climatization” of the Security Field: Comparing Three Theoretical Perspectives’ in J. Scheffran, M. Brzoska, H. Brauch, P. Link, and J. Schilling (eds), Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict, Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, Volume 8 (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2012).
______, ‘Rendering Climate Change Governable By Risk: From Probability to Contingency’, Geoforum, Volume 45 (2013): 17–29.
______, ‘Security’ in Karin Bäckstrand and Eva Lövbrand (eds), Research Handbook on Climate Governance (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015).
O’Lear, Shannon and Simon Dalby, Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics (Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2015).
O’Neill, S., Hywel T.P. Williams, Tim Kurz, Bouke Wiersma, and Maxwell Boykoff, ‘Dominant Frames in Legacy and Social Media Coverage of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report’, Nature Climate Change Volume 5 № 4 (2015): 380–85.
Oxford Languages, ‘Word of the Year 2019’, [online]. [Accessed 7 November 2020]
Paglia, E., ‘The Socio-scientific Construction of Global Climate Crisis’, Geopolitics Volume 23 № 1, (2018): 96–123.
Painter, James, Climate Change in the Media: Reporting Risk and Uncertainty (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013).
Paul, Christopher, Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts, and Current Debates (Oxford: Praeger, 2011).
Rasmussen, Mikkel V., ‘It Sounds Like a Riddle: Security Studies, the War on Terror and Risk’, Millennium Volume 33 № 2 (2004): 381–95.
Renn, O., ‘Challenges of Risk Governance: Coping with Climate Change, Presentation at University of Melbourne, Victoria, 16 July 2015.
Reser, J. P. and J. Swim, ‘Adapting To and Coping With the Threat and Impacts of Climate Change’, American Psychologist Volume 66 № 4 (2011): 277–89.
Reser, J. and G. Bradley, ‘Fear Appeals in Climate Change Communication’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science, 26 September 2017.
Rich, Michael, ‘Catastrophe Risk Management in the Public Sector’, [keynote speech] Inaugural International Symposium on Catastrophe Risk Management, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 22 January 2010. [Accessed 31 July 2020].
165 Rothe, D., ‘Seeing Like a Satellite: Remote Sensing and the Ontological Politics of Environmental Security, Security Dialogue Volume 48 № 4 (2017): 334–53.
Rumsfeld, Donald, ‘Secretary Rumsfeld Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium’, 6 June 2002. [Accessed 13 June 2020].
Schäfer, Mike S. and Saffron O’Neill, ‘Frame Analysis in Climate Change Communication’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science, September 2017.
Schmitt, Carl, Politische Theologie: Vier Kapitel zur Lahre von der Souveranitat, Berlin: Dunker & Humboldt, 1922), G. Schwab (trans.) Political Theology. Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty ( (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Scruton, Roger, Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet (London: Atlantic Books, 2013).
Shapiro, M., Language and Political Understanding: The Politics of Discursive Practice (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981).
Skrimshire, Stefan, ‘Activism for End Times: Millenarian Belief in an Age of Climate Emergency’, Political Theology Volume 20 № 6 (2019): 518–36.
Snow, David and Robert Benford, ‘Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization’ in Bert Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Sidney Tarrow (eds), International Social Movement Research: From Structure to Action (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1988): 197–218.
Steffek, Jens, ‘Discursive Legitimation in Environmental Governance’, Forest Policy and Economics, Volume 11 № 5/6 (October 2009): 313–18.
______, ‘The Legitimation of International Governance: A Discourse Approach’, European Journal of International Relations Volume 9 № 2 (2003): 249–75.
Steffen, W., J. Rockström, K. Richardson, T.M. Lenton, C. Folke, D. Liverman, C.P. Summerhayes, A.D. Barnosky, S.E. Cornell, M. Crucifix, J.F. Donges, I. Fetzer, S.J. Lade, M. Scheffer, R. Winkelmann, and H.J. Schellnhuber, ‘Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (33) (August 2018): 8252–59.
Stripple, J. and H. Bulkeley, ‘Governmentality’ in Karin Bäckstrand and Eva Lövbrand (eds) Research Handbook on Climate Governance (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015).
Suchman, Mark C., ‘Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches’, Academy of Management Review Volume 20 № 3 (1995): 571–610.
Taylor, Matthew and Jonathan Watts, ‘ “Enough is Enough”: Biggest-ever Climate Protest Sweeps UK’, The Guardian, 20 September 2019. [Accessed 7 November 2020].
Urry, John, Global Complexity (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).
Van Evera, Stephen, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
Virilio, Paul, The Information Bomb (London: Verso, 2005).
______, Mark Polizzotti (trans.),‘Popular Defence and Ecological Struggles’, (New York, Colombia University: Semiotext(e), 1990), originally published as Defense populaire et Luttes ecologiques (Paris: Edition Galilee, 1978).
______, Speed and Politics, (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2006), Originally published as Vitesse et Politique (Paris: Edition Galilee, 1977).
Virilio, Paul and John Armitage, ‘From Modernism to Hypermodernism’ in John Armitage (ed.), Virilio Live (London: Sage, 2001).
Virilio, Paul, Friedrich Kittler and John Armitage, ‘The Information Bomb: A Conversation’, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities Volume 4 № 2 (1999): 81–90.
Virilio, Paul and Drew Burke, Grey Ecology (New York: Atropos Press, 2010).
Virilio, P. and S. Lotringer, Crepuscular Dawn (Lost Angeles: Semiotexte, 2002), p. 13.
Vilirio, P. and S. Redhead, Paul Virilio Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).
Wæver, Ole, ‘Securitization and Desecuritization’ in Ronnie Lipschutz (ed.) On Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 46–86.
167 Walters, William, ‘Governmentality: Critical Encounters’, (New York: Routledge, 2012)
Warner, J., and I. Boas, ‘Securitization of Climate Change: How Invoking Global Dangers for Instrumental Ends Can Backfire’, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space Volume 37 № 8 (2019): 1471–88.
Watts, Jonathan, ‘We Have 12 Years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe, Warns UN’, The Guardian, 8 October 2018. [Accessed 1 November 2020]
Wendt, A., ‘Collective Identity Formation and the International State’, The American Political Science Review, Volume 88 № 2 (1994): 384–96.
World Wide Fund for Nature, Keeping It Cool: How the UK Can End its Contribution to Climate Change [policy report], 2019. [Accessed 13 August 2020].
______, WARNING: CLIMATE EMERGENCY [policy report], April 2019. [Accessed 12 July 2020]
