No Pain, No Gain? Exploring the use of gain-loss framing in political climate debates in Germany and Sweden

Abstract

As the urgency of climate change increases, competing narratives about the potential gains and losses of climate action play a central role in shaping political discourses and policies. This thesis explores the extent and ways in which gain-loss framing is used in political climate debates (i.e. emphasizing positive or negative outcomes to promote or discourage climate action) in Germany and Sweden – two countries considered to be at the forefront of environmental policy in Europe. Thereby, the study addresses a lack of discourse approaches to gain-loss framing, and further adds to the limited multilingual research on climate communication in non-English-speaking countries. Adopting a corpus-assisted discourse study (CADS), the research combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of climate-related parliamentary debates in Germany and Sweden in 2024. The findings show that gain- and loss-framed arguments appear frequently and to similar extents in both Germany and Sweden, primarily to promote rather than discourage climate action. Three main discursive patterns emerge across both corpora: 1) maintaining prosperity and competitiveness, 2) preserving living conditions, and 3) balancing short- and long-term gains. Country-specific differences were mostly noticeable between political parties. Overall, the analysis suggests that climate action is often framed through cost-benefit logic, and shaped by tensions between immediate and future concerns. To increase support for sustainable policy-making in light of increasing urgency, politicians should continue to reframe short-term losses as long-term investments.