While UNFCCC negotiations generally have adopted a neoliberal version of the contestedconcept of climate justice in the last 30 years, the acceptance of the Loss and Damage Fundduring COP27 indicates a possible shift in the climate justice discourse. To examine possibleshifts in the portrayal of climate justice, statements delivered by state representatives fromfive coalitions during COP21 and COP27 have been analyzed using a qualitative framinganalysis. The coalitions represent both victims of climate change and the causers of it. Theanalysis has been based on a theoretical framework consisting of six different climate justiceframes: neoliberal, distributive, intergenerational, rights-based, transformative, and ecologicaljustice. During COP21, a clear division appeared between ‘victim coalitions’ who portrayedtheir own vulnerability and partly described the injustice of climate change, and the ‘causercoalitions’ who foremost used neoliberal framings of the issue. During COP27, the divisionwas less obvious. Rights-based framings increased in prominence, but fragmentation withinthe coalitions was observed. The controversy did no longer seem to revolve aroundportraying vulnerability. Rather the division was split between the critical states demanding atransformative shift in the global climate regime, and the uncritical ones. The study indicatesthat alternative justice norms continue to break new grounds in the UNFCCC framework, butthe specific implications on politics are yet to be seen.

After years of proposals for a Loss and Damage fund meant to deliver climate justice for developing states being blocked, such a fund was established at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 20, 2022. Based on constructivist theories of norm diffusion and persuasion, complemented by theories on strategic negotiating and normative discussions of justice, this thesis conducts a directed content analysis to examine the discourses used by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the EU in negotiations for the Loss and Damage fund. The results show that AOSIS has shifted from using multiple discourses to mainly justice-based arguments sometimes used strategically and was aided by a process favorable to discussing Loss and Damage at COP27. The EU, which represents itself as a leader in COPs, opposed creating new mechanisms to address loss and damage until COP27. Afterward, it positioned itself as an important contributor to the outcome. To evaluate the outcome, while the fund is aimed at distributive justice and climate justice is recognized in the COP27 text, justice discourse is absent from the Loss and Damage section. It remains to be seen whether the fund will advance climate justice.