Over the years, the consumption of airplane travels has increased, and the aviation industry is seen as one of the fastest growing sources for greenhouse gases. As a result, the climate debate has intensified and the phenomenon “flight-shame” has been introduced which has contributed to more environmental awareness. Despite this, consumers still choose to fly and therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how the climate debate and the phenomenon “flight-shame” influence consumer behaviour in the aviation industry. Empirical data was collected through four focus groups and a total of 18 travellers participated in this study. Based on the answers from the focus group, this study has found that factors such as consumer needs, values, and reference groups influence consumers’ decision to fly or not to fly differently depending on their travel motives. Moreover, the climate debate and “flight-shame” is also found to influence the consumer behaviour of some leisure travellers whereas they have mostly influenced consumer attitudes of business travellers. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the underlying factors which influence consumers’ decisions to fly or not to fly. Moreover, it highlights the media as an additional influence on consumer behaviour which to the best of our knowledge has not been explored before. Also, the study sheds light on the importance of green marketing communication by airlines. Lastly, limitations are discussed, and future research is suggested to extend and address the generalizability of the findings by a quantitative research.

Climate change is a critical threat to all the countries of the world today, not least because of the severe human rights infringements it may well lead to. However, although climate change is a collective, global challenge, there are considerable inequalities regarding contribution to cause and burden of the effects. Those suffering the most from the effects of climate change tend to be least responsible for the emissions causing it. The theoretical concept of climate justice aims to address these injustices, between different countries as well as societal groups and generations. To contribute to the understanding of how this concept is present in the global climate debate today, this thesis examines a selection of the Paris Agreement parties’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from a perspective of climate justice. The analysis is based on a theoretical framework developed by Andrea Schapper, focusing on three dimensions of climate justice – international, intra-societal and intergenerational. Through this framework, a total of 36 NDCs are studied, the top and bottom three countries for each world region based on levels of cumulative CO2-emissions. The aim of the case selection has been to obtain a variation regarding development status, vulnerability to the effects of climate change, levels of greenhouse gas emissions and geographical location of the studied countries. The results of the study show that all the dimensions are present in at least some of the studied NDCs, but to a very different extent. Primarily, the parties discuss the issue of international justice. Intra-societal justice is touched upon quite frequently but very few bring up the matter of intergenerational justice. Moreover, all three dimensions are predominantly handled by countries classified as ”developing” (according to the UN statistics division).  This implies that climate justice is a higher priority for the most vulnerable to and least responsible for climate change, which is problematic for many reasons. Above all, it indicates that rich, industrialized countries are reluctant to take responsibility for their current and historical emissions, as well as the effect those emissions have on others.

In Germany, the Last Generation emerged as a new climate activist group at the end of 2021. The group is considered rather controversial due to their contested protest actions of for instance vandalizing artwork. This study examines the influence of their controversial protest actions on the online climate debate on Twitter, compared to actions of Fridays for Future Germany, which enjoy a less contested reputation. The three chosen activities per group were analyzed with the help of a case study approach using content and sentiment analysis. The analysis was then conducted based on the three following concepts: deliberation, on the one side, which fosters constructive debates, as well as communitarianism and liberal individualism, on the other side, which can foster polarization. The analysis revealed that polarization dominated the online climate debate generated by the posts of the two groups. As such, hostile attitudes, condescending language, as well as monologic statements fostered communitarianism and liberal individualism within the comment sections of the Twitter posts. Yet, also deliberation was visible, but to the greatest extend within the comment section of a non-controversial activity of Fridays for Future Germany. This, among others, led to the conclusion that the protest actions of activist groups do have an influence on the climate debate. As such, the controversial activities of both groups influenced the climate debate in so far as the debate shifted from the climate debate to the activity itself by for instance focusing on child protection instead of climate change/protection. This was supported by the use of negative sentiments expressed explicitly towards the action of the group(s).