Abstract

This review article addresses the need for systematic in-depth reflection on how narratives are used in scholarly climate change literature and synthesizes ten years of research literature between 2009 and 2019. Firstly, the analysis results show that the research field of climate change narratives is scattered yet complementary, as scholarly literature addresses the content of all three working groups’ assessment reports of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Secondly, the analysis of narrative conceptualizations identifies three themes on the whats, whens, and hows of narrative: transmission, perspectives, and practices, embodied and entangled. On the basis of the analysis, this article concludes with a discussion of the potential of climate change narratives to nuance the emergency rhetoric of climate change communication and simultaneously argues that a plurality of theoretical perspectives in research on climate change narratives has the power to create the transformative change needed to address the sustainability and climate challenges outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.