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Abstract

Although it is well acknowledged that moral foundations have an emotional component, little is known about the relation between moral foundations and emotions in current political and public debates. The analysis of this relation is crucial to better understand causal pathways from affect and emotion to climate change action and behavior. Employing Emotion Discourse Analysis, this study analyzes appeals to moral foundations in European Parliament (EP) plenary debates on the topic of climate change, and their relation to emotions between 1994 and 2022. We show that the relation between moral foundations and emotions depends on the narratives put forward by policymakers from different political groups. After linking narratives, moral foundations and emotions, we hypothesize how the identified combinations affect political action. We show that narratives promoting action-oriented and effective appeals to emotions, which are key in advancing environmental protection, are not the most prominent in EP debates.

Keywords

climate change emotions European parliament morality moral foundations Europe

Introduction

One of the most critical problems we face today is the failure to take action in the context of the intensifying climate crisis. In this article, we use the lens of moral politics to improve our understanding of the relationship between affective dimensions and political (in)action, and apply it to climate debates in the European Parliament (EP). Both virtue (moral values) and passion (emotions) play a decisive role in climate change debates (Markowitz & Shariff, 2012) and political action. Virtue, or moral argumentation, provides individuals with the moral justification to act. In their study of public discourse, Adger et al. (2017) find that participants consistently use moral reasoning to explain their views on climate adaptation. But reason alone is not sufficient to grant political action: emotions are necessary for moral decision-making (Roeser, 2012, p. 1033) in such a way that a technocratic, non-affective moral climate change discourse will not generate pro-environmental action tendencies. A review of recent empirical research shows that emotions experienced toward climate change are among the most important predictors of climate change-related perceptions, opinions, and behaviors (Brosch, 2021), meaning that emotions play a critical role in climate change opinion and action.

In line with this research, Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) claims that moral stances have an emotional component (Graham et al., 2013), and there is evidence that appeals to morality elicit emotions among citizens (Jung, 2020; Lipsitz, 2018), making moral emotional climate communication most effective (e.g., Rees et al., 2015; Stoll-Kleemann et al., 2022). Yet, little is known about how moral appeals relate to emotions in climate change discourses. This link is important to the study of MFT, as well as to the study of the impact of the emotional dimension of moral values upon political action.

If we want to understand the potency of climate appeals to moral foundations and emotions, we first have to investigate their presence in the real world. How are moral foundations and emotions related in contemporary European climate discourse? Which distinct appeals to morality are made, how are they connected to emotions and what implications does this connection have for political action? This study constitutes an important first step toward clarifying the pathways from climate perspectives involving appeals to moral foundations and emotions to climate change action and behavior.

With this in mind, we propose a qualitative study that analyses appeals to moral foundations (as defined by MFT) in EP plenary debates on the topic of climate change, and their relation to emotions (following the expectations of MFT). For the study of the connection between emotions and moral foundations, we will be employing Emotion Discourse Analysis (EDA) (Koschut, 2022). After presenting the theoretical framework and the literature review, this article discusses how moral appeals and emotions are inserted into different types of narratives and how they are used in different contexts by Members of the EP (MEPs) and by EU officials. We show that the connection between moral foundations and emotions depends strongly on the political and ideological narratives that are put forward by policymakers.

We also show that, although EP discourses contain a predominant narrative relating the harm moral foundation to fear, a variety of narratives reflect power struggles and conflicts over distribution of resources, leading to different interpretations of what should be considered as fair. Though the mobilization of the fairness moral foundation elicits anger, there is a lack of a clear efficacy mechanism. Emotions linked to binding moral foundations, including pride and respect for the authority of science, are also mobilized, but only in support of existing narratives or to serve different purposes, such as group cohesion. These tentative findings are worrying regarding what we can expect in terms of political action.

Moral Foundations and Emotions in Climate Change Appeals

Moral Foundations Theory

How can the moral domain be understood? What are the basic elements that can guide scholars to represent, understand or explain the moral domain? In essence, morality refers to codes of conduct that prescribe and guide human behavior. Acknowledging the possibility of a diversity of codes or norms, MFT proposes a pluralist theory of moral psychology in which there exists a limited, but potentially large, number of moral ideals (Graham et al., 2013). MFT was created to integrate reductionist and constructivist approaches by affirming that, while moral foundations are native, innate does not mean hardwired or insensitive to environmental influences, but rather organized in advance in experience. Each of the five theorized moral foundations serves a different but related social function. First, there are two individualizing foundations, aimed at protecting individual rights and wellbeing: (1) care/harm (sensitivity to individual suffering) and (2) fairness/cheating (sensitivity to disproportionality). In addition, there are three binding foundations that are aimed at group protection: (3) loyalty/betrayal (sensitivity to group loyalty), (4) authority/subversion (sensitivity to social rank and position), and (5) disgust/purity (sensitivity to social threats and taboos). This list is not considered as definitive, and MFT proponents also advance-specific criteria for researchers to decide what can count as a moral foundation.

MFT has produced a large stream of empirical research and empirical findings. Most relevant are the studies looking at ideological differences in the adherence to moral foundations. Haidt and Graham (2007) found that liberals show greater reliance upon the individualizing care and fairness foundations, and conservatives show greater reliance upon the binding loyalty, authority, and sanctity foundations (but note Bos & Minihold, 2022, who showed that there are more commonalities than differences between European political elites in their use of moral foundations).

MFT and Emotions

Different moral foundations have been connected to specific emotions (Graham et al., 2013). Based on a social intuitionist perspective, moral stances always have an emotional component (Haidt, 2001, 2008). Although individuals often use reason to solve moral dilemmas, they do so after the original emotional reaction to the dilemma has occurred. This approach is supported by developments in the neurosciences: for example, when brain damage has disrupted emotional processing (and patients are not able to react emotionally to violations of moral codes), patients can accept logical decisions that are commonly viewed as abhorrent (Damasio, 1999). In sharp contrast, a more rationalist perspective would support the supremacy of reason for determining moral action (Harkness & Hitlin, 2014).

From a sociological perspective, emotions are critical for moral systems because they give an indication of when a behavior goes against a moral code or is exemplary of what a proper person in a particular society should do (Harkness & Hitlin, 2014). Morality would thus draw its power from emotions. Moral emotions would be those emotions that arise in reference to cultural codes that contain evaluative content (or, in other words, moral codes; Turner & Stets, 2006, p. 556). As is the case for all emotions when viewed from a sociological perspective, they would arise under predictable conditions and would have predictable effects on behavior.

Following MFT, the five moral foundations would be connected to emotions, as specified in Table 1.

Table 1.

Connections Between Moral Foundations and Emotions.

Foundations	Care/Harm	Fairness/Cheating	Loyalty/Betrayal	Authority/Subversion	Sanctity/Degradation
Emotions	Compassion, anger	Anger, gratitude, guilt	Group pride, rage at traitors	Respect, fear	Disgust
Relevant virtues	Caring, kindness	Fairness, justice, trustworthiness	Loyalty, patriotism, self-sacrifice	Obedience, deference	Temperance, chastity, piety, cleanliness

Note. This table is part of a table taken from Graham et al. (2013).

Thus far, research linking MFT to emotions has mainly focused on disgust and anger (Helzer & Pizarro, 2011; Hutcherson & Gross, 2011; Inbar et al., 2011; Russell et al., 2011; Wagemans et al., 2018). These studies have shown that, in general, both anger and disgust are common answers to moral transgressions. Most importantly, the evidence for the morality–emotion link is rather mixed. According to Cameron et al. (2015), we should therefore be flexible while formulating expectations.

MFT, Emotions, and Climate Change

In the realm of the environment, Feinberg and Willer (2013) showed that only liberals view the environment in moral terms, which can be explained by the fact that climate discourse at the time of their study was mostly connected to a narrative emphasizing individualizing moral concerns about harm of, and care for, the planet. However, more recent studies also showed that liberal moral concerns of harm and (climate) fairness serve as more consistent moral pathways toward climate action (Dickinson et al., 2016; Jansson & Dorrepaal, 2015; Watkins et al., 2016; Welsch, 2022). Importantly, although moral climate considerations connected to the individualizing foundations focus on “solidarity, protection from harm and fairness in burdens” (Adger et al., 2017, p. 379), this is not to say there are no moral considerations appealing to the binding foundations. In Adger et al. (2017) study on moral reasoning, UK citizens also rely on moral notions of “responsibility, of respect for and trust in authorities (. . .) [and on] sanctity, system preservation and patriotism” (p. 383). Importantly, research has shown that moral frames can be crucial in swaying opinions on climate change (Wolsko et al., 2016), especially for those aligning with the moral value in the frame (Huang et al., 2022).

Similarly, emotions are important drivers of climate change perception and action (Brosch, 2021). For example, using large-scale data from the European Social Survey, Bouman et al. (2020) have shown that worry about climate change indirectly predicted personal energy-saving behaviors via increases in feelings of personal responsibility. However, studies on the effectiveness of appeals to emotions in communication are far from conclusive. For example, although several scholars have shown that fear appeals are effective in generating attitudes in support of climate change, it is also known that they can backfire: instead of enhancing action, they can also activate counterproductive defense mechanisms (Ettinger et al., 2021). Existing research has also argued that current television news stories usually use non-effective climate change appeals (Hart & Feldman, 2014). If fear appeals are tied to messages that do not convey an effective way to ameliorate a situation, in this case the climate crisis, this will not spark any human or political action.

Since the relation between emotions and climate change attitudes is not consistent in all contexts (Wang et al., 2018)—as is also shown in the research on effective and ineffective climate fear appeals—more research is needed to establish the causal pathways from affect¹ and emotion to climate change action. One of these possible pathways can relate to the connection of emotions with moral foundations (Brosch, 2021). Existing research on the role of emotions in EP debates has affirmed the important link between emotions and moral imperatives (Sanchez Salgado, 2022). Regarding climate change more specifically, scholars have considered the importance of moral values when evaluating environmental risks and have considered that emotions, such as outrage, anger, and guilt, are effective ethics-based emotions (Böhm, 2003). Yet, the relation between MFT and emotions has rarely been discussed in relation to discourses on climate change (but see Antadze, 2020, who discusses moral outrage as a response to climate injustice). Scholars investigating how emotions affect attitudes on climate change have also hinted that moral foundations may be part of the answer, since those experiencing more intense moral responses to climate change are those who have more concerns about their objects of care, such as future generations or threats to self-identity (Wang et al., 2018). In other words, it is expected that climate change appeals will be more effective when they invoke strong moral emotions.

Theorizing the Link Between Moral Foundations and Emotions

Briefly, both from the perspective of the study of MFT and from the perspective of the study of the effects of emotions on political action, there is increasing acknowledgment of the importance of studying the link between moral foundations and emotions. However, the study of this connection has so far been underdeveloped, particularly from a qualitative perspective, and most importantly within the realm of climate discourse. Given the importance of the context and the flexibility in which we need to interpret the correlations between emotions, morality, and behavior, a qualitative study exploring those links is a very welcome contribution to current academic discussions.

To answer the main question of this article—How are moral foundations and emotions related in contemporary European climate discourse?—we will first identify the different types of connection between moral foundations and emotions. We expect a predominance of harm and fairness in European debates, since the moral domain of WEIRD cultures (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) has been described as fairly narrow and with a strong focus on protecting individuals from harm and exploitation (Graham et al., 2013). The prominence of harm appeals has also been identified in the analysis of the usage of moral appeals by European elites (Bos & Minihold, 2022).

In real-life climate discourses, we also expect that moral foundations will be related to multiple emotions and that this relationship will depend on the type of narrative(s) in which the moral foundations are embedded. Since the relation between emotions and moral foundations depends on specific narratives and evolves over time,² it may not always follow the schema proposed by Graham et al. (2013) (Table 1). We also expect that these narratives reflect politico-economic struggles over the resources of the Earth, and for this reason different political groups will put forward different moral foundations and connect these to different emotions.³ In this way, although emotions are expected to arise under predictable conditions and to have predictable effects on political action, these conditions and effects will depend on the different connections between moral foundations and emotions as manifested in different types of narrative.

Only once the relation between narratives, moral foundations and emotions has been established will it be possible to understand how certain narratives, via a specific connection between moral foundations and emotions, can lead to justifying or legitimizing political action. To clarify these connections, we will rely on existing research analyzing the role of emotions in decision-making and the effectiveness of appeals to emotions in climate change discourses (Hart & Feldman, 2014; Lerner et al., 2015; Stanley et al., 2021).

Reflexive Analysis of EP Debates on Climate Change

For the study of the link between emotions and moral foundations, we will be employing EDA (Koschut, 2022). This type of analysis consists of three steps: (1) selection of the appropriate texts, (2) mapping the verbal expression of emotions, and (3) interpretating and contextualizing the link between emotions and moral foundations.

We have collected a total of 46 EP plenary debates between July 1994 and July 2022 from the EP website, which had “climate change” in the title (see Table 1 in the Appendix).⁴ Although it could be argued that the EP only has relative power in EU decision-making, parliamentary debate transcripts are usually considered a rich source of information concerning the opinions and attitudes of politicians (Abercrombie & Batista-Navarro, 2020). During the long period under examination, important events have affected the climate change discourse, including the signature of the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015). At the EU level, the most important initiatives that have taken place are the launching of the EU emissions trading system in 2005 and, more recently, the EU Green Deal in 2019, followed by the EU Climate Law (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Evolution of EU climate change policy.

The relation between MFT and emotions may depend on the policy area under study. The topic of climate change is particularly interesting to study since it has been argued that climate change does not necessarily register as a moral imperative because it is a complex, large-scale, unintentionally caused phenomenon (Markowitz & Shariff, 2012). It would therefore be a critical case study for the analysis of the extent to which MFT is connected to emotions in real-life public debates, since it poses challenges to our current moral system, opening it to different moral foundations. We expect that the connection between moral foundations and emotions, as hypothesized by MFT, may differ from other cases in which the policy area under study resonates much better with our current moral system.

As general rule, EDA is only applied to a limited number of documents. For the mapping of the verbal expressions of emotions, we propose an original method that permits engaging in an interpretative analysis with a large amount of data (Sanchez Salgado, 2022). We first used Atlas.ti to identify several keywords related to the different moral foundations studied, such as harm or fair/fairness (see Table 2 for a complete overview of the selected words⁵), and key emotion words—words explicitly referring to emotions, including, for example, fear and pride. We also manually coded the gender, formal political group, or function and nationality of the speakers. The automatic and manual coding process did not leave much room for subjectivity, and for this reason inter-coder reliability tests were not considered necessary. The strength of this selection method also constituted a weakness in the sense that subjective manifestations of moral foundations or emotions (e.g., based on metaphors, implicit meanings, etc.) were not considered. This limitation was minimized by the fact that we also read the debates and, because of this, we would have realized if something essential was missing from our interpretation.

Table 2.

Example of Use of Keywords Related to Moral Foundations.

Political groups	Care	Harm	Threat	Fair	Justice	Author	Unity	Clean	Degrad.	God
ALDE	3	1	3	6	2			7	1	1
ARE			1			1		1
ECR	1		1	1				1	3
EDN										1
EFD		1	4		1	1		1		2
ENF					1
EPP	8	3	11	24	1	3	4	42	5	2
EU COM	5		7	15	2		2	34	3
Greens	4		2	5	2			17	2
EU COUN	1	1	3	2	3	1	1	6
GUE/NLG				7	10			7
NI	2		5			1		1
S&D	4		7	12	11	2	5	24	2
UEN		1	3	1				4
UPE				1
Totals	28	7	47	75	33	9	12	145	16	6

Note. See the Appendix for the complete name of political groups and for additional information regarding the selection of these keywords. The percentages and keywords per number of interventions are also available in the Appendix.

We focused on English text. Although our analysis covers the period between 1994 and 2022, the tables presenting the frequency of keywords in the Appendix only cover 1994 to 2012. This choice was made because the EP website only included the English translation of the debates until 2012. We expected that, in the absence of translation, the English keywords would be overrepresented for English-speaking actors in the debates between 2013 and 2022.

It is important to keep in mind that the tables presented show, for example, how different MEPs used the keywords, giving an idea of how frequently they may have referred to different moral foundations. However, MEPs used the same keywords to refer to many different things, and for this reason, a reflexive analysis, taking theory and context into account, is of utmost importance.

Although it would have been difficult to study all debates between 1994 and 2022 in depth, it was feasible to interpret and contextualize those paragraphs in which the keywords appeared. The purpose of the reflexive analysis was not only to identify the presence of trends or themes but also to articulate the participants’ understandings of climate change considering the literature presented above (Watts, 2014). More specifically, we tried to see if MEPs were using moral appeals that could be related to the moral foundations identified by MFT, and the extent to which these appeals included emotions. We also proceeded in reverse order, identifying emotions first and then looking at the extent to which it could be interpreted that they were connected to moral appeals. It is important to note that observing emotions in discourse relies on emotion attribution, which affects the possibility of error in the researcher’s interpretation (Flam, 2015). It is also important to make a distinction between emotional expressions employed in discourses and actual individual feelings (Hochshild, 1979). For these reasons, the conclusions reached by this analysis do not imply a causal relationship in the strict sense. EDA serves rather to refine theories or to uncover certain relevant dynamics that cannot be captured quantitively. Further research could use experiments or quantitative studies to test the strength of the plausible causal mechanism that will be identified in this study.

The Prominence of Individualizing Foundations in EP Debates

While examining EP debates on the topic of climate change, as expected, individualizing moral foundations predominate: there is a strong focus on harm and justice (Table 2). The in-depth analysis shows that the moral appeals based on harm and fairness can appear in very different types of narrative (depending on what is considered to be the object of harm), connected to different (and even incompatible) emotions.

The Care/Harm Appeal and the Importance of the Objects of Care

According to MFT, the care/harm moral foundation is connected to anger and compassion (Graham et al., 2013). This connection is likely made following the understanding that the harm moral foundation was about sensitivity to human suffering. However, climate change (or the planet) is not (typically) in itself the object of care or affection: the harm done to the planet is rather perceived as a threat to the things we care for (Wang et al., 2018). When applied to climate change, harm is done to the planet, and this creates a situation in which individuals can feel that the people they care for are in danger (without necessarily being sensible to the harm done to the planet).⁶ The following quotation shows how climate change is usually presented by policymakers as a dangerous threat (see also Table 1):

Madam President, do you know Russian roulette? Have you ever played Russian roulette? Of course not, because you have one chance in six of being killed or injured. If Copenhagen is not a success, we do not even have a 50% chance of keeping this planet from going into dangerous climate change. (Claude Turmes, Greens, October 20, 2009)

MEPs do not only claim that climate change is dangerous. They often give concrete examples of its consequences, which are presented as frightening:

We are already witnessing in European winter resorts in the mountains the effects of the rising snow line, but the long-term prospects are far more frightening. At some point, there is a danger of thermal runaway as the polar caps melt, reflect less sunshine and cause a rapid increase in atmospheric warming. This threatens flooding around the globe and other climatic changes causing economic devastation with huge migratory pressures on peoples, not to mention potential wars over water supplies. (Tannock, EPP, July 4, 2001)

As the quotations show, MEPs agree that harm to the planet is connected to danger and, consequently, to fear. It is not clear to which extent this harm done to the planet (and the subsequent fear) can be really considered as related to a moral foundation (insofar it is related to people we care for) or if this fear should be interpreted only as a threat. This importance of fear is congruent with existing studies showing that worry about global warming is the most important predictor of climate policy support (Brosch, 2021). Even those MEPs who deny the existence of climate change (or human-made climate change) do not contest the connection between harming the planet and the threat to humanity, which we expect to elicit fear.

Compassion, and possibly anger—as predicted by MFT—are also present when sensitivity to human suffering is expressed. The compassion expressed by MEPs is indeed normally addressed to people most at risk from climate change (those living close to affected areas) or to our children or future generations. References to future generations are frequent, especially during the marches of 2019, as the following quotation shows:

Mr. President, today is a very special day because not only is the future generation literally knocking on our doors but they’re watching us, they’re looking over our shoulders to see if we are taking care of their future. By organizing the climate marches for children they made it clear to us that it’s their future that we are destroying at the moment. (Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, ALDE, March 13, 2019)

Anger and the Moral Foundation of Fairness

MEPs and EU officials who were present during the plenary sessions share a narrative in which there is a connection between harm and fear. In sharp contrast, the fairness moral foundation, reflecting politico-economic struggles, is inserted in very different types of narrative depending on the political group. Groups from the Left, mainly the Socialist and Democrats (S&D) and the Left Group (GUE/NLG), use the concept of climate justice with a specific concern for poor countries and women. The emphasis is placed on what is fair in social terms. There is a sense of responsibility and solidarity toward developing countries. Although it is reasonable to assume that social injustices lead to anger or indignation, the words “anger,” “indignation,” or “annoyance” are not used to this purpose.⁷ However, there are some expressions that can be interpreted as anger when the topic of climate justice is mentioned, such as “it is inconceivable that.” The notion of climate justice is, however, more explicitly related to the notions of care and solidarity:

We need to remember, if we are speaking with a single voice in Durban, to introduce the principle of climate justice, because those hit hardest in the wake of climate change are the deprived population groups, those living in poverty and verging on the risk of poverty, especially women and children. We need to protect these groups. (Rovana Plumb, S&D, November 15, 2011)

References to fairness are very different when inserted in a narrative oriented toward supporting European industries. One recurrent theme is the need to reach a fair agreement with other countries or fair mechanisms to tackle climate change. The principle of fair competition is also prominent. The idea here is that EU commitments should be comparable to the commitments of other countries, and any mechanism created should be fair for EU industries:

Please do not take away from the companies the capital that they are not getting from the banks at the moment. We need this capital to fill up the cap. We want this in particular—and by 2012. I think it is wrong for us in the EU to send European industry out onto the world market with leaden shoes while our American friends are in trainers in India. That is not fair. It must not be allowed to happen. They must all have comparable shoes. I am passionate about this, precisely so the targets are achieved. (Karl-Heinz Florenz, EPP, December 4, 2008)

Not surprisingly, Green MEPs place less emphasis on the notions of social justice or fair competition. As a Green MEP pointed out, “what may be fair in social terms may end up being impossible in ecological terms” (David Hammerstein, Greens, November 14, 2007). Briefly, MEPs from different political groups have different opinions about what should be the object of care: poor countries and vulnerable groups, industry or the Earth. This disagreement about the object of care (and the unfairness related to this) seems to be the element that elicits the most anger or indignation. The following quotation, for example, expresses indignation for the protection of big luxury cars in a very explicit way:

Commissioner Dimas tried—and rightly—to lay down binding targets for CO₂ reduction, and at a level that the motor industry had voluntarily announced, only to see this proper attempt torpedoed by Germany, and not with the thought in its mind of doing something about climate change or the future of the motor industry, but simply and solely with the thought of protecting that small subdivision of it—the one concerned with the production of big luxury cars, a business that goes on in Germany, and so, suddenly, they care less about climate change and only about Porsche! (Rebecca Harms, Greens, January 31, 2007)

In brief, the moral foundation of fairness is associated with both compassion (solidarity) and anger, as expected. However, these emotions are inserted into different types of narrative that manifest a conflict of interest and reflect current sociopolitical struggles.

Binding Moral Foundations and Group Protection

While individualistic moral foundations are prevalent in Western societies (Graham et al., 2013), the careful reading of the debates shows that binding moral foundations are also relevant in European climate change discourses. In the European context, the binding moral foundations may take a very different form than in non-Western cultures.⁸

Loyalty and Betrayal in a European Context

Table 2 shows that the keywords that could be most easily related to the loyalty and betrayal moral foundation are not very present in EP debates. However, the reading of the texts (and particularly the analysis of the keyword “pride”) shows that the question of group pride is present in the debates in two opposite forms: pride of belonging to the EU, which is pictured as a climate change champion, and patriotism and loyalty toward member states. EU officials and MEPs from most political groups frequently express pride of belonging to the EU, which they depict as the global power that is doing the most for climate change. The following two examples present the EU as virtuous and, in this sense, pride could be seen to be the result of doing the right thing:

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Bali conference on climate was a success and we can be proud of the EU’s role there. Talks on the future of Kyoto were officially begun and all the essential issues are on the table. (Satu Hassi, Greens, December 30, 2008) *** So what should Europe do now? Of course, it should continue its excellent work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because the truth is that Europe has already been extremely virtuous. (Rachida Dati, EPP, January 20, 2010)

In sharp contrast, the populist-Right emphasis on the loyalty frame is based mainly on patriotism. In their view, the EU has no real power against big polluters (including large companies and countries). The reduction of CO₂ is not considered a priority, especially if it goes against some of the defining factors of our societies, such as agriculture and farmers or the national industry sector. In any case, the harm inflicted on the in-group is often presented as a far bigger threat than the harm inflicted on the planet, as in the case of a Polish MEP who claimed that the main aim of the EU was to wipe Poland from the map of Europe (Urszula Krupa, IND/DEM, September 4, 2009). The following quotation shows the concerns of populist-Right MEPs about the deindustrialization of Europe. This quotation can be interpreted as eliciting anger against traitors (e.g., the Commission), as expected by the loyalty moral foundation:

Mr. President, the climate and energy package was imposed by the EU with the objective of achieving by 2020 a 20% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared to 1990 levels. Since then, climate-obsessive politicians have set various objectives toward establishing targets that would involve the final deindustrialization of Europe. We in UKIP disagree with the climate change alarmism which is the cause of the EU’s current damaging and counterproductive energy policy. However, the Commission continues to impose never-ending objectives for emissions reductions which invest vast amounts of money into activities that will have little or no effect on climate. (Julia Reid, EFDD, October 3, 2017)

Authority in Climate Change Debates: The Importance of Science

The keyword “authority” is also mentioned explicitly in debates, but not very frequently (Table 2). In these cases, MEPs and EU officials, for example, refer to the need for the Commission to reassert its authority, especially when it comes to international conferences. Interestingly, in EP debates, references to authority also refer to the authority of science or of specific scientists. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is mentioned by its acronym in 105 paragraphs (between 1996 and 2022). In the debates, there are interesting discussions regarding the authority of science, showing both elements of respect and deference and elements of subversion. The prominence of such discussions has varied over time: it depends on how the climate has been evolving, as well as on specific events (e.g., subversion is more prominent when temperatures are low, as in the mid-2000s, or following specific events, such as the so-called climategate). Mainstream MEPs and EU official often express their deference and respect for the IPCC, as is clear from the following quotation:

I would like to underline the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since in some of the speeches the IPCC findings have been called into question. (. . .) It is important to emphasize that the IPCC has not only been awarded a Nobel Prize, but at the Bali climate conference it was agreed by the 192 participating states that this was the most comprehensive and highest quality scientific resource, the most consistent information at our disposal for deciding on whether and how to react to climate change. (Martin Bursík, President-in-Office of the Council, September 4, 2009)

Climate change deniers also emphasize the scientific authority of some sources that reach conclusions that differ from the IPCC. The authority of the IPCC (and of the authorities that support the IPCC) is directly questioned, as is shown by the following quotation:

Mr. President, in relation to the critical remarks of scientists concerning the reliability of the IPCC’s conclusions (. . .) I asked the Commission about the possibility of conducting research to verify the disputed findings. In his answer, Mr. Dimas said: “The IPCC assessment is the expression of a consensus reached by thousands of scientists.” I ask, therefore, are results in science decided by consensus, and are scientific conclusions the result of voting? Concerning Climategate, the Commissioner said: “The European Commission’s position is that it does not affect the obvious and justified conclusions contained in the IPCC report.” I ask, therefore, what kind of conclusions come from falsified data? (Adam Gierek, S&D, January 20, 2010)

These quotations reveal that, in Europe, the authority of policymakers now competes with other types of authority, and very prominently with the authority of science. These quotations could also suggest that the attitude of policymakers toward science (respect or subversion) depends on how well science serves their policy preferences on the topic of climate change (or corresponds to the feelings/beliefs they already have about this topic).

Sanctity and Purity in EP Debates: Really Absent?

The keywords most clearly related to the sanctity moral foundation, including disgust, temperance, or piety, do not appear in EP debates. Only the keyword “clean” appears frequently in EP debates (144 paragraphs). Interestingly, “clean” is mostly used in expressions such as “clean energy,” “clean technology,” or “clean development mechanism.” This usage of cleanness generates emotions, such as likeness or appeal (or equivalent emotions in opposition to repulsion and disgust). The term “dirty” (only used in 14 paragraphs) is all about “dirty energies,” “dirty development,” and “dirty business,” and in this case, it generates sentiments of disgust or indignation, as the following quotation shows:

I would like to take this opportunity to disabuse you of a misconception, and to ask what you, in England, currently mean when you talk about cleaner nuclear energy. Are you talking about the extraction of uranium, which is a peculiarly filthy business? Are you talking about fuel enrichment, which is particularly dirty? (Rebecca Harms, Greens, November 16, 2005)

It is curious that “clean” is rarely used to refer to the planet (only in two paragraphs, while “clean-coal” is used in six paragraphs) or to the rivers or oceans. Although the word “clean” is often used in EP debates to support certain policy options, it is unclear to which extent this usage is directly related to the moral foundation of sanctity/degradation as described by MFT. For this link to be more clear, further research should specifically study the connection between the term “clean” and the term “pure” in climate change discourses. It could be hypothesized that representing technology and energy as “clean” could indirectly confer on them the status of purity, or even sanctity, reinforcing the notion that technology is a new religious agent.

In any case, the words “pure”⁹ or “sanctity” are rarely employed explicitly in the sense intended by MFT in EP debates. Only a couple of times do conservatives or representatives of the populist-Right refer to God or the Creator. When MEPs refer to God, they support the idea that humans are the stewards of nature, and this human role requires sacrifices from everyone for the protection of the planet:

What is important to me is that there is a God and that we are stewards who must, as Amendment 22 puts it, safeguard creation. So, as I say, we are here today setting ourselves the task of saving the world, setting a course of action that will require the cooperation and sacrifice of everyone everywhere, a task which, to be successful, will also require the cooperation of the winds, water and the sun. (. . .) Well, all I can say is: good luck with it, and may God spare us. (Kathy Sinnott, IND/DEM, September 4, 2009)

Moral Foundations and Emotions: Linking Narratives to Action

In this section, we argue that, to fully appreciate the effects that moral foundations and emotions have on political action in climate change, it is of utmost importance to consider the narratives in which these moral foundations and emotions are embedded. This analysis will consist of presenting the main narratives identified in EP climate change discourses and analyzing them in the light of current studies on the effects of emotions and appeals to emotion in opinion and behavior.

Mainstream political groups—including Commission officials and MEPs from mainstream political parties such as the EPP and the S&D, placing a strong emphasis on the harm moral foundation¹⁰ consider that the main reason driving climate change is the rise in CO₂ emissions. Given this focus on CO₂, the danger is perceived as relatively unpredictable, the control over the situation low and the responsibility for these emissions is largely diffused among individuals, governments, companies, animals, and many other factors. The following quotation is one example of how MEPs support the argument that the main priority of the EU should be the reduction of CO₂:

In conclusion, our target must be at least a 30% decrease in CO₂ emissions by 2020 as part of a post-2012 global agreement, with at least an 80% decrease by 2050—and that is the more important target. The result of the next 8 months of climate diplomacy will write the text of our history books for generations and, as political leaders in our own communities and collectively, we cannot renege on our responsibility. (Avril Doyle, EPP, September 4, 2009)

Under circumstances of low control and diffused responsibility, the chances of political action are lower (Lerner et al., 2015). In addition to this, the fear of climate change and compassion toward people suffering from its effects is counterbalanced by additional narratives (by the same policymakers) focusing on the threat to European business and economy (fear) and the need to care for economic growth and for European industry. This means that, although the threat posed by climate change is well understood, there is a lack of a clear efficacy mechanism insofar as the discussion on solutions focuses on power struggles and conflicts over the distribution of resources. In such a context, fear appeals led to fear control, meaning that policymakers tend to control feelings of distress without really addressing the risks (Hart & Feldman, 2014). Considering the different moral foundations and emotions that counterbalance each other, it is not surprising that the EU has opted for a policy mix that is rather ambiguous.

In terms of what would be expected by emotion theory in relation to decision-making and/or climate change (Lerner et al., 2015; Stanley et al., 2021), more substantive political action against climate change would first require the prevalence of anger over fear. This would require a narrative in which, for example, harm to the planet (the negative situation) is perceived to be under human control and brought about by others. The responsibility needs to be clearly placed, for example, in capitalist companies and governments. This type of narrative is minoritarian in the EP, since it is only supported by a minority of GUE/NLG representatives (although it is sometimes shared by the Greens).¹¹ Such a view would be clearly grounded in the fairness moral foundation, which is also supposed to elicit anger. Climate change would be seen as the result of industrial development based on capitalistic profit and the commercialization of the Earth (Athanasios Pafilis, EP, January 23, 2008). The following quotation reflects this position:

Madam President, Europe has a huge climate debt. In the Global North, we contribute far more to climate breakdown with our history of emissions, yet we refuse to take radical action, even though we have a disproportionate amount of the world’s wealth. We cannot fix a problem caused by capitalism with more capitalism. The truth is, climate change isn’t caused by people, it’s caused by an economic system that drives inequality and rewards environmental destruction. We cannot fix this with neo-liberal policies. It’s not about encouraging consumers to make environmentally friendly choices; we need an emergency-level response outside the framework of encouraging behavior change. (Mick Wallace, GUE/NLG, November 25, 2019)

While minoritarian in the EP, these views are quite widespread among social movements, including prominent activists such as Greta Thunberg. In Thunberg’s speeches, the connection between the fairness moral foundation and anger is also very prominent¹², which may partly explain her capacity to encourage mobilization.

Within the context of existing narratives, the binding moral foundations identified (and the emotions they elicit) play a supporting role. First, the authority of science (and the respect it elicits) is crucial in supporting the main narrative that there is a threat posed by climate change. In this way, this moral foundation works hand in hand with the moral foundation based on care/harm to determine the presence and valence of fear.¹³ As stated in the debates under discussion, only a minority of climate change deniers emphasize the scientific authority of sources that differ from the IPCC. One should expect that the more the authority of science is contested, the more its efficacy is lowered (the less the respect for the authority of science).

The extent to which the loyalty moral foundation has contributed to make the main narrative more action-oriented is less clear. Existing research shows that the extent to which pride is expected to favor environmental protection depends on the way in which it is experienced. Pride related to loyalty is expected to lead to different attitudes and behaviors than the pride that a group can feel for their responsibility regarding climate protection, which tends to favor environmental protection (Harth et al., 2013). In the EP speeches, we can find evidence of both positions. EU officials and MEPs present the EU as virtuous and as doing the right thing, and in this sense, this pride may favor environmental protection. A sense of pride on the topic of climate change could also be seen as a way for EU officials to present the EU as a climate champion in comparison with the polluter other, and in this sense, this could be used to give a sense of cohesion or unity (Sanchez Salgado et al., 2023) without necessarily having many consequences in terms of climate change protection.

In populist-Right narratives, the loyalty moral foundation is more prominent, and the corresponding emotions of pride and anger at betrayal play a role in in-group cohesion rather than actually promoting environmental protection. In this narrative, since climate change is also perceived as unpredictable and the control over the situation low, it is also unlikely to expect many efforts toward environmental protection (Lerner et al., 2015).

The fact that references to divinity are not only not supported, but also removed from official documents (as pointed out by Kathy Sinnott, in a debate of September 4, 2009), reveals that this moral foundation does not have many chances to play any direct supporting role to the main narratives. However, it is possible to hypothesize that this moral foundation, with the sense of responsibility and sacrifice that it elicits, could be effective for the promotion of efforts toward climate protection.

Conclusion

Previous research has shown that moral emotional climate appeals are the most effective for climate action. Yet, although the relevance of this has been substantiated at the individual level, we know little about the extent to which existing climate narratives appeal to moral foundations and emotions. Departing from that premise, this study has used Emotional Discourse Analysis (Koschut, 2022) to qualitatively analyze the climate narratives in EP plenary debates between 1994 and 2022.

In line with our expectations, we show that the connection between moral foundations and emotions depends on specific narratives, often reflecting socioeconomic struggles. This could explain why previous research has found that links between morality and emotions are rather flexible. In this way, this study constitutes an important first step toward clarifying the pathways from climate perspectives involving appeals to moral foundations and emotions to climate change action and behavior.

Our findings show that MEPs appeal to different moral foundations and that the connections made to emotions may not always be in line with the predictions of MFT (Graham et al., 2013). The harm moral foundation—in this case, harm done to the planet—seems to be rather connected to fear, and to a lesser extent to anger. It is however difficult to disentangle the part of fear that comes from the fact that we care for other people (related to the care/harm moral foundation) from the fear of an imminent threat. In any case, the harm moral foundation seems also to be related to anger, as expected, when care for groups vulnerable to climate change is addressed. Anger, an emotion crucial for action (Lerner et al., 2015), is alluded to, but not very explicitly, when fairness is transgressed. However, MEPs, depending on their political groups, have a very different conception of what should be the object of care (vulnerable populations, industry, the Earth) and how fairness should be interpreted (social justice or fair competition?). Finally, the authority climate appeal, when applied to science, can be connected—as predicted by MFT—to deference or subversion. However, for this moral foundation to elicit fear (as expected by MFT), it needs to be related to the existence of a real threat to the planet. We also show that adjectives such as “clean” are used to promote sentiments of likeliness or fondness, but it is yet to be seen to what extent this is related to purity and the sanctity moral foundation.

When discussing the moral foundation and emotions used in EP speeches, in light of research on the role of emotions in decision-making and the effectiveness of appeals to emotions, our findings are provisionally worrying, since narratives promoting action-oriented and effective appeals to emotions, which are key in advancing environmental protection, are not the most prominent in the debates. The majoritarian narrative in the EP mainly elicits fear under circumstances of low control and diffused responsibility, which is not very prone to action (Lerner et al., 2015). Anger is mainly implicit and counterbalanced by a different focus on objects of care. Since the narratives focus on power struggles and conflicts over the redistribution of interests, there is a lack of a clear efficacy mechanism (Hart & Feldman, 2014).

Pride and respect for the authority of science are also mobilized, but only in support of existing narratives or to serve different purposes, such as group cohesion. In this context, there are few reasons to expect effective and decisive action within the framework of EU climate policies in the absence of a more substantial change of narrative.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-abs-10.1177_00027642241242036 – Supplemental material for A Passion for Virtue? Appeals to Morality and Emotions in European Parliament Climate Change Debates

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-abs-10.1177_00027642241242036 for A Passion for Virtue? Appeals to Morality and Emotions in European Parliament Climate Change Debates by Rosa Sanchez Salgado and Linda Bos in American Behavioral Scientist

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article has been written within the framework of the Emotions in European Politics research project (eufeels.com/about-us), funded by the Amsterdam Center for European Studies (aces.uva.nl).

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Rosa Sanchez Salgado is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political science at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Her current research focuses on the role of emotions in European Policymaking, including the study of affective pressures and emotion-based strategies. She has also studied the relations between European institutions and civil society organizations and NGOs.

Linda Bos, an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, specializes in populist political communication. Her research explores the interplay among political elites, media, and voters, focusing on the impact of political communication on democracy.

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