In search of common ground: Exploring value networks at the UNFCCC climate change talks

Understanding the values held by negotiating parties is central to the design and success of international climate change agreements. However, empirical understandings of these values – and the manners by which they structure negotiating countries’ value networks and interactions over time – are severely limited. In addressing this shortcoming, this paper uses keyword-assisted topic models to extract value networks for the 13 most recent Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It then uses network analysis tools to unpack these networks in relation to influential values, countries, and time. In doing so, it demonstrates that countries’ core climate change values (i) can be accurately recovered from COP High-level Segment (HLS) speeches and (ii) can, in turn, be used to understand the structure of negotiation networks at the UNFCCC. Analysis of the corresponding value networks for COPs 16–28 indicates that initially central values of “Fairness” and “Power” have increasingly given way to values associated with the “Environment” and “Achievement.” Thus, countries at the UNFCCC have increasingly eschewed values associated with common but differentiated responsibilities in favor of a consensus over the urgency of collectively combating climate change. These and related insights illustrate our approach’s potential for recovering and understanding value networks within climate change negotiations – a critical first step for any successful climate change agreement.