Can moral framing reduce climate change polarization? Textual and experimental evidence from Norway

We analyzed the moral valence of elite rhetoric on climate change in Norway (1,039 opinion articles across 5 years) and examined whether morally framing climate mitigation appeals to match people’s own values affected attitudes. Using a novel method for computational text analysis, we found elite rhetoric increasingly emphasized moral universalism (care, equality) over particularism (loyalty, authority, purity). In a survey experiment (N = 3,868), universalist values predicted agreement with all climate mitigation appeals regardless of framing, while particularist values predicted disagreement with all but one appeal. This appeal, focusing on national interests and respect for local communities, resonated strongly with particularists and reduced political polarization in appeal agreement, but was underrepresented in elite rhetoric relative to more divisive framings. However, moral frame exposure showed no downstream effects on broader climate attitudes. Nevertheless, we argue that the universalist bias evident in elite rhetoric may contribute to polarization over time.