Department or Program

Environmental Studies

Abstract

This thesis applies a critical lens to how the most influential corporate actors at the recent UNFCCC COPs seek to obstruct climate action and the green transition through a smoke screen of corporate environmental and sustainability discourses. Through a systematic deconstruction of these corporate documents, this study reveals a variety of key narratives through which corporations delay, deny, and foster inaction to climate action. The eight most influential corporations, determined by the InfluenceMap database as Amazon, BASF, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, SINOPEC, Toyota, and Volkswagen, were selected based on their documented presence and strategic engagement at COPs 27-29. This research employs a document-based qualitative discourse analysis to identify eight thematic narratives: Energy Security and Affordability, Green Economy, Innovation-Resilience Hybrid, Net-Zero Carbon Neutrality, Producer-Consumer Relations, Solution Skepticism, Techno-Optimism, and Transition. Findings demonstrate that the Net-Zero Carbon Neutrality narrative dominates across all corporations, appearing over 100 times in aggregate, while energy corporations like Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil disproportionately deploy Techno-Optimism and Energy Security narratives to justify continued fossil fuel dependency. Notably absent are substantive discussions of just transition, revealing corporate reluctance to engage with the social and political dimensions of decarbonization. This analysis connects corporate discursive strategies to obstruction tactics documented within UNFCCC negotiations, demonstrating that greenwashing operates not merely as misleading marketing but as a sophisticated governance strategy that shapes what counts as legitimate climate action. By mapping these narrative patterns, this thesis contributes to climate justice movements working to reclaim governance from corporate capture and reimagine planetary healing guided by those most impacted by the climate crisis, including Indigenous communities advocating for land sovereignty and ecological stewardship.

Level of Access

Open Access

First Advisor

Jamie Haverkamp

Date of Graduation

5-2026

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Number of Pages

61

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