SDG 13 as Discursive Container: Technocratic and Relational Climate Futures in Indonesia and Ecuador at COP21

Abstract

Climate change governance is increasingly structured through global frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 13 (Climate Action), which standardize climate action through targets and indicators while allowing discursive variation in how climate futures are imagined. This article examines the discursive construction of climate futures in tropical state climate communication by comparing head-of-state national statements delivered at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), the summit that culminated in the Paris Agreement. Using qualitative comparative discourse analysis (Witajewska-Baltvilka et al., 2024), the study analyzes speeches by the Presidents of Indonesia and Ecuador and introduces two analytical heuristics—technocratic climate language and relational ecological climate language— developed in this study to distinguish contrasting modes of climate discourse. The findings show that Indonesia’s COP21 speech predominantly frames climate futures through technocratic language emphasizing governance capacity and policy implementation, while Ecuador’s speech articulates relational ecological futures grounded in moral responsibility and intergenerational justice. The article argues that SDG 13 functions as a discursive container whose later institutional form crystallized climate imaginaries articulated at COP21, demonstrating that climate futures are actively produced through language.