In the course of the last four years, finance ministries have increasingly become involved in the international climate change negotiations. Their involvement has to a large degree been an outcome of the framing of climate change as a market failure. This framing calls for an active climate change policy and is at odds with the framing of climate change policy that was previously predominant in finance ministries: that it constitutes expenditure to be avoided. The persistence of both framings has led to clashes within and between finance ministries with respect to climate change. The article calls for further research focusing on the role of the two frames and of finance ministries as actors in climate change politics.