Solutions to global development challenges often involve scientific research but there is still great inequality concerning resources for research globally and many of the countries that are vulnerable to climate change. International aid directed towards universities is one way by which this inequality is being counteracted. Using discourse analysis, I focus on the pioneer case of Swedish research aid policy and analyze in what ways the environment and climate change have been portrayed as important for development between 1973 and 2017. How have problems and solutions been described and what is perceived to be the role of scientific research in creating transitions from less to more “sustainable”? Environment and climate has been central to the research aid discourse from the start, but the focus was mainly on natural resource management and efficiency in the first decades. In the 1990s and 2000s, the level of urgency and priority increases and the focus is on the negative and unequally distributed consequences of climate change.