Coming to GRIPs With NETs Discourse: Implications of Discursive Structures for Emerging Governance of Negative Emissions Technologies in the UK

Abstract

As the international community rallies around Net-Zero emissions targets, there is increasing interest in the development of governance for Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs), a range of proposed approaches which involve removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It has been pointed out that the governance development process should include “opening up” the discussion of NETs governance, moving the debate beyond the bounds of technocratic, neoliberal discourse and thereby paving the way for more responsible, inclusive governance of technologies. The implication is that there is a constitutive and qualitative link between discourse and governance – that governance development is shaped by discourse. However, so far there has been limited work done to link empirical mapping of the discursive structures in different spheres of the NETs debate to theoretically-informed anticipation of how these structures may influence governance development. This paper presents a sociology-of-knowledge (SKAD) discourse analysis of a series of interviews with UK representatives from the industry/policy interface about what they consider to be appropriate governance instruments for NETs. Linking discursive structures to governance development using the concept of governmentality, the paper critically discusses how a set of political, economic and ethical discursive structures currently underpinning the industry and policy spheres of the UK NETs debate may be shaping governance development. The paper shows what types of discourse/knowledge and social actors are being privileged/excluded within the structure of the UK NETs debate, and highlights ways in which discursive mapping can play a key emancipatory role in “opening up” governance development processes.

Casting a Wider Net on Ocean NETs

“…Environmental and climate governance is shaped by discourse, therefore analyzing debates around emerging technologies can help us to understand how governance "truths" are produced (Leipold et al, 2019). Some work has investigated discourses on terrestrial NETs (Boettcher, 2020;Cox et al, 2020a;Low and Schäfer, 2020), but there has generally been little focus on oceanbased NETs apart from ocean iron fertilization. Most literature focuses on a run of highly controversial iron fertilization experiments between 2001 and 2012 (Buck, 2014;Fuentes-George, 2017;Horton, 2017;Gannon and Hulme, 2018), and the unique procedural dynamics of these experiments means that caution must be taken when extrapolating to other projects or technologies.…”

“…To illustrate this, Table 1 contains a set of knowledge types which are present in the current ocean NETs debate, and a conceptual exploration of the different ways they may shape the why, what, who, and how of emerging ocean NETs governance. The table is based on a preliminary review of key literature on ocean NETs (IOC, 2010;Buck, 2014;Horton, 2017;Gannon and Hulme, 2018;Gattuso et al, 2018;Keller, 2018;Brent et al, 2019;GESAMP, 2019;McDonald et al, 2019), using a SKAD-based approach to map underpinning discourse types (see Boettcher, 2019Boettcher, , 2020. This thought experiment is not intended to be exhaustive or conclusive; yet it illustrates the varied, and potentially conflicting, implications that foregrounding legal, biogeochemical, economic, or cultural discourses in ocean NETs governance development may have.…”

A leap of Green faith: the religious discourse of Socio-Ecological Care as an Earth system governmentality

“…The Sociology-of-Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) that forms the basis of my methodological approach conceptualises discourses as underpinning systems of knowledge which shape understandings of why governance is necessary, what is to be governed, by whom, and how. SKAD offers a discourse analytical methodology which lends itself to tracing the emergence of governmentalities, as it posits a constitutive link between discourse and governance, emphasising that social objects, subjects and relations are contingent and co-constituted through discursive structures that render some knowable and governable and others not (Boettcher, 2020;Leipold et al, 2019). SKAD thus offers a 'theory-methodology-methods package to examine the discursive construction of realities in social relations of knowledge' by systematically reverse-engineering discursive structures underpinning a pool of individual utterances (Keller, 2018, p. 29).…”

“…These rationales offer alternatives to strategic and functional rationales for CE governance identified in other spheres of the CE debate, which posit that the purpose of CE governance is relative power and responsibility balancing within international climate politics, and/or primarily about problem-solving, risk management, and cost-benefit implementation (Boettcher, 2020). By bringing relational, ethical perspectives to the forefront, rationales of responsibility of care, balance and humility have potential relevance for re-conceptualising governance of human interactions with the non-human environment more broadly, and CE governance specifically.…”

“…cost-effectiveness) and political (i.e. ability to help achieve political climate targets) criteria which often define CE as an object of governance in the scientific, political and industrial spheres of the debate (Boettcher, 2020). By expanding the range of criteria for defining and assessing specific CE approaches, the relational perspective may thus provide a way to integrate a wider range of knowledges into decision-making on CE governance.…”