Unpacking the right-populist threat to climate action: Poland's pro-governmental media on energy transition and climate change

Żuk, Piotr; Szulecki, Kacper

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2020.101485

Cited by 92 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Research on far-right environmentalism is moving towards further explorations of climate and environmental populism (Lockwood 2018 ), especially in association with contemporary environmental governance (McCarthy 2019 ). This is key as far-right regimes have found legitimacy in environmental deregulation and climate change denial (Forchtner 2019 ; Żuk and Szulecki 2020 ). Interestingly, the far-right simultaneously promotes ecological devastation and denies its negative consequences in an effort to reinforce their own political power (Neimark et al.…”

Section: Authoritarian Populism and Environmental Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental governance under Bolsonaro: dismantling institutions, curtailing participation, delegitimising opposition

Menezes

Barbosa

2021

Z Vgl Polit Wiss

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Tensions concerning environmental governance have increased in Brazil since the far-right came to power in 2016. We offer insight into this process by analysing the first two years of Jair Bolsonaro’s (2019-ongoing) environmental policies—namely, how Brazil’s environmental protection arrangements are being dismantled. We find that the Bolsonaro administration centralises environmental governance in Brazil through complementary authoritarian and populist means. First in restricting participatory decision-making spaces such as the National Environmental Council (Conama) and the National Council of the Legal Amazon (CNAL), and, second, by attacking indigenous and traditional peoples, NGOs, scientists, and other environmental defenders. To illustrate the authoritarian dimension of Bolsonaro’s environmental governance, we carry out a political-institutional analysis of contemporary Brazilian environmental politics and then exemplify the ways and extent to which attacks against environmental defenders is a constituent part of Bolsonaro’s environmental populism. We hold that such attacks are not merely rhetorical but a political tactic to legitimise Bolsonaro’s authoritarian environmental governance in the promotion of ‘total extractivism’ while maintaining a populist appeal.

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Section: Authoritarian Populism and Environmental Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental governance under Bolsonaro: dismantling institutions, curtailing participation, delegitimising opposition

Menezes

Barbosa

2021

Z Vgl Polit Wiss

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“…On the other hand, technological change, often characterised by three main stages of invention, innovation and dissemination [103], encounters many market, system and institutional failures and requires a multi-faceted political intervention, as confirmed in their works by P. Twomey (2012) [104] and Geels (2014) [102], and on the example of Oslo by Ystmark Bjerkan and Seter [13]. The issues of systemic reforms of the hard coal mining industry [60,65] and failures of the entire energy sector in Poland [14,24,36] are similar.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This makes it difficult to undermine political support for coal. Poland is considered to be a country lagging behind in the implementation of the European climate and energy policy and striving to protect domestic coal [65]. The direction of development of Poland's electricity sector, which assumes continued dependence on hard coal and lignite-based power generation for a long time to come, has been criticised for years.…”

Section: Transformation Of Coal Mining Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenges of Poland’s Energy Transition

2021

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The ongoing climate changes necessitate an effective climate policy. The energy transition is now an important topic and problem, especially in Poland. (1) The undertaken analysis of the problem of energy transition is important for political, social and technological reasons. Political, because it shows the weakness of the implementation of Polish energy policy in regards to climate change. Social, because energy transition will bring about significant social changes in the largest industrial region of Poland. Technological, as the departure from fossil fuels requires the introduction of other sources of energy on a massive scale, for which Poland is not prepared. The aim of the study was to critically analyse the activities to date in the field of energy transition in Poland. The second goal of the analysis was an attempt to answer the question of whether the process of energy transition and achieving the goals set in the EU’s European Green Deal are possible at all until 2050. (2) To achieve the goals, the system method and the decision-making method were primarily used. These methods allowed for an examination of the main determinants of the Polish energy transformation. (3) The main results include the confirmation, contrary to the announcements of the Polish government, that despite the adoption in Poland of the strategy “Poland’s energy policy until 2040”, the effective implementation of the energy transition before 2050 is not only very difficult, but may even be impossible to implement in the assumed time. This is due to political, economic, social and technological conditions. Coal energy is outdated, expensive and ineffective. Due to natural conditions, wind energy is not able to meet the energy demand of the industry. The development of nuclear energy is only in the planning phase. (4) To sum up, in the next thirty years, Poland will not be able to achieve the assumed effects of the energy transition, which is in contradiction with the official declaration of the government.

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“…Polish miners are in an extremely difficult situation when looking for a new job because of their relatively low education and high age [45]. The discussion about coal in Poland is not a politically neutral discussion, and the defence of the coal regime has become part of the strategy of the current government [46,47]. There are also studies that point to the expected difficulties for Poland in pursuing an energy policy aimed at reducing CO 2 emissions, because although the public accepts the CO 2 reduction policy, they may object to it if it also leads to increased unemployment and energy prices [48].…”

Section: Conceptual Framework and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing the Energy Transition through Discourse. The Case of Poland

Krzywda

Androniceanu

2021

Energies

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Since energy transition has become a necessity, many countries are developing decarbonization plans and looking for ways to reduce CO2 emissions. The process takes different forms, most often being affected by local conditions, which means that it takes place in each country differently, due to the country’s social and economic specifics. One of the countries that has just started its energy transition process is Poland. The case of Poland is extremely interesting, as it is a country whose economy is still heavily dependent on coal and there are very strong traditions related to this particular source of energy. On the other hand, Poland has two very good reasons to move away from coal. The complexity and comprehensiveness of the energy transition results, among other things, from the diversity of actors involved in this issue and the multiplicity of their, often conflicting, interests. Using a critical discourse analysis, this paper attempts to show how those actors attempt to shape the transition through the discourses which they generate. The study covers the media discourse that took place in Poland between September 2020 and May 2021, i.e., a time when the Polish government negotiated with representatives of the miners’ trade unions the terms of Poland’s transition from coal. A critical analysis of the texts that appeared in the media during this time provides a picture of how different groups of social actors perceive the transition and how they try to manage that process.

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Unpacking the right-populist threat to climate action: Poland's pro-governmental media on energy transition and climate change

Cited by 92 publications

References 43 publications

Environmental governance under Bolsonaro: dismantling institutions, curtailing participation, delegitimising opposition

Environmental governance under Bolsonaro: dismantling institutions, curtailing participation, delegitimising opposition

The Challenges of Poland’s Energy Transition

Managing the Energy Transition through Discourse. The Case of Poland

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