Through a process of sampling, coding, and textual analysis, the study finds a gradual evolution in the discourse on climate change… Discourses of climate delay 1. Yet our focus here is to identify the features of these discourses, rather than to attribute underlying motives to those who use them. Have a look at data from yesterday's @EPAIreland climate report. WFL, GM and JKS conceived the study. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned world leaders that climate change is a threat to security of all nations and sharply criticised people across the globe who say this is “green stuff … This is a preview of subscription content. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is mentioned in a target of the Sustainable Development Goal 13 which is to "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts". The appeal to well-being manifests an extreme version of this discourse. The varying positions to these fundamental questions allow us to group discourses into four categories that ‘redirect responsibility’, ‘push non-transformative solutions’, ‘emphasize the downsides’ of climate policy, or ‘surrender’ to climate change (see Figure 1). Rather, a more productive discourse of responsibility would focus attention on the collective potential of individual actions to stimulate normative shifts and build pressure towards regulation. This implies that the environment of urban areas fosters and more developed climate change discourse. pp 17-31 | A failure to acknowledge disruptive approaches to climate mitigation can also be seen in fossil fuel solutionism, the claim that the fossil fuel industry is “part of the solution to the scourge of climate change” (OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo). }, This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (, Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Feature Flags: { Organizations from Peabody Energy to the influential Southern Baptist Convention have leveraged such arguments to downplay or deny the need for global climate action (Supplementary Information, Section 3.9). 1. What features do they share? Given the costs, is it desirable to mitigate climate change? This is particularly evident in the Intergovernmental … This narrative stands in stark contrast to the established evidence – that new freely emitting fossil infrastructures are incompatible with the Paris Agreement's target of 1.5°C warming. Climate scientists are speaking out against grossly exaggerated claims about global warming. 2005. The construction of global warming and the politics of science. Policy statements can become discourses of delay when they promote ineffective solutions and thereby draw attention away from more substantial and effective measures. Who is responsible for taking climate action? They build on legitimate concerns and fears as societies move closer to addressing climate change. The construction of environmental awareness. This is not to suggest that individual actions are futile. The framing of climate change within global and national economic frameworks became the point of entry for stakeholders in climate change discussions. Climate change is literally at Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine’s doorstep. This draws from the notion that CO2 emissions trajectories are essentially fixed in the developed and developing world (change is impossible), while focusing attention on rapidly growing populations, usually in the latter (whataboutism). These representations have enacted their own discursive formations, which people discuss and act upon at local, national and global scales. Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips. 2005. Render date: 2021-02-22T17:36:41.184Z Climate delay discourses comprise many separate strategies, some of which have already been identified, such as individualism (Maniates, Reference Maniates2001), technological optimism (Peeters et al., Reference Peeters, Higham, Kutzner, Cohen and Gössling2016), fossil fuel greenwashing (Sheehan, Reference Sheehan and Rimmer2018) and appeals to social justice and economic costs (Bohr, Reference Bohr2016; Jacques & Knox, Reference Jacques and Knox2016). Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has talked about climate change both in her confirmation hearings and to leaders in Italy, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Will the actions we take today be enough to forestall the direct impacts of climate change? 01 July 2020. As it became popularised, through environmental organisations and the media, governments and intergovernmental bodies began to frame climate change within specific discursive formations, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP). Fundamentally informative and intelligently analytical. We call this whataboutism. Hulme, M., Dessai, S., Lorenzoni, I. and Nelson, D.R. The sophistication of discourses of delay should therefore not be understated, and new strategies are developing all the time. Another key strategy here is to establish narrow definitions of success, so that a country or industry can declare their leadership in the fight against climate change. The scientific consensus on climate change. This article identifies, describes and categorizes discourses of delay. Climate change has been represented in a variety of ways. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available, Climate Change and Global Policy Regimes They have been examined in surveys and community workshops (Bickerstaff & Walker, Reference Bickerstaff and Walker2002; Norgaard, Reference Norgaard2011), in media sources and advertisements (Bohr, Reference Bohr2016; Jacques & Knox, Reference Jacques and Knox2016; Peeters et al., Reference Peeters, Higham, Kutzner, Cohen and Gössling2016; Sheehan, Reference Sheehan and Rimmer2018) and in lobbying activities and political discourses (Bache et al., Reference Bache, Reardon, Bartle, Flinders and Marsden2015; Gillard, Reference Gillard2016; McKie, Reference McKie2019), using methods such as content analysis (Bohr, Reference Bohr2016; Jacques & Knox, Reference Jacques and Knox2016), grounded theory (Bickerstaff & Walker, Reference Bickerstaff and Walker2002) and the analysis of social deviance (McKie, Reference McKie2019). Cite as. While the sources of air pollution and climate change are indeed generally similar, i.e. 03EK3046B); and the Leverhulme Trust (JKS; Living Well Within Limits – LiLi). Our analysis does not reveal their adverse effects on climate politics at all levels, from regions, nations and communities to smaller social institutions such as schools, churches and households. This strategy is apparent, for example, when the UK government responds to a specific parliamentary question on climate policy by arguing, “The UK has a world-leading record in tackling climate change. Frame Analysis as a Discourse-Method: Framing ‘climate change politics’ Mat Hope – mat.hope@bris.ac.uk Paper delivered to the Post-Graduate Conference on Discourse Analysis March 2010, University of Bristol. The … Actors advancing this discourse often deploy statistics demonstrating their own small contribution to global emissions, or they point to large emitters such as China – “We are a nation that produces 1.8 per cent of global carbon dioxide, so I do not get closing down our aluminium smelters, most of our steel production, and now our refining industry …” (UK politician Nigel Farage). Our characterization and typology of climate delay discourses is a further step in this direction. ES/S012257/1); the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (JCM, FMH; Grant No. Rendering climate change governable: from biopower to advanced liberal government? Introduction. Discourses of Global Climate Change uses discourse analysis to deepen our understanding of climate change politics. Second, while land use change is an important driver of climate change, a changing climate … Refer to the Supplementary Materials for a more detailed explanation of our methods and sources. Demeritt, D. 2001. Are the potential benefits of a transition disregarded, such as improved public health, regional development and employment opportunities, or greater community resilience? We argue that they become delay arguments when they misrepresent rather than clarify, raise adversity rather than consensus or imply that taking action is an impossible challenge. Unstable climates: exploring the statistical and social constructions of ‘normal’ climate. All authors wrote the article. Getty. Policy statements can become discourses of delay when they emphasize the downsides of climate action and imply that these carry an even greater burden for society than the consequences of inaction. Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens W.W., III. The tipping point trend in climate change communication. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. First, land cover--as shaped by land use practices--affects the global concentration of greenhouse gases. They focus attention on the negative social effects of climate policies and raise doubt that mitigation is possible. These discourses accept the existence of climate change, but justify inaction or inadequate efforts. Rutherford, P. 1999. Such statements evoke fear and can result in a paralysing state of shock and resignation (Hulme, Reference Hulme2019). Many delay arguments are documented in key works tracing the history of environmental counter-movements in the USA, including the Merchants of Doubt, Deceit and Denial, The Triumph of Doubt and others (Brulle & Aronczyk, Reference Brulle, Aronczyk, Kalfagianni, Fuchs and Hayden2019; Freudenburg et al., Reference Freudenburg, Gramling and Davidson2008; Markowitz & Rosner, Reference Markowitz and Rosner2003; Michaels, Reference Michaels2008, Reference Michaels2020; Oreskes & Conway, Reference Oreskes and Conway2011). This clearly-written, provocative study will enrich the work of policymakers and climate … As the public conversation on climate change evolves, so too does the sophistication and range of arguments used to downplay or discount the need for action (McKie, Reference McKie2019; Norgaard, Reference Norgaard2011). In doing so, we follow similar efforts to compile common climate denial claims and provide a reference point for countering misinformation (www.skepticalscience.com). Industries and sectors can also leverage this argument. The … On a more ideological level, many actors appear to shy away from restrictive policies altogether. Furthermore, it is critical to investigate how compellingly they influence behaviours and policy preferences. This discourse has many variations, from touting recent progress in renewable energy deployment, to promoting technological ‘myths’ that fail to manifest in the promised timeframe and tend to be substituted by new ones (e.g., zero-carbon planes, fusion power and direct air capture of greenhouse gases) (Peeters et al., Reference Peeters, Higham, Kutzner, Cohen and Gössling2016), to even more vague suggestions that “human ingenuity is infinite,” even if Earth's resources are not (Cato Institute commentary). Ideas, social structure and the compromise of liberal environmentalism. Published online by Cambridge University Press:  Media coverage of climate change has had effects on public opinion on climate change, as it mediates the scientific opinion on climate change that the global temperature has increased in recent decades … Individualization: plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world? Palgrave Political & Intern. Narratives of climate change are becoming central to development discourse, and increasingly frame understandings of … Studies Collection, Political Science and International Studies (R0). Foucault, M. 1994. Gordon, C. 1991. Such optimism and faith may be warranted in some cases, but this discourse is often accompanied by empirically unsupported claims: for instance, that technological progress requires only market-based incentives, rather than regulation; that breakthroughs are imminent (“I am told that electric planes are on the horizon,” UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock); or that rapid renewable deployment makes stringent policies or demand reduction measures unnecessary. The consequence of these concerns is a highly conservative approach to climate policymaking – policy perfectionism. 2007. According to social psychology, climate change deniers tend to espouse conservative views, which suggests that party ideology is partly responsible for these attitudes. It might be surprising, but little climate change discourse on social media comes from scientific work. Randalls, S. 2011. Climate Change and Public Discourse On September 21 st at 12:58 PM, over three hundred thousand people in New York City went silent. 2004. Climate change has been represented in a variety of ways. A mainstay of this counter-movement has been outright denial of the reality or human causation of climate change (Farrell et al., Reference Farrell, McConnell and Brulle2019), supplemented by climate-impact scepticism (Harvey et al., Reference Harvey, Van Den Berg, Ellers, Kampen, Crowther, Roessingh and Mann2018) and ad hominem attacks on scientists and the scientific consensus (Oreskes & Conway, Reference Oreskes and Conway2011). In contemporary discussions on what actions should be taken, by whom and how fast, proponents of climate delay would argue for minimal action or action taken by others. Buy Climate Change Discourse in Russia: Past and Present (Routledge Focus on Environment and Sustainability) on Amazon.com FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of … Governance structures became elitist and exclusionary. Yet too often they set unrealistic conditions for taking action, implying that others should take the lead before we consider action ourselves. This discourse narrows the solution space to personal consumption choices, obscuring the role of powerful actors and organizations in shaping those choices and driving fossil fuel emissions (Maniates, Reference Maniates2001). Our secondary goal is to examine the common features and shared underlying logic of delay discourses. Attributions for the quotes, as well as a more extensive list of examples, can be found in the Supplementary Material for this article. A discourse of delay would fail to do so on both counts, focusing attention only on the short-term downsides and costs. Climate change was initially discussed within scientific disciplines and represented within a technical discourse. More obviously restrictive measures (‘sticks’) such as taxes or a frequent-flyer levy are deemed too ‘paternalistic’ and overburdening for citizens. Read writing about Climate Change in Dialogue & Discourse. This typology assists in the identification of diverse discursive strategies and may suggest tailored responses to each. Climate delay discourses repeatedly occur across sources, actors and contexts. The climate change discussion is not only complex but also full of fear and vitriol. Such international discourse has often failed to consider the valuable insights on direct and indirect impacts, as well as mitigation and adaptation approaches, held by indigenous peoples worldwide. These are important avenues of research, requiring systematic analyses that draw on a variety of document sources and methods that make use of traditional content analysis, as well as new developments in computational text mining. Ambitious long-term target setting may satisfy domestic demands for climate policy, but without concrete instruments, these targets are not guaranteed to translate into action on the ground (Bache et al., Reference Bache, Reardon, Bartle, Flinders and Marsden2015). © 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Redirect responsibility. The aforementioned Oxford study found that just 2 percent of Twitter content and 3 … Not logged in "shouldUseHypothesis": true, Emphasizing the downsides of climate action in these ways thus deflects attention from the harm they avoid, while denying or ignoring the potential to build inclusive policies that capture social benefits and reach wide acceptance. (eds.) (2) Are transformative changes necessary? This allows us to condense them into a set of overarching strategies that can be more easily recognized and hence challenged.