'Energy security' and 'climate change': Constructing UK energy discursive realities

Rogers-Hayden, T., Hatton, F. and Lorenzoni, I. (2011) 'Energy security' and 'climate change': Constructing UK energy discursive realities. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 21 (1). pp. 134-142.

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Abstract

Recently, in the United Kingdom, two issues have dominated the energy policy agenda: effective climate change mitigation and energy security. Whilst evolving government policy has led to government support for new build nuclear power as part of the nation's future energy mix, limited attention has been devoted to examining how arguments were constructed to lead ‘naturally’ to nuclear new build as an option for addressing these two issues. Using Critical Discourse Analysis this paper analyses the struggles within the climate change mitigation and energy security discourses in generating and/or replacing meanings. In particular, it examines how construction of the dominant (hegemonic) discourses led ‘naturally’ to the necessity of new build nuclear power. This paper draws upon 24 stakeholder interviews to examine the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses. It outlines how climate change and energy security were perceived as motivators for energy policy; it shows how the combination of the dominant construction of climate change as an environmental issue and the construction of energy security as a ‘gas gap’ lent weight to the argument for nuclear new build. Struggling against these discourses is a counter-hegemonic discourse centred around climate change as a symptom of unsustainability and energy security as a lack of energy diversity. The latter, rather than ‘naturally’ proposing an urgent need for nuclear new build, lead to the argument for readdressing the focus of, and use of resources by, society – reducing energy demand and increasing energy supply diversity.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 7 - affordable and clean energy,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/affordable_and_clean_energy
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine Knowledge Exchange Network
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Collaborative Centre for Sustainable Use of the Seas
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Science, Society and Sustainability
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences
University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User: Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited: 16 Feb 2011 13:53
Last Modified: 24 Sep 2024 09:01
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/20407
DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.09.003

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