Abstract
European Union (EU) climate politics have polarised over the past decade. Poland especially stands out as the EU member state that has most vehemently opposed numerous decisions to increase the EU’s level of ambition, stirring some turbulence in EU climate politics. Yet, with the publication of the European Green Deal (EGD) in 2019, the European Commission has likewise created turbulence in the Polish parliament’s climate debate. This article analyses those debates and identifies three distinct policy narratives: <em>Poland is in a unique situation</em>, <em>Poland pursues an alternative pathway</em>, and <em>climate policy endangers competitiveness</em>. The <em>alternative pathway</em> narrative, which advocates for the continued use of coal while capturing emissions, faded at roughly the same time when the EGD was proposed at the EU level. Simultaneously, the <em>unique situation</em> narrative, which calls for recognition of Poland’s uniqueness in combination with increased (financial) support, became stronger. The analysis confirms the dominance of the governing party’s narratives, but contrary to previous studies, detects nascent polarisation on climate policy between the right-wing political parties, on the one hand, and the centre-right and centre-left parties, on the other.
Highlights
European Union (EU) climate politics have become polarised over the past decade
The analysis identifies three policy narratives that mark discussion in the Polish parliament: Poland is in a unique situation, Poland pursues an alterna‐ tive pathway, and climate policy endangers competitive‐ ness
This article focuses on the climate policy narratives that Polish parliamentarians and government representatives construct in parliamentary debates
Summary
European Union (EU) climate politics have become polarised over the past decade. Poland especially stands out as the EU member state that has most vehemently opposed numerous decisions to increase the EU’s level of ambition, creating some turbulence in EU climate pol‐ itics. This article’s analysis goes beyond the observation that Poland depends highly on coal for its electricity production—which to a great extent is mined domestically—and that transitioning out of coal is a great structural challenge, requiring massive investments in new infrastructure while at the same time accounting for the social impacts It focuses on how Polish politicians advocate and justify their policy positions and what cli‐ mate policy narratives they construct to do so. The section describes Poland’s situation with regards to ambitious climate policy, the EGD, and polar‐ isation among political parties on the issue This is fol‐ lowed by an analytical framework to guide the system‐ atic analysis of the narratives that actors use to argue for their policy preferences in Sejm debates. It briefly introduces the EGD to highlight the tur‐ bulence it introduced before moving to a review of previ‐ ous research on domestic climate policy polarisation to which this study aims to contribute
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