Climate Policies and Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis is an approach whereby discourses are examined to reveal power relations, domination, and social inequality. As Jóhannesson (2010) identifies, a discourse is a process rather than a static phase. People who participate in the discourse produce and reproduce it with conscious and unconscious practices.

The step-by-step process Jóhannesson introduces as a way of conducting discourse analysis in a systematic way comprises six steps:

• Selecting an issue or event

• Choosing the material relevant to shed light on the issue or event

• Analyzing the documents/texts

• Analyzing struggles and tensions in the discourse

• Identifying historical junctures in the discourses

• Documenting the results

I have already described in the introduction the issue being studied and why I chose this topic (Step 1), and in the chapter on methods, I described the material I chose to collect as data (Step 2). I therefore focus only on Steps 3, 4, and 5 in this section.

The sixth step, which is documenting the results in some sort of report or a narrative, includes the work I have done both in preparation for writing this dissertation (includ-ing memos and the narrative analyz(includ-ing the president’s speeches) and the actual writ(includ-ing of this dissertation.

Discursive Themes

The first task when analyzing the data was to identify discursive themes or patterns in the text. Guiding questions are a useful tool, and I used two key questions. Is climate change perceived as a threat? What types of policy measures are emphasized to mitigate emissions? In the second question, I was particularly curious to discover if there was tension between conservation values and values emphasizing exploitation of resources, and if so, which set of values was more dominant.

As for the first question, climate change as a security threat is clearly a discursive theme, but the way this threat is constructed in the text frames the changes as something that will threaten the security of people in the future or in faraway places. Policy docu-ments describe changes in nature, but an analysis of the way these changes can impact socioeconomic factors and threaten human security is missing. Both policy shapers (in interviews) and the public (through surveys) identify climate change as a threat, but this seems to be an abstract threat rather than something that they think will affect them in their daily lives. The fear they express is not personal, and they do not worry about their own safety. Rather, they communicate concerns about the wellbeing of future generations, and some of them wonder about how this will impact poor people in developing countries. The securitization of climate change seems to come from above as a warning in reports from the IPCC or from international organizations, rather than originating at the grassroots level. The main exception to this view of climate change as a distant and abstract threat was held by the youngest policy shaper interviewed, perhaps indicating the younger generations that are aware of the climate crisis are more likely than their older counterparts to experience climate change as a personal threat.

As for the second question (What types of policy measures are emphasized to mitigate emissions?), the main emphasis at the policy level is on technical solutions that are economically efficient and do not involve any radical systematic changes.

Lifestyle changes are often mentioned as important in policy documents as well, but they are usually not listed as priority actions, and there is no discussion about how the national and local governments should work together on implementing policies that

involve lifestyle changes – in the transport sector, for example, where the planning power of municipalities is highly relevant. Some of the policy shapers criticized what they perceived as lack of emphasis on lifestyle changes, which, in their minds was more important than focusing only on technical issues.

Although the climate policies adopted and implemented usually involve small steps and adjustments of current rules and regulations rather than transformative changes, President Grímsson argues for the importance of transformational changes in the energy sector when he speaks in international forums. He repeatedly refers to the transformation in Iceland in the 1970s, when geothermal heat was used to replace oil for space heating. “If we can do it, so can you,” is his message to the world, ignoring that the shift in Iceland was purely on economic grounds, following the oil crisis, and no similar transformative changes have been suggested on moral grounds as part of Iceland’s climate policy. Public institutions in the energy sector have also capitalized on the image of Iceland as a provider of green energy in their publication material, yet this image seems to have played no role when authorities decided to embark upon the journey of opening up the Dreki region for oil and gas explorations.

So the discursive theme in which Iceland is identified as a role model does not seem to cut deep and is quickly pushed to the side if economic opportunities that do not fit this image appear.

The Arctic and climate change are frequently linked in the data I examined and can be considered a discursive theme. The Arctic discourse, however, changes over time from focusing on the threats that climate change poses to the Arctic to an emphasis on the new economic opportunities that climate change is bringing to the region. This opportunistic discourse is similar to what Kristoffersen (2015) noticed in her study of Norwegian climate-related discourses, which she calls opportunistic adaptation.

This shift can be noticed in policy documents; an emphasis on threats was more evident in the early report on the Arctic published by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2009a), but an opportunistic discourse on the Arctic is more noticeable in later years – in the declaration of the government that came into power in 2013, for example (Prime Minister´s Office, 2013).

The shift of focus from threats to opportunities can also be clearly seen in President Grímsson’s speeches and is indicative of the increasing interest among private-sector investors in the Arctic region. Although the president often uses alarmist language to describe the threats related to climate change, he presents himself as an optimist offering realistic solutions. His common narrative about the shift from fossil fuels to geothermal energy for space heating in Iceland is one example. His agenda also includes a focus on the importance of the Arctic and toward the increasing geopolitical importance of this part of the world. In his New Year address in January 2014, the president dedicated the last part of his speech to Arctic affairs. He referred to the Arctic as a region that used to be beyond the edge of the habitable world but is now being drawn increasingly

into the center of global concerns. And he emphasizes how this could create new op-portunities for Iceland:

This new development creates a multitude of new opportunities for Iceland – in the sciences, commerce, the economy and culture. Our island, once isolated in the far north, is now on the global highway in a key position in a region that will play a decisive role during this century, both as a staging post, as more and more is done to exploit natural resources and transport goods across the Arctic and, not least, in serving millions of tourists from all parts of the world who are eager to experience the wonders of nature and to see the Midnight sun and the Northern Lights. (Grímsson, 2014)

This message is in stark contrast to the alarmist tone a few years earlier, when the key thrust was a warning about the dangerous impact that climate change could have on the Arctic region.

Along with the increasing interest in economic opportunities, the oil and gas ex-plorations off the northeast coast of Iceland emerge as a separate issue in the Arctic discourse as it appears in domestic political discussion, first in the media, then later in government declarations. Although climate change and the melting of the ice are frequently mentioned as reasons why oil and gas resources in the Arctic will be easier to access in the future, the fact that the burning of those fossil fuels will further intensify the climate crisis is rarely mentioned in the early phases, when the oil and gas issue first emerged as a political issue. The issue did arise in interviews with policy shapers, however, and also became evident in later public political discourses, after all three licenses had been issued.d

Tensions and Struggles

An important step in discourse analysis is to identify the internal struggles and tensions within the discourse and recognize contradictions. The policy documents, president’s speeches, transcribed interviews, and other data used in this analysis cannot be read in isolation from the general discourse in society about climate change or related topics, both domestically and internationally. The policy shapers are engaged with a dynamic discourse, and the boundaries of what is accepted in the discourse are constantly moving.

One obvious tension in the data is the safety issue involved in presenting climate change as a threat. The most striking example occurred when President Grímsson later shared that he had received strong negative reactions to his New Year’s speech in 1998, when he discussed the dangers of climate change. After having painted a dark picture of the potentially negative impact of climate change, the president barely mentioned the danger of climate change again until several years later, after the ACIA report was published in 2004. A few years later, once the IPCC had published its 4^th assessment

report in 2007, and climate change had been recognized as a security issue in key international forums, including the UN Security Council, he openly discussed the harsh criticism he had received for painting a picture of the consequences of climate change that was considered too dark, and stated that talking about climate change dur-ing that time had been an uphill battle. Although the president stated that times had changed and a number of public documents describe the dangers of climate change, some of the policy shapers interviewed mentioned negative reactions if they publicly talked about the importance of paying attention to the danger of climate change. One politician explained how she had experienced reactions of either total ignorance or parliamentarians in other parties laughing at her if she put the issue on the agenda in the parliament. (She was referring to the period 2010–2013, several years after the publication of the 4th assessment report in 2007.)

As evident from these examples, there are limits to how much even influential figures like the president can deviate from the dominant political discourse if the aim is to influence the discourse and introduce new ideas to the agenda. If they engage in a discourse that is radically different from the mainstream discourse, they risk being sidelined and not taken seriously.

This is exactly what happened in 2009 to Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, former Minister for the Environment, when she expressed her doubts that oil and gas explorations in the Dreki area would be in line with Iceland’s international commitments. Her views clashed with the dominant discourse, and she was quickly sidelined, even by some of her own party members. With time, however, the dynamic of a dominant discourse can change. After refraining from talking about climate change in the years immediately following his 1998 speech, President Grímsson resumed the theme in 2004, and this time his message met with less resistance. The same can be said with respect to the oil and gas issue. When other politicians questioned the oil and gas explorations a few years later, they did not receive such harsh reactions as the former minister did. Even though the dominant discourse was still in favor of oil and gas explorations, there was more room for different perspectives.

The reference to the Dreki area brings us to another issue in which tension can be clearly identified in the texts analyzed. Once it was finally recognized that human-induced climate change was actually occurring, tension emerged in the political dis-courses about the Arctic between emphasizing threats associated with climate change and highlighting opportunities that the changes could bring. This can be clearly seen in the president’s speeches and in policy documents, whereas the policy shapers inter-viewed tended to be critical of the opportunistic discourse. One policy shaper, after having expressed his frustration over what he felt was weak climate policy manifesting in sporadic initiatives to reduce emissions, turned his attention to the opportunistic discourse about the Arctic:

To top this, all I listen to ministers, the president, and business men…[…]

who paint the exploitation of Arctic resources in rosy colors and think it is a given that we will engage, for example, in drilling for oil and gas. I don’t think this will happen in the immediate future, but those speaking assume that it is fine to utilize those resources, in spite of the fact that most experts, even conservative financial institutes, agree that only about a quarter of known oil, gas, and coal reserves can be utilized… not to mention new reserves.

The policy shapers frequently expressed their wish that Iceland would be more proactive as a role model, acting as a norm entrepreneur for energy production and the implementation of climate policy. The same vision occasionally appears in public policy documents, although such ideas are quickly pushed aside if they seem to compromise Iceland’s opportunities to utilize natural resources.

Two underlying ideas, both of which could be categorized as “common-sense as-sumptions” as Fairclough (1989) uses the concept (see Section 3.3), are helpful in explaining why the idea of Iceland acting as a norm entrepreneur has not taken off.

First, even though the desire that Iceland can influence international affairs beyond its size can be detected, this desire is weakened by a deep-seated belief that small states will always have limited influence in international relations, so their main objective should be to protect their own interests in a harsh world. Although this belief is not often expressed explicitly in public discourse, it can often be sensed as an underlying assumption, not only in climate-related discourses, but also in other domains – in discourses related to EU accession talks and European integration, for example. This assumption is, of course, closely related to the assumption underpinning realist theories dominating international relations, both in the academic discipline and among policy makers. The unspoken assumption is that the main aim of all actors, be they states, corporations, or individuals, is to maximize their own power or wealth. To expand on the assumption, by deciding to act for the common interest of all, rather than focusing on narrow self-interests, they will lose the game: As a small state, Iceland is vulnerable and needs to use every opportunity available to protect its economic and political interests.

The second common-sense assumption underlying the dominant climate-related discourses is the idea that economic growth is possible only by increasing the utiliza-tion of natural resources. The desire to keep Iceland among the wealthiest nautiliza-tions, where the citizens can enjoy high standards of living is taken for granted. And because Iceland has relied on natural resources to create wealth in the past, the assumption is this is the only way to create wealth in the future. This assumption exists in spite of numerous examples of successful Icelandic companies that rely on human capital and brainpower, rather than the exploitation of natural resources. One of the policy shapers referred to this underlying assumption when explaining the initially harsh

reaction against the view that perhaps oil and gas resources should be left alone, even if they exist within Iceland’s EEZ. As a civil servant, she had noted that the right to protect natural resources was an underlying theme in almost all aspects of Iceland’s foreign policy and something that was engrained into the administrative system: “…

in international forums we are consistently involved in fights that focus on our rights to use our resources, rather than speaking from a conservation point of view, even if we emphasize the sustainability factor,” she said.

When a view is presented that goes against common-sense assumptions that are seldom voiced but taken for granted by the majority, it inevitably calls for a strong reaction. Other views are not automatically accepted. An active and steady resistance is needed to challenge the dominant views, and it takes time to carve out space for new ideas. But as Fairclough emphasizes, if humans have created dominant discourses, humans can change them, and this process occurs through social struggle. When it comes to climate change, specific events, including international meetings and the publications of new scientific information, have also been instrumental in shifting dominant discourses – what Jóhannesson (2010) refers to as “historical junctures”.

Historical Junctures

To explain why some ideas and practice gain greater legitimacy than others in the discourse, the concept of historical juncture is relevant. Several events can be identi-fied as important historical junctures that influenced climate-related discourses in the Icelandic case study. One is the Kyoto Protocol, signed in December 1997. The signing of the Protocol marks the beginning of climate change entering mainstream political debate in Iceland. The Protocol inspired President’s Grímsson’s New Year’s address in January 1998 (and the speech of Prime Minister Oddsson the evening before). As previously discussed, Grímsson’s message about the dangers of climate change did not fall on fertile soil, and Oddsson’s skepticism about climate change seemed to be more in line with mainstream views at the time. Yet the signing of the protocol put climate change on the political agenda as an issue worthy of attention, although, for the first few years, most of the focus was on how to prevent international climate conventions from putting any restraints on the Icelandic economy.

A second historical juncture is related to the publication of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (Arctic Council, 2004). The report validated earlier information about the dangers associated with climate change and pointed at several threats specific to the Arctic, including faster-than-average temperature increases, resulting in rapid melting of the Arctic ice. The ACIA report firmly tied climate change and Arctic issues together, providing scientific backing for the policy shapers who were concerned with climate change, and giving them firm ground on which to stand. This can be clearly seen in the speeches of President Grímsson, who frequently referred to the report in the first 2 or 3 years after it was published.

A third historical juncture can be identified in 2007, when the IPCC published its 4^th assessment report, and the IPCC and Al Gore were rewarded the Noble Peace Prize for their work on raising awareness of climate change. The rapid melting of the

A third historical juncture can be identified in 2007, when the IPCC published its 4^th assessment report, and the IPCC and Al Gore were rewarded the Noble Peace Prize for their work on raising awareness of climate change. The rapid melting of the