Anatomy of Disbelief: Explaining Polish Climate Scepticism

Poland is widely perceived as the laggard of the EU in terms of energy transition and decarbonisation, with the country often prioritising security of energy supply (Judge and Maltby, 2017) and economic development (Szulecka & Szulecki, 2013) over environmental and climate protection. It is also a country whose representatives are often heard voicing strong doubts about both the form of, and the need for, global climate protection efforts, and previous media analysis has found that the mainstream media in Poland focused mainly on the views of economic and political elites (Wagner et al., 2016). It is also assumed that the rise in right wing populism poses a major and severe challenge for climate policy (Beeson & McDonald 2013; Forchtner & Kølvraa 2015; MacNeil 2016). In Poland, the rising popularity of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, and Kukiz ’15 present particular concerns. Both are often perceived as populist in their ideology and practice and are also highly sceptical of ambitious European and global climate policy goals. Their politicians, supported by sympathetic experts, argue that climate protection is often, if not purely, a means of constraining national sovereignty and building the economic domination of powerful states, such as Germany – a vision fitting into a broader populist worldview. Poland is also active in climate policy debates, especially those on emissions trading, and perceives its position and rhetoric as a rational alternative to ideologically-driven climate action, proposing regional and EU initiatives (Szulecki et al. 2016; Bocquillon & Maltby, 2017). This paper will begin to set out a conceptual framework for the link between populism and climate policy and theoretical assumptions and hypotheses about the relationship between experts and climate scepticism in public discourse, and to outline the mapping of arguments used in Polish discourse domestically and in international forums. The project will proceed to use media archives and elite interviews to analyse the role of experts, the impact of structural conditions on climate discourse, and how political parties frame their climate arguments and how effective this is.