Anatomy of Disbelief: Poland’s Climate Scepticism Meets Right Wing Populism

It is assumed that the rise in right wing populism poses a major and severe challenge for climate policy (Forchtner & Kølvraa, 2015; Lockwood, 2018). Poland has seen some visible democratic backsliding since the right-wing populist Law and Justice party took power in 2015. However, Poland was widely perceived as the laggard of the EU in terms of energy transition and decarbonisation already before the change of government, with the country often prioritising security of energy supply (Judge&Maltby, 2017) and economic development (Szulecka & Szulecki, 2013) over environmental and climate protection. Poland’s representatives are often heard voicing strong doubts about both the form of, and the need for, global climate protection efforts. Previous media analysis found mainstream media in the country focused mainly on the views of economic and political elites (Wagner et al., 2016). Since its electoral success in 2015, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) and Kukiz ’15 movement present particular concerns for the country’s liberal democratic consolidation and the rule of law. Both are described as populist in their ideology and practice and are also highly sceptical of ambitious European and global climate policy goals. PiS politicians proposed an “opt-out” from EU’s climate policy and the renegotiation of the 2020 Strategy (Ancygier &Szulecki 2015). 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 provides a case for analysing the relationship between populism and different degrees of climate sceptical and climate denialist discourses. If climate scepticism has not been an exclusively populist feature, what are the unique characteristics of the way Polish populists discuss energy and climate policies? Building on a conceptual framework for the link between populism and climate policy this paper presents initial results from media analysis focusing on the relationship between experts and climate scepticism in public discourse and outlines the mapping of arguments used in Polish discourse domestically and in international forums – focusing on the extent of change in discourse before and after the election of the populist government in 2015; including a comparative analysis of Poland’s hosting of the UN’s Climate Change conferences (COPs) in 2013 and 2018. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (supported by Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis) we interrogate the relations between political change in Poland and the significance of climate policy among other problems of public life. Analysing mainstream media, we evaluate how climate science, and climate scepticism, is converted into political capital. In our mapping of climate arguments in Poland we seek to address questions such as: Who speaks about climate change in Poland? What were the rhetoric strategies used in media discourse? What other topics were connected to climate change issues? Additionally, we investigate what issues climate change is linked to - what values are used to legitimize positions and how is this linked to group identity?