Does the Climate Matter? Discourse Network Analysis of Climate Delay in the Czech Republic

Legitimacy and scope of the necessary climate action have been discussed for decades already. Actors denying and challenging the climate change are, however, still an integral part of these debates. One of the most important layers where these battles take place is media discourse, where contested understanding of climate change shapes the debate in two fundamental ways: what is being discussed and how the issues are discussed. Research on climate denial points to different strategies ranging from questioning the existence of the warming trend through the questionable human contribution to rejection of any significant impact. The latter has been recently recognized as discourses of climate delay that “accept the existence of climate change, but justify inaction or inadequate efforts” (Lamb et al. 2020). The success of delay-based strategies thus may importantly translate into postponing or questioning the need for a robust mitigation response. We contribute to the study of the discourses of climate delay through the case of the Czech Republic, a post-communist EU member state, where doubting the climate change has a long tradition due to a vocal denialist president Vaclav Klaus as well as a strong influence of the fossil industry. We use discourse network analysis to explore what discursive strategies are used and by whom in the public debate before and after the adoption of the Paris Agreement.