مقاله انگلیسی انتقال یا تبدیل انرژی؟ قدرت و سیاست در تراسفرمیسم صنعت گاز طبیعی اروپا
Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Analytical framework: A neo-Gramscian approach to incumbency response
Research design
Results: Natural gas alias the transition fuel
Discussion: Discourse is a powerful tool of incumbents
Conclusions
Declaration of Competing Interest
Acknowledgements
Annexes
ABSTRACT
This paper explores how established natural gas interests responded to climate action in the European Union. Climate policy was initially not anticipated to reduce the role of natural gas in the energy system, if anything, many presumed that it would come to play a larger role. It was widely understood to be the transition fuel, entailing that it could substitute more carbon-intensive source-fuels, such as coal, as society decarbonises. This narrative complemented natural gas industry incumbents’ other forms of power, including their control over resources, infrastructure, and involvement in the policy-making process. Drawing on these, they presumed that their future was ensured in the shift towards a low carbon energy system. As the EU enhanced climate targets, incumbents were forced to adapt the fuel’s discourse according to the changing context. Incumbents deployed their material, organisational, and discursive power to extend the status quo and accommodate pressure to enact far-reaching change – a process Gramsci refers to as trasformismo. By tracing the natural gas industry’s response to climate action, this paper shows how incumbents draw upon their fuel-specific bases of power and it explores the importance of discourses in shaping the trajectory of the energy transition.
Introduction
The EU’s bid to meet its climate targets have led it to reconsider the role natural gas can play in its energy system. Decarbonisation drives the reconfiguration of its energy system, which carries immense ramifications for fossil fuel interests. To counter their demise, they have drawn on their powers to resist change or maintain their relevance. This article explores how natural gas interests respond to climate action in the EU and proposes that the transition fuel discourse has been essential to ensure what many thought was the fuel’s stable role in the energy mix for decades to come. The rising stringency of climate action has led policy-makers to question this role, which prompted actors from within the sector to adapt their narratives as well as leverage other forms of power to ensure the survival of their industry. The threat of climate change requires swift and effective action, which includes the elimination of carbon-intensive energy production. In a report commissioned by Friends of the Earth Europe, Anderson and Broderick ([1]: 43) underscore this when writing that “fossil fuels, including natural gas [emphasis added], can have no substantial role in an EU 2 ◦C energy system beyond 2035”.