‘Energy security’ and ‘climate change’ Constructing UK energy discursive realities.pdf

G Model JGEC-805; No. of Pages 9 Global Environmental Change xxx (2010) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Global Environmental Change jour nal homepage: www ./loc ate/gloenvcha ‘Energy security’ and ‘climate change’: Constructing UK energy discursive realities T. Rogers-Hayden *, F. Hatton, I. Lorenzoni School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Recently, in the United Kingdom, two issues have dominated the energy policy agenda: effective climate Received 19 December 2008 change mitigation and energy security. Whilst evolving government policy has led to government Received in revised form 21 May 2010 support for new build nuclear power as part of the nation’s future energy mix, limited attention has been Accepted 7 September 2010 devoted to examining how arguments were constructed to lead ‘naturally’ to nuclear new build as an option for addressing these two issues. Using Critical Discourse Analysis this paper analyses the struggles Keywords: within the climate change mitigation and energy security discourses in generating and/or replacing Critical Discourse Analysis meanings. In particular, it examines how construction of the dominant (hegemonic) discourses led Hegemonic discourse ‘natu