Energy Transition and Coal Phase-Out in Germany : Analysis of Public Discourse

Effective responses to climate change cannot be achieved without the transition away from fossil-fuel-based electricity systems towards low-carbon systems of power generation. Such sustainability transitions are highly complex and require deep structural changes along different dimensions: technological, economic, political, infrastructural or socio-cultural. The transitions literature has so far very much focused on the diffusion of (radical) sustainable innovations like wind or solar, while the destabilisation and decline of unsustainable technologies such as coal has received much less attention. The decline of established systems is of particular importance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively. It also creates space for sustainable innovations, thereby accelerating ongoing transitions. Decline processes in general, and of fossil-fuel-based systems in particular, are value-laden and often highly conflictual. They usually involve a broad range of powerful actors trying to influence the pace and direction of the transition. How these different actors affect the transition is an open issue. So far, only few studies have targeted the role of politics and power in decline processes. The goal of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the ‘politics of decline’ by looking into the public discourse on the coal phase-out and energy transition in Germany. This research is based on a discourse analysis of 345 newspaper articles published between 2000 and 2019. The study explores how actors struggle to build or challenge the legitimacy of coal-fired power generation through storylines and elucidates how they form discourse coalitions based on those storylines. The research also aims to uncover broader discursive developments with the potential to influence the pathway of the energy transition. The discourse analytical approach is qualitatively driven, but also entails quantitative coding with NVivo to record how frequently certain categories appear in the data set across time. The study reveals two antagonist actor coalitions. The anti-coal coalition, comprising NGOs, activists, the Green party, the Ministry for the Environment, think tanks and researchers, challenges the legitimacy of coal primarily due to its vast environmental and climate impact. Led by electric utilities, the pro-coal coalition mainly build legitimacy by pointing to the economic role of coal for the national economy, the lignite mining regions and the coal workers. The analysis finds an extensive and sudden discursive shift which accelerates the discursive destabilisation of coal-fired power. The discursive patterns reveal a strong dominance of coal-delegitimising storylines as well as high media attention on the future role of coal resulting from the discursive shift. Moreover, the discourse shows clear signs of disruption of the actor coalition in support of coal. Traditional coal allies such as the Ministry of the Economics, the political parties CDU/CSU and SPD, as well as some of the utilities withdraw from the legitimising discourse. However, as pressure on the coal regime increases, other influential actors such as the labour unions, industry representatives and the minister presidents of the coal states enter the discourse, enacting severe resistance to the decline of coal-fired power. The research concludes that the German coal phase-out provides a range of valuable insights for countries in similar situations. Nevertheless, for future research, systematic cross-country comparisons of destabilisation discourses are needed to be able to generate more generalisable insights into the ‘politics of decline’