Narrating decarbonisation: Stories of climate action in the petrochemical industry

Despite its role in ensuring the ubiquity of fossil fuels in modern society, the petrochemical sector has long flown under the public radar in energy and climate debates. However, faced with increasing pressures from its involvement in driving multiple and intersecting ecological crises, firms in the petrochemical industry are seeking to make sustainability a core part of their public image. Although recent climate commitments might signal a start towards a low-carbon transition, there is a risk that industry leaders follow the pattern that has consistently been the case throughout their history and only pay lip service to current trends to ease legislative pressure, secure financing and continue business as usual, legitimizing the strong carbon lock-in within the sector. Therefore, this paper aims to identify and explore commonly invoked industry narratives of climate action. To do so, we focus on climate communication from the largest petrochemical companies, most of which also are fossil fuel extractors, mapping their discursive strategy. We argue that the set of strategic narratives that we identify portray the petrochemical industry as of unquestionable societal importance, promoting the idea that stringent regulation is not needed, and that criticism leveraged against the industry are based on misunderstandings. This discourse strategy works to reduce pressure for deep mitigation cuts while repositioning the industry as part of the solution. Relating this to the broader literature on the use of discursive power and corporate framing of climate change, we compare the discursive strategy around petrochemical production to that of fossil fuel extraction. Despite relying on fossil feedstock and being solidly placed in the fossil-based energy order with strong historical, knowledge-based, and economic linkages to oil, gas, and coal, discursive strategies in key aspects. In making this argument, we show how downstream actors work to legitimize continued exploration and production of fossil fuels