The relationship between climate change and energy security: key issues and conclusions

Abstract

There has been considerable work on the politics of climate change and energy security as separate issues, but much less on the relationship between energy security and climate change. From studies of the relationships between these concepts in individual states and a comparison of media coverage of energy security in differing states, there appears to be little consistent connection between discourses on and policies for energy security and climate change. Climate change considerations appear to be constructed to promote elite and special-interest interpretations of energy security. It is concluded that efforts at a local, national, and global level should be oriented towards promoting climate change objectives to capture energy policy. Otherwise, nationally based conceptions of energy security are likely to predominate over climate-change objectives.

Keywords:

• climate change
• energy security
• sustainability
• markets
• constructivism

The energy–climate conundrum

Climate change and energy security are both global concerns, and both feature routinely in public policy discourses around the world. Considerable work has been done to analyse climate change politics at international (Helm and Hepburn 2009, Giddens 2011, Held et al. 2011), national (Lisowski 2002, Harris 2011, Bailey and Compston 2012), and local levels (Bulkeley and Betsill 2003, Rootes et al. 2012). The theoretical and empirical concerns of these studies have been very different, ranging from discussions around implications for international relations theory to the ability of local actors to respond to the challenge of climate change. There has also been coverage of the construction of energy security in different conditions, both from theoretical (Ciuta 2010) and more technical standpoints (Shaffer 2009). The way that climate policy has been ‘securitised’ has also been studied, at a global level (Floyd 2008) and at national level in the case of Australia (McDonald 2012). The authors of securitisation of climate policy have noted that the discursive securitisation has not been carried through to the enactment of exceptional measures to deal with climate change; there appears to be dissonance between public policy discourses and policy outcomes on climate change and energy security.

However, less work has been done on the relationship between the two policy areas of climate change and energy security themselves, although this issue has been attracting increasing interest in recent years. This is an important area of interest for two reasons. First, energy accounts for around 60% of emissions globally (Baumert et al. 2005, p. 4). Tackling emissions from energy will therefore be crucial for climate mitigation. In addition, energy is often seen as a priority policy area for many countries, as it is an important driver of economic growth and prosperity. It is not only important domestically, but often access to energy sources is a strategic foreign policy concern as well (Giddens 2011, p. 45). This has led many commentators to see potential synergies between energy security and climate change. The need to import fossil fuels from unstable or hostile regions, which has been a long-term concern in the United States, or over-dependence on one supplier, who can use the position for geo-political gain, as is the worry of the EU in relation to Russian gas, has led to calls to reduce energy ‘dependence’. The use of renewables, the argument goes, can achieve such aims, as well as aid with climate-change mitigation (Friedman 2005).

A second reason this issue is attracting attention is the consequences of climate change itself and the need to expand conceptions of security away from military security to human security; concerns over the role of sustainability and environmental degradation to human security play a role as well (Dalby 2002). Accordingly, there are questions over whether the concept of energy security needs to be changed to accommodate the damage caused to the climate by conventional energy sources. There are those who argue that the concept of energy security, which traditionally relates to availability of resources at reasonable prices should be amended to also contain concerns with sustainability (Elkind 2009). The International Energy Agency (2011) has tried to accommodate such concerns within its own definition of energy security: ‘the uninterrupted physical availability at a price which is affordable, while respecting environment concerns’ (p. 9).

Therefore, there are efforts both at the conceptual level and in practice to try to make the goals of energy security cohere with climate-protection objectives, and it is to these recent debates that this volume speaks. The central research question addressed here is what the relationship is between energy security and climate change. This is answered at a nation state (or in the case of the EU, at a regional) level. Although we do not place central emphasis on climate-change negotiations at global level, this volume may be important for the study of such negotiations because interaction between energy security and climate change at a national level can be an important influence on the positions taken by nation states at international negotiations.

The relationship between energy security and climate change is pursued at the national level using a variety of differing types of research question and approach. Rather than pursue, from the outset, carefully delineated themes and hypotheses which are then tested (a deductive approach), we have opted to pursue an inductive approach. We have specified a general area of study which a view to drawing themes and conclusions from the evidence that emerges from the several investigations. However, we can set down a general mission statement from the outset. The discussion in different contributions draws on the extent to which energy-security discourses and policies are compatible with climate protection.

The rest of this introduction provides a summary of the contributions, whereas the concluding section comes back to the general issue discussing the insights from the various contributions, as well as some comments related to climate negotiations.

The case studies

David Toke writes about climate change and the (nuclear) securitisation of UK energy policy, focusing on a contrast between the use of neoliberalism and securitisation as both analytical and normative devices. Toke argues that they have contrasting and conflicting effects on how energy outcomes occur. Discourse analysis is also used as an analytical device.

Toke subjects successive governmental energy White Papers from 2003 to 2011 to discourse analysis, looking at the associations between signifiers such as energy security, climate change, and fuels such as nuclear and renewable energy. The relationship of energy security with different fuels shifts considerably over the period, bearing out Ciuta (2010) who argues that energy security is largely bereft of meaning outside a particular context. In the case of the UK, energy security is initially not associated with the promotion of nuclear power, and then, from 2006 to 2008, it is very much associated with nuclear power. Further, in the most recent statements of UK government policy, energy security is associated with a ‘decarbonisation’ programme. The conclusion that follows is that the construction of energy security is very much associated with projecting the objectives of government policy.

A second conclusion from the discourse analysis is that the ‘language’ may be rather more specific to particular documents than may be thought to be the case. The fact that the notion of energy security is associated less with nuclear power in the most recent government White Paper coincides with an increase, rather than decrease, in incentives proposed to support nuclear power. This apparently paradoxical conclusion (in view of the need to justify increased support for nuclear power) may, nevertheless, have a straightforward explanation. The government is keen to construct the support as being for ‘low carbon’ sources rather than nuclear power specifically, so that energy security is associated with decarbonisation in general rather than just nuclear power. This enables the government to attempt to maintain the notion that nuclear power is not being given subsidies, since these ‘low carbon’ incentives are, notionally, available to other energy sources.

This case involves a conflict between two hegemonic discourses: a decarbonisation discourse which gives priority to nuclear power, and neoliberal discourses which give priority to competitive market-based arrangements. The conflict arises at the level of non-discursive practices, in the practical operation of investment decisions taken by financial markets and energy companies. Private markets shy away from investments whose costs are highly uncertain, even when, as in the case of the UK government’s electricity market reform, there are assurances about price levels for energy generated from nuclear power. Consequently, the investment costs of funding nuclear power stations (whose costs are uncertain) are high, pushing up the effective electricity price needed to encourage investment in nuclear power. Strictly speaking, there are discourses about such investment practices, but given the lack of resources necessary to track all of the complex interlocking discussions that make up the practices, it is a worthwhile short-cut to ascribe these effects to material conditions, something recognised by discourse theorists themselves (Schmidt 2008). Hence, a third, important, conclusion of this study emerges. In states such as the UK where neoliberal ideas dominate design of energy systems, with liberalised markets the norm, non-discursive practices pose a major barrier to the development of nuclear power. It should be noted, by contrast, that such barriers are not so formidable for renewable energy projects. Although these generally require special incentive systems, because there is usually considerable certainty about the costs of the schemes, private markets will fund them, provided there are sufficient long-term guarantees about prices payable for energy produced – as are delivered under ‘feed-in-tariff’ systems.

Reiner Grundmann, Mike Scott, and Jin Wang examine the extent of congruity (or divergence) in media coverage of energy security in eight countries, both Northern (the UK, the United States, France, and Germany) and Southern (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa). Their chief theoretical aim was to test theory about the distribution of news, and concluded that, contrary to what one would expect based on established theories, there was little evidence that news flows from core countries to the periphery and semi-periphery. Instead, they found, news was created and consumed at a national level.

Given the increasing independence and self-confidence of emerging states in some sectors of the world today, this is not entirely surprising. It is nonetheless important for providing evidence for the proposition that hypotheses drawn from communications theory associated with ‘world systems theory’ (Chang 1998) are unsupported, or at least that changed conditions appear to have superseded old assumptions, at least in the field of energy policy. However, a central point for this volume is the extent to which energy-security coverage is synchronised and/or homogeneous. In fact, energy-security coverage is not synchronised and is somewhat heterogeneous. Indeed, the different countries have, for the most part, associated coverage of energy security with different issues that seem to derive from domestic imperatives. The biggest point of convergence occurs between France and Germany, states similarly anxious at the same times about the reliability of gas supplies from Russia in light of its disputes with Ukraine, through which the gas is piped. China, India, and South Africa link the issue to food, and Brazil is concerned about oil supplies. Thus, Grundmann et al. conclude that news coverage is not as globalised as some have supposed.

This study also produces an interesting contrast with the coverage of climate-change issues. Grundmann (2007), for example, conducted a comparison of media coverage of the science of climate change in Germany and the United States. Certainly, there were important differences, in particular that the US media often tended to derive information about climate change from different sources. However, a large part of the sources in both cases was either from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or advocates of action on climate change. Moreover, even among climate sceptics, there was still a common understanding of what is understood by the notion of human-induced climate change, even if there were differences over its importance or existence. This is rather different from energy security, where the coverage indicates a variegated pattern of what is meant by energy security.

Eleni Vezirgiannidou discusses the politics of climate change in the United States. She analyses the nature of a debate wherein there has been little progress towards setting and implementing binding national targets for reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In particular, she examines the effect of different frames that have been used to promote action to tackle climate change.

US climate-change politics have been characterised by a debate over the need and desirability to set economy-wide targets to reduce GHGs in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Nevertheless, there have been various attempts to frame the climate-change issue in other terms, in particular as overlapping with energy-security objectives. Yet such stratagems have not been especially successful.

Energy security is one way of attempting to reframe climate change, and in doing so, to avoid the classical environmentalist implication that there have to be ‘sacrifices’ in order to avoid the impact of pollution, in this case from GHG emissions. However, reframing climate change as energy security has not succeeded, principally because energy security can be achieved by means other than clean energy. If reliance on imports of oil is seen as a key problem, it can be tackled by increasing opportunities for coal, oil, and gas recovery in the United States. Such policies have featured prominently in the Obama administration’s strategy, opportunities for oil drilling have increased, and extraction of shale gas through ‘fracking’ has greatly increased. Indeed, far from overlapping with the climate-change agenda, policies to promote fossil fuels undermine the goals of climate change, which involve reducing emissions from energy use. Reframing climate change as energy security does not avoid the political problems associated with pursuing climate-change policy objectives; they simply re-emerge as the same set of political choices, often argued along Democrat-Republican fault lines.

The ‘green economy’ frame is another attempt to avoid the implication that the economy will have to ‘sacrifice’ in order to deal with climate change. This frame has the advantage in that, as in the case of ecological modernisation theory, there is the promise of a ‘positive sum outcome’, in which economic development moves forward whilst the environment is protected. Indeed, there is evidence of considerable support for green energy in some industrial sectors, especially those concerned with promoting renewable energy. Where green solutions such as wind power require relatively modest subsidies, some progress has been made at a sub-national level. Several states have introduced ‘renewable portfolio standards’, which, in collaboration with either (or both) the Federal Production Tax Credit and consumer-based green electricity schemes, have delivered significant quantities of renewable energy. However, when viewed in perspective, this progress is relatively modest and has not stopped the overall rise in emissions at national level. Moreover, despite the framing of a ‘win–win’ outcome, major sectors of industry as well as certain political figures have opposed or been sceptical of this ‘green economy’ agenda.

Vezirgainnidou concludes that rather than attempt to ‘reframe’ climate change as something else, climate change could be most fruitfully pursued by promoting the issue directly. When the issue is reframed, climate change becomes a secondary consideration, or a co-benefit of another policy, and the climate message loses potency. ‘The message is no longer that climate change needs to be addressed, but that economic growth and energy security can be addressed in more climate friendly ways.’ The ‘green economy’ way of reframing has some benefits compared to framing as ‘energy security’, but both these attempts to reframe climate change are inferior to mobilising public opinion to demand action to protect the climate.

The interaction between energy and climate change in Brazil, addressed by Vieira and Dalgaard, is quite surprising. Whereas earlier we noted the problems of using energy security as a vehicle for achieving climate-change policy objectives, in Brazil it seems to be the other way around. Here, climate-change arguments are being advanced to justify policies conceived to protect what are seen as energy-security objectives. The main driver of Brazil’s energy-security policies continues to be strategic concerns over availability and reliability of supplies. ‘The widely publicised environmental sustainability of the Brazilian energy-security model is a deliberate, and mostly rhetorical, strategy aimed at boosting Brazil’s international environmental credentials, while at same time abating criticism from an increasingly environmentally-aware domestic public opinion’.

In fact, the policies most associated by the Brazilian government with the climate-change programme are the biofuel and hydroelectricity programmes, both of which were initiated in by the military-led government at the time of the 1970s oil crisis, which responded to the drain on hard currency caused by the oil-price spikes. The biofuel programme, which uses cane sugar feedstock to produce alcohol, or ‘gasohol’, for use in motor vehicles stalled after the mid-1980s as oil prices fell and government scaled back incentives, but was revitalised by market forces following the oil-price increases of 2003–2004. This was given a rhetorical cover as environmental policy in accordance with Brazil’s stance during climate-change negotiations. In the late 1980s, with the return of democracy, increasing domestic pressure to protect rainforests came from interest groups representing indigenous people, as well as environmental groups. Such domestic pressures dovetailed with international pressures for biodiversity preservation.

Indeed, Brazil has emerged as a leader in the developing world at recent world climate-change negotiations by accepting the need for emerging economies to consider limiting GHG emissions (Vieira 2012), placing great emphasis on achieving this through protection of rainforests. Although renewable energy production does serve to reduce GHG emissions, it was initially promoted for energy-security purposes rather than climate concerns. There are thus three interesting implications of this study. First, policies to protect energy security were used to bolster Brazil’s credentials as a climate-change mitigator. Second, it is partly environmentalist pressure that is generating plans for GHG reduction through protection of the rainforests. Third, despite interesting developments to mitigate emissions, few appear to be explained by measures launched specifically to counter climate change, though interest groups are keen to claim the measures as ones that will mitigate climate change.

John Vogler analyses discourses and policies related to energy security and climate change in the European Union. Examining the extent to which these discourses have been moulded into a coherent whole, he discusses framings of the climate issue as ‘environmental security’ and also ‘climate security’, and asks whether the EU has framed its climate-change mitigation discourse to fit in with these themes.

The EU is possibly the only major emitter that can definitely point to policies adopted specifically for climate protection. Its emissions trading scheme has set clear targets for CO₂ reduction, whatever the shortcomings of the mechanism may be. As a leader in climate-change negotiations since the early 1990s, the EU has developed some relatively ambitious programmes that assist the attainment of climate-change objectives. The 2009 Renewables Directive, which mandates a Europe-wide target of deriving 20% of energy from renewable energy by 2020, is one. Energy-efficiency measures have been authorised. Fraught negotiations with motor-vehicle manufacturers produced an agreement to increase the efficiency of motor vehicles, even before the oil-price spike of 2008.

Yet there often seemed to be a disjuncture between climate and other concerns. The EU has been involved in negotiations about natural gas supplies in order to avoid the crises in gas supply from Gazprom that occurred during Russian–Ukrainian disputes. This is clearly constructed as an ‘energy security’ concern. The EU has, since 1996, been concerned with energy market liberalisation, with three stages leading to greater integration of European energy markets, but it was the challenge of devising a post-Kyoto climate regime that brought energy-security and climate discourses together. With oil prices spiking, the gas-supply crisis associated with Eastern Europe and global negotiations for a climate accord, energy security and climate change appeared as ‘two sides of the same coin’ (Piebalgs 2009).

The EU has thus produced a comprehensive discourse on climate change and energy security. Vogler argues that the increased salience of energy-security concerns – in a context where the EU sees itself as a climate leader – has produced a synergistic discourse in the late 2000s. Its 2008 ‘energy–climate’ package and commitment to pursue decarbonisation objectives for 2050 are impressive, although successful implementation remains to be achieved. In addition, the EU has to improve its co-ordination of policy between energy-security and climate-change policy implementation. Institutional arrangements are not conducive to coherent policies, as there is no formal coordination between energy and climate directorates, with the Commission believing that the best way to ensure energy security is by improving the internal market and common external action. Vogler argues that whilst the EU has come closer towards embracing environmental security than most states, it still falls short. In particular, the EU discourse is about the interests of states rather than the security of individuals. The pursuit of a climate-change strategy may actually contradict energy-security objectives, as would the replacement of coal by lower-carbon natural gas. Nuclear power and biofuels have their own knock-on security concerns, whether security of uranium supplies, dangers associated with nuclear plant safety, or threats to food supplies by over-concentration on biofuels.

Joseph Szarka, in his analysis of the evolution of discourses about nuclear power in France, posits that six categories of norm regulate the international commercialisation of civil nuclear power. He seeks to explain the renaissance and decline of nuclear power via the norms that guide behaviour and norm evolution, which are in turn influenced by relevant stakeholders and their competing discourses. Whilst advocates of nuclear power attempt to make domestic and global norms more favourable to nuclear expansion, its opponents try to raise normative barriers against it. Events that are beyond the control of actors influence the direction of policy, as the Fukushima disaster has done.

Market norms, technological norms, and safety and security norms all turned negative for the nuclear revival. New reactor technologies experienced problems, notably for the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), which encountered longer-than-expected construction periods and sharply increased construction costs. Market norms shifted with the liberalisation of energy markets (an imperative promoted by the EU), as nuclear power was expected to compete in the market, which made the problem of rising costs more acute. Concerns over the safety and security of nuclear reactors increased after Fukushima, and the ratcheting up of safety and security norms had a knock-on effect on costs. Geopolitical norms for nuclear power, and hence the ability to sell French reactor technology abroad, have also been adversely affected. French ambitions to lead a nuclear revival have been compromised due to issues of safety and costs, and so hopes for a nuclear revival have receded. The French utility, EDF, still intends to build EPRs in the UK but, as Toke observes, uncertainties about the costs of and incentives available for nuclear power in the British electricity market raise questions about the potential scale of nuclear development.

Renewable energy is a more salient theme of German energy policy than in France. Rainer Hillebrand examines the impact of energy security on energy policies in Germany, using the framework of ecological modernisation (EM). His is a ‘rationalist’ approach; rather than considering norms, values, and discourses, he considers the instrumental value of EM in delivering climate-change and energy-security objectives. Does it work as it says on the tin?

EM is appropriate here particularly because of Germany’s stress on utilising renewable energy as a solution to climate-change problems. This involves an interaction between demands for action to deal with environmental problems, followed by measures by industry to achieve these objectives. EM emphasises eco-innovation but may have limitations when it comes to global ecological imperatives arising from climate change. Radical targets for carbon abatement are necessary in the most industrialised countries to offset growth in energy use in emerging and poorer countries. Yet pressure from polluting companies in northern states such as Germany can reduce the rate of emissions reduction. EM sees industry as the key deliverer of ecological objectives. Yet its very hegemony over the process can blunt the effectiveness of ecological modernisation programmes. Hillebrand reports that the EM approach is perceived to have been a success, as the reduction in German GHG emissions has exceeded its Kyoto target. Renewable energy industries have expanded rapidly and exported products and services, despite suffering increasing competition from other countries, especially China.

For a long time, energy security was not salient in German debates about energy policy. However, since the beginning of this century, imports of coal and natural gas have been increasing, leading to increases in energy prices and fears about the implications of being more dependent on supplies of natural gas from Russia. This drives energy security up the political agenda, and is made more salient by fears that increasing energy costs will make German exports more expensive. However, such energy-security concerns further strengthen the chosen policy of EM for climate protection. In Germany, the dominant view is that climate-change and energy-security concerns coincide. Germany is therefore pledged to increase rapidly its reliance on renewable energy.

The emphasis on renewable energy and energy efficiency is increased by the decision to phase out nuclear power, first taken by the red–green government in 2000, and reinstated by the Merkel government in the aftermath of Fukushima. Doubts have been voiced about Germany’s ability to phase out coal and nuclear power simultaneously and about the chances of success of the strategy because of difficulties in paying for, and implementing, grid extension and transformation to cope with the need to transfer and absorb fluctuating renewable energy supplies.

The German case illustrates how the success of an EM-based strategy is dependent on global agreements on climate-change mitigation to complement domestic programmes, and also on whether society is structured such that the necessary changes can be fully absorbed by different sectors of the economy. Energy-intensive industries have opposed eco-taxes and provision of subsidies to renewable energy, including wind power, solar power, and biomass.

Jack Sharples examines Russian approaches to energy security and climate change in relation to its gas exports to the EU in order to examine critically the proposition that EU policies intended to reduce GHG emissions constitute a threat to Russia’s energy security.

Sharples employs a social-constructivist approach involving the interpretation of self-interest as influenced by interaction with other actors, and discusses how interests and attitudes to climate change and energy security have been influenced by interaction with the EU in particular.

Climate change is not a major concern in Russian governance. There have been rhetorical gestures towards energy efficiency and renewable energy, but few concrete programmes have emerged. The Russian government participated in the Kyoto Protocol, as its GHG emissions fell greatly during the 1990s as a result of the collapse of old Soviet-style industry, but decided not to participate in a second commitment period under Kyoto after 2012, despite domestic reductions in carbon emissions. One important Russian perception is that the EU’s climate-change targets are a threat to Russian interests because EU policy is based on objectives which include reducing imports of natural gas in line with both energy-security and climate-change objectives, which, as Vogler argues, are ‘synergistic’. Gas exports are central to Russia’s sense of economic interest, but also to its notion of political self-interest. Energy security is defined in terms of security of demand, as well as political security in terms of how it generates a relationship of influence with the EU.

Russia, through its state-owned monopoly gas export company, Gazprom, has marketed natural gas sales to the EU on the basis of gas being a ‘green fuel’. In fact, the EU still regards natural gas as a ‘bridge’ to a sustainable energy future. Sharples argues that the greater threat to Russia’s energy security lies in the challenges arising from the development of the EU internal gas market than in debates over the environmental merits of natural gas.

Market liberalisation measures in the EU call not only for more competitive energy markets, both internal to member states and in cross-boundary trade, but also ‘unbundling’ of gas grid and distribution assets. The EU is keen to cut down what it conceives as market dominance and control of vital infrastructure. This threatens Gazprom’s style of agreeing bilateral contracts and its own control over infrastructure assets, but it is possible for Gazprom to respond to these challenges if it is more flexible about allowing more varied patterns of asset ownership and more flexible contracting. Key to ‘detoxifying’ Russia’s relationship with the EU will be resolution of arguments over Ukraine, perhaps by new, differently routed pipelines.

As will be apparent by now, the relationship between energy security and climate change is problematic in many contexts. The compatibility of the two objectives is not straightforward or natural and depends on the domestic context.

Conclusions

We can draw several conclusions in relation to the conceptualisation of energy security and its relation to climate change based on the contributions to this volume. First, associations between energy security and climate change are obvious in elite discourse in many important countries. However, each of the country case studies emphasises a different aspect of this relationship. These associations recognise that the issues are linked, but they continue to be treated as separate problems in most contexts. Moreover, the meaning of energy security differs greatly across the different case studies.

This leads to a second conclusion in that with the possible exception of EU institutions, a re-conceptualisation of energy security to include sustainability is not evident. For most countries, climate change and energy security are two interlinked but separate problems. Both require attention, but they are separate to the degree to which elements of energy security, access, and affordability clash with sustainability. This occurs because sustainability, in the form of climate protection, raises energy prices and therefore clashes with affordability of energy, which is the driver of modern economies (Aldy et al. 2009; see also Vieira and Dalgaard, this volume). When these elements clash, it seems voters and elites prefer to prioritise affordability over sustainability, therefore separating the two elements and promoting the traditional view of energy security over new perspectives focusing on sustainability (Elkind 2009). Even in contexts where climate protection is a high priority, as in Germany, the ability of high-energy users to secure exceptions from the rules and protect their access to affordable energy indicates the inherent tension between sustainability and affordability. Although the EU is presented here as an actor that has managed to produce a holistic approach to energy and climate, it is too soon to tell how this will play out when it comes to implementation. There are reasons for caution suggested by both the EU and German cases. Therefore, the conclusion must be that there is no consistent association between climate change and energy security. Indeed, on the basis of the evidence collected here, it is plausible to argue that the construction of energy security is associated with whatever energy interests appear to be dominant in a particular state, and that climate change, if important, will tend to be used, where compatible, in the context of entrenching such interests.

The third conclusion is that there is a clear difference, in terms of ‘knowledge politics’, between the politics of climate change and energy security. Climate-change politics are ‘cosmopolitan’ (Beck and Sznaider 2006) in that there is, in the relevant international networks, an agreed set of discourses about the subject and, to a lesser extent, there is also a level of agreement on what policy options are available (even if not always desirable) to deal with the problem. This knowledge is spread by networks of ‘climate change speakers’, in particular scientists associated with the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, as well as by environmental campaigners and others. There are considerable debates about the veracity of climate change, the priority that should be accorded to it, and the policy options that should be pursued. However, even climate-change ‘deniers’ will address the same issues of knowledge as the climate-change activists and scientists, even though the ‘facts’ may be interpreted differently. People may disagree on the use of different policy options, but generally it is agreed that a shift away from fossil fuels is necessary to deal with climate change (in so far as it is assumed to exist and be an important issue). There is much less agreement about the nature of energy security. Rather, energy security tends often to be founded on a nationalist, competitive basis rather than on one of cosmopolitan collaboration. There appear to be no cosmopolitan networks trying to construct energy shortages (e.g. oil scarcity) as a problem to be resolved by global cooperation. Instead, there is a tendency to seek gains on a national basis, often to the detriment of others. This is redolent of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin 2009) and implies that the pursuit of climate-change objectives may be more effective in securing national interests even though, in theory, energy security is nominally more concerned with protecting the national interest.

Fourth, and related to these points, is the close relationship between discourses, or frames, and the interests behind them. The ways in which issues are presented (in the UK, France, Germany, the United States, Brazil, and Russia) indicate that frames are used for specific purposes and to promote specific policies. Pro-climate frames/discourses are used by elites, NGOs, and companies with interests in alternative/green power sources, whereas ‘pollution’, ‘development’, and ‘economic growth’ frames are used by interests connected to fossil fuels to protect traditional power sources’ continued use and pre-eminence in the energy mix. Essentially interests on either side of the spectrum are fighting on a discursive level over which priorities should take precedence in policymaking. They also use framing to justify their position to the public. This is not surprising, but rather follows previous arguments around the use of discourse in pursuit of material interests (Szarka 2010). Therefore, discourses compete for hegemony (Foucault 1998), but at the same time reflect material interests.

A fifth conclusion is that although affordability and sustainability clash in each country, there are also important differences in the ways these conflicts occur in different contexts. Conceptions of energy security differ between energy importers and energy exporters. Definitions that emphasise affordability and access are traditionally associated with energy importers, but fossil-fuel exporters, such as Russia, are more concerned with security of demand and price stability (Sharples, this volume). For importers, renewable energy may clash with affordability currently, but can reduce dependence on suppliers and increase energy security through energy independence. This can sometimes produce compatibility between energy-security and climate-protection objectives, but can also emphasise exploitation of fossil-fuel resources, which does not help to achieve climate-change objectives.

For exporters, renewable energy, to the extent that it competes with fossil fuels, can be a threat to their income and thus a threat to their energy and economic security. Although there may be little cause for concern over changes in demand in the near to medium term, this is a concern in Russia policy circles. Moreover, Russia’s position towards the climate regime has been indifferent to lukewarm (mostly due to revenue from emissions trading and the joint implementation mechanism), and it has been decidedly hostile to a second Kyoto commitment period. Russia’s position as an exporter is not unique; the hostility and delaying tactics of other fossil-fuel exporters in climate negotiations is well documented (Depledge 2008). This is not only true for OPEC countries but also for Annex I countries; Canada and Australia both have ambivalent relationships with international climate commitments due to their positions as fossil-fuel exporters (Carrington and Vaughan 2011, Drape 2011). Brazil too might move in that direction, as it exploits recently discovered gas and hydrocarbon reserves. This could jeopardise the position of Brazil as a relatively low GHG emitter and one of the more proactive developing countries in climate negotiations.

A sixth conclusion is there are quite distinct differences between the ways and extent to which state policies internalise climate protection as a policy priority and how this affects their energy policies. Our contributors show that certain countries or actors have for their own reasons prioritised climate protection to a great extent. In Germany, this has been due to the longstanding influence of the Green Party and high public support for environmental policies in general and climate in particular (Hillebrand, this volume), whereas the EU has seen climate change as one of the main areas where it can construct an identity and leadership internationally (Vogler, this volume). These two actors have also made most progress in making energy-security and climate objectives compatible, and seem to face least contestation about which energy sources to prioritise and how to construct relatively coherent energy-security and climate strategies. Brazil is another case where relative coherence exists, but this seems to be more a happy coincidence than a prioritisation of climate targets. However, other countries where climate objectives do not enjoy the same level of prioritisation and commitment have much more incongruent energy and climate policies and face considerable contestation about which energy sources to prioritise. This is evident in the United States, where the commitment to clean energy and renewables directly competes with fossil-fuel interests (Vezirgiannidou, this volume).

These differences in understanding energy security and therefore priorities in energy policy have an impact on climate treaty negotiations. In particular, they widen the gap between the EU, which internalises climate-change objectives, and others that still prioritise access and affordability, like the United States. These divergent approaches are unlikely to be conducive to a global climate deal, and we might have to wait until climate objectives become internalised in many states in order to get a meaningful climate treaty. If so, the 2°C target is rapidly moving out of reach.

A seventh conclusion is also relevant to the climate negotiation process. It appears that each country has its own way of dealing with the climate/energy conundrum and is also keen to internationalise its own solutions. France is keen to ‘export’ nuclear energy as a solution to climate protection and sustainable development, whereas Brazil is a major producer and exporter of biofuels and also promotes them as a vehicle for sustainable development abroad. Russia is also trying to promote natural gas as a ‘green’ fuel to enhance the security of its exports. There are questions over how these unique preferences might play out in negotiations. On the positive side, the interest some countries have in exporting their domestic solutions could be used to buy them into the regime and provide issue linkages that lock them into the agreement and make them responsible stakeholders. There is little evidence of this happening, however; when France wanted to include nuclear power in the CDM during the Kyoto negotiations, other EU members (except Finland) opposed it. Currently, the negotiations do not centre around energy sources in particular, but it would seem that it would be beneficial to involve large exporters by giving them incentives to participate; most currently see the regime as a threat to their exports (Depledge 2008). One way to do this would be to include carbon capture and storage technology in the CDM and the new Climate Fund, as coal is an abundant resource and likely to continue to play a large role in the energy mix of many countries (Helm 2009).

We conclude our discussion with a normative consideration. In this volume, we have focussed on what is happening in different national cases. Our approach is analytical of course, but do we have any overriding normative conclusions? Readers no doubt will come to their own conclusions, but for us there is one clear message. As discussed in the US case study, what is needed is to avoid holding climate policy hostage to entrenched interests gesticulating about ‘energy security’. Rather, we should concentrate on what is good for the sake of the climate, and energise the cosmopolitan campaign for action on climate protection at local, national, and global levels. In that way, climate-change priorities should seek to capture energy policy, rather than conventional energy interests and energy policy capturing climate-change policy agendas.