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84 It can be questioned to what extent the final agreement was in fact climate policy or if it was mainly driven by traditional energy political issues such as economics and security politics as these issues constituted a main part of the final agreement.
7.1.2. The Green Transport Policy agreement
The negotiations of the transport policy agreement were characterised by consensus on many issues as could be seen in the similar articulations of a number of nodal points by all actors in the negotiations.
There can, however, be identified two discourse coalitions united around storylines with opposing conceptions of investments in road traffic. Unlike the other agreements, there was not a clear dividing line between the Government and the Opposition in this case, as the SD, as the only opposition party, was positive towards investments in roads.
The final agreement did include investments in roads, which suggests that the concern for
continued economic development as well as the current technological abilities were determining for the final agreement. This result raises the question if climate concerns were in fact at the forefront of the negotiations of this so-called green transport policy, or if other concerns such as mobility, safety, and to some extent health issues outweighed the concern for the climate.
7.1.3. The Tax Reform
The negotiations on the Tax Reform were also characterised by an apparent agreement on the major issues. All parties, except the RGA, believed that the tax on labour should be reduced and that this should be facilitated by an increase in green taxes, if implemented in a way that ensured an even social distribution. The business sector and NGOs also expressed their support to this point of view.
Despite this initial agreement, the Tax Reform ended up as a narrow agreement, which seemed to be a result of the ultimatum posed by the Government to uphold the tax freeze. The tax freeze was therefore the main source of antagonism, which seems to imply that climatic concerns were only important to the negotiations to the extent that they did not hamper other political concerns.
The articulations of the final agreement also reflected the ecological modernisation discourse;
again illustrating its hegemonic position.
85 The Government, however, chose to appoint a Tax Commission which illustrates that the green governmentality also had some influence on the Danish climate debate.
7.1.4. The Green Growth Agreement
The negotiations on a green growth agreement were marked by great disagreements. There seemed to exist to opposing discourse coalitions. One was led by the agricultural sector and argued that the lack of growth initiatives in the proposal would lead companies to move abroad to countries with less strict environmental regulations ultimately leading to a global deterioration of the climate. The other was comprised by the Opposition, a number of NGOs, and CONCITO and claimed that the lack of concern for the climate and environment would lead to an economic loss.
The arguments by both coalitions thus stayed within the ecological modernisation discourse as they emphasized how economic growth and environmental protection could go hand in hand, albeit with oppositely directed arguments.
The final agreement also reflected the ecological modernisation discourse, again pointing to its hegemonic position, and seemed to be a compromise between these two conflicting
requirements.
Again, the climate political issues seemed to play minor role in the negotiations, being mostly treated as a by-product of environmental protection, which was the major point of antagonism between the parties.
7.1.5. General characteristics of the negotiations
The negotiations of these four agreements have shown a number of similarities. Generally the Government, supported by the DPP, and a number of business associations formed one discourse coalition. The Opposition, the environmental NGOs and a number of other businesses formed an opposing discourse coalition. These discourse coalitions were united around two competing storylines that fought to become hegemonic.
In all four negotiations the ecological modernisation discourse can be considered to have been hegemonic, hence determining the range of policy options that were considered suitable to instruments that could contribute economic growth while also being beneficial to the climate.
86 The points of antagonism between the competing discourses in the negotiations were primarily not related to climate policy, which suggests that these political agreements that have been said to constitute a large part of the Danish climate policy, did not have climate policy as their primary concern. Instead, other policy considerations had to be fulfilled before climate concerns could be addressed.
7.2. Further research
The scope of this thesis has been limited which means that I have left out a number of issues that could also have shed light on how the Danish climate policy was determined.
My focus on four political agreements within the given time period of course means that I have excluded a lot of other material that could contribute to the understanding of the development of the Danish climate policy. My research has provided some general tendencies, but to get a fuller picture it could be interesting to include other material such as political proposals, parliament debates on specific laws, public statements on climate political issues etc.
In addition, I provided very little space for the international influence of the Danish climate policy in my analysis. Although I included the meta-discourses identified by Bäckstrand and Lövbrand (2007) that have been identified on an international scale, I did not consider how the discourse in the EU and for example the UNFCCC affected the Danish discourse even though these organs set the overall framework for the Danish climate policy, as briefly mentioned in section 0. It would therefore be very relevant to investigate how the discourses of the EU and other international organs have influenced the Danish climate policy.
Finally, it could also be very interesting to include the role of the scientific discourse on the debate given the highly technical nature of the climate issue. I did include the viewpoints of CONCITO in my analysis but it could also be relevant to include for example the discourse of the IPCC and recognised scientists in the analysis.
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