Working Papers

Peddling false solutions: corporate carbon management and climate delay strategies

with Thomas Klug and Carmen Garro, as part of a CSSN grant on doublespeak of fossil incumbents


A Resource Database of Cumulative Impacts Laws and Tools: Emerging Policy Opportunities to Protect Environmental Justice Communities from Additional Burden

with Yuykan Lam, Ana Baptista, Anna Yulsman, Madeleine Killough 


Converging visions, contested narratives: Media discourse analyses of South Africa’s Just Transition 

with Thomas Klug, Giacomo Raederscheidt and Jan Steckel


The planned energy transition in South Africa away from coal has triggered diverse and clashing discourses surrounding the just transition. A rapid phaseout from coal raises concerns of job losses, energy affordability, and supply constraints, which could exacerbate already frequent blackouts from load shedding. In this study, we unravel just transition discourses in the media based on approximately 2,500 newspaper articles sourced from the LexisNexis database between 2008 and 2023. We combine two natural language processing tools–structural topic modeling and sentiment analysis–and qualitatively validate our findings in a mixed-methods approach. Structural topic modeling reveals 14 distinct topics that we classify into four unique narrative clusters, each representing a different just transition discourse. Two key narrative clusters emerge representing opposition or skepticism to calls for a just, rapid phaseout of fossil fuels in South Africa. The first set of narratives surrounds alternatives to fossil fuel phaseout, emphasizing concerns of energy security, and that only an incremental and carefully managed transition can guarantee sustained economic growth and the stable supply of electricity. Another two sets of narrative highlight the opportunities and practical aspects of implementing a just transition in South Africa. The first underscores the opportunity to transform South Africa into a green economy, leveraging investments from the JETP, in response to the imperative to phase out fossil fuels. Compellingly, we find converging visions across all narratives. Across all narratives, actors imagine the outcomes of a just transition to include employment creation, protection of vulnerable workers, access to affordable and reliable electricity, while addressing climate change and global climate injustices. Sentiments associated with the narratives vary widely, from very negative to very positive tones. Overall we find moderate polarization between narratives, which further suggests potential barriers and sources of political backlash to transition policies.

South Africa’s coal discourses: Applying text-as-data methods to news media

with Giacomo Raederscheidt

Understanding how news media have been framing coal over time is crucial in fossil fuel-dependent countries like South Africa, where a transition towards renewable energies is imperative. In this paper, South Africa serves as a testing ground for exploratively applying a series of text-as-data machine-learning approaches to news media, widening the analytical possibilities of energy transition discourses. We employ topic modeling, named entity recognition, and sentiment analysis to approximately 8,000 national newspaper articles spanning 2010-2024 and sourced from the LexisNexis database. The findings reveal that the coal discourse in South African newspapers is widely dominated by topics and actors reflecting coal's continued importance in the national economy and the influential nexus of the mining and energy sectors with parts of the political elite. The discourse also heavily focuses on the immediate challenges regarding South Africa's energy crisis. While there has indeed been a shift towards energy transition topics in recent years, namely the expansion of renewable energy, the phase-out of coal is not prominently discussed. Instead, renewables are not predominantly framed as a replacement for coal but rather discussed in the context of addressing the energy crisis, maintaining a business-as-usual stance on coal. Notably, we find a short-term increase in the salience of topics on transition politics and climate finance around the announcement of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) in 2021, accompanied by a positive shift in sentiment of the coal discourse following the announcement. Besides providing insights for policymakers and political economy research on coal transitions, this paper demonstrates both the strengths and limitations of combining various text-as-data machine-learning methods to analyze energy discourses.

A Political Backlash to Shifts in Coal Jobs? Lessons from Colombia

with Lennard Naumann and Jan Steckel (working paper)

Phasing out coal is a pivotal part of transitioning to an economy less reliant on fossil fuels that is compatible with a 1.5°C climate pathway. Potential socio-economic impacts of declining mining activity include losses in income and employment, outward migration, and generally regional economic contraction. However, the political implications of mine closures in industrializing countries are yet to be understood. Indeed, shifts in coal employment are potential contributors to increased political polarization. We investigate the case of Colombia, a country heavily dependent on coal exports that recently elected a left-wing president who won on an anti-mining agenda. Using a unique data set, we show how municipality-level changes in coal employment impact voting outcomes, looking at presidential elections from 2014 - 2022. Our findings show that changes in mining are associated with more support for pro-mining and reformist parties, and less support for anti-mining parties, hinting at political polarization. Voter backlash hence can pose an political-economy barrier to the public acceptability of phasing out fossil fuels that is crucial to be taken into account when designing just transition policies. 

Can revenue recycling make fossil fuel subsidy reforms socially acceptable? A survey experiment in Colombia

with Farah Mohammadzadeh Valencia, Brigitte Castañeda Rodríguez, Jan Steckel, Jorge Garcia, and Jorge Bonilla. Collaboration between MCC Berlin and Uni Andes, part of EfD grant (OSF registry)


Phasing out fossil fuel subsidies needs to be a cornerstone policy to reach the Paris Climate Agreement. A common concern for introducing adjustments to prices is related to the possible adverse (or regressive) impacts on poverty and inequality. Colombia is in the process of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, both for diesel and for gasoline. Since these types of policies generate public revenue, experts suggest to design pricing policies that include revenue recycling schemes. The underlying question we aim to answer is what type of revenue recycling scheme significantly increases public support for fossil fuel subsidy reduction (FFSR) in Colombia. We carry out a country representative survey experiment (N=4000 households) to test for different revenue recycling schemes and whether additional information on fairness, effectiveness and environmental impacts could further increase support. The results and analysis will highlight viable entry points for the development of climate policies and related communication campaigns in Colombia.

Talking about coal: Examining the development of the Indian discourse 

with Arne Arens


This paper examines the development of the discourse around coal in India from 2013 to 2023, focusing on the dichotomy between India's coal-based rapid economic development and a global effort to reduce emissions. Despite significant global pressure to transition away from coal, the resource remains central to India's economic strategy and energy security. We use dynamic topic modeling, sentiment analysis and qualitative analysis to examine how the discourse in major Indian English-language news outlets has developed over the past decade; responding to different economic, environmental, and political pressures - as well as analysing the impact discussions around a (just) energy transition have on the discourse. Findings reveal a strong dominance of Business and Energy (in-)security narratives within the discourse, reflecting the central role of large public companies (PSUs) like Coal India Limited in India's national coal economy, which, traditionally, has provided for India's energy security. Reporting on PSUs tends to carry a highly positive sentiment, a function not only of positive business jargon but also of their powerful standing.

Economic orthodoxy and the Green New Deal

with Andres Bernal

Industrial pollution and green economic fitness: A complexity approach

with Maria Enrica Virgillito and Angelica Sbardella

Left-behind regions and the nexus work-health-environment

Book chapter for Phoenix project (Horizon 2020)