Public resistance to climate policy amid energy crisis and populism: The case of the European Green Deal in the Czech Republic

This paper examines negative opinions on the European Green Deal (EGD) by combining critical discourse analysis of three Czech media and public opinion data analysis based on a representative sample of 821 Czech adults. Against the backdrop of the EGD contestation in the media debate and disagreement among the public, we evaluate the impact of the energy crisis and populism on resistance to this policy in a heavily coal-dependent post-communist Central European country. We found that neither the actors in the media debates nor the public were ready to support the EGD. In the media, politicians across all parliamentary parties portrayed the EGD as a factor behind high energy prices and as an EU-imposed threat. The populist ANO party and other Czech populists were vocal members of this broad-based discursive coalition. Among the public, resistance did not mean opposition to renewables or climate change denial. In the binary logistic regression model, variables related to the context of the energy crisis turned out to be a stronger predictor of EGD disagreement than sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics. Statistically, ideological affiliation and preference for populism were unimportant. The coincidence of the energy crisis with the launch of the EGD caused the public to perceive the EGD policy measures as too radical and costly. Our findings contribute to the study of EGD adoption in the Central and Eastern European region, enrich the debate on populism, and foster a better understanding of the societal impacts of the energy crisis.