Decarbonization in Canada’s Energy Policy-Planning Network: From Opposition to Delay

Through a social network and discourse network analysis, this study examines differing stances on decarbonization within Canada’s elite ‘energy policy-planning network.’ First, I examine the positions of over two dozen industry-linked civil society groups (including think tanks, business councils and energy-focused industry associations) on climate policy and decarbonization from 2022-2023, and second, the wider network of interlocks they are embedded in and help form. Findings point to a bifurcation of the network between a ‘extractive-populist’ segment that promotes fossil fuel expansion and opposes virtually all forms of climate action, and an ascendant ‘green growth’ bloc that contradictorily supports low-carbon transition and the fossil economy (with the promise of emission reduction technologies, like carbon capture and storage and other technological solutions, including hydrogen). Fossil fuel firms are found to be central to the energy policy-planning network, and interestingly, large fossil producers and multinationals link most strongly with the green growth bloc. The analysis helps illuminate the prospects of and barriers to decarbonization and energy transition in one major fossil producing region. It opens to a consideration of ideological and material fragmentation within corporate capital and the fossil fuel industry itself in response to climate change, as well as divergences and complementarities between policy networks that either oppose or delay energy transition.