When climate change is missing: Media discourse on coal mining in the Czech Republic

One of the EU's main decarbonization goals is a reduction in the energy use of coal. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that public support for decarbonization can be gained automatically by pointing out threats from climate change, particularly in light of the role coal plays in the local and national economy and in energy security. In this article we search for factors affecting public support for a coal phase-out in media content. According to the theory of agenda setting, the media establishes problems calling for solutions and influences public perceptions of the (un)importance of those problems. We illustrate this case on the example of the Czech Republic. The paper demonstrates that Czech media has cultivated a discursive environment in which coal mining is separated from coal combustion, neglecting the inevitable interconnection of these two processes; coal consumption is not characterized as an environmental problem; and the economic problems of private companies more easily become public problems, making future coal phase-out policies harder to implement.