Fossil Fuels, Fossilized Divisions: Discursive Contestation and Climate Rhetoric in Regional Legislatures

How does division over strong regional identity affect climate messaging in legislative sessions? This thesis compares legislative climate rhetoric in three purposively sampled European regions with strong regional identities: Northern Ireland and Catalonia, where separatism is salient, and Bavaria, a non-separatist control case. Drawing on consociationalism, discursive institutionalism, green nationalism, and issue capture, this thesis uses a mixed-methods research design, applying multilingual keyword-based content analysis to 696345 legislative statements. Difference-in-difference analysis compares bloc gaps across terms and regions, and critical discursive analysis situates results within each region's institutional history. In aggregate, regional identity blocs in Northern Ireland and Catalonia mention climate at lower proportional frequencies than neutral blocs, unlike in Bavaria. The gap between blocs is widest in post-independence referendum Catalonia, moderated in Northern Ireland by power-sharing institutions, and narrowest in Bavaria. The comparative finding is that separatist regional identity politics capture legislative attention at the expense of climate issues.