ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) is engaged in the difficult quest for an energy policy which will deliver sustainable, competitive and secure supplies of energy. At the same time, amongst policy makers there is a heightened awareness of the close interrelationship between energy and the environment. The energy and environmental discourses are becoming increasingly interlinked, so much so that in the overall sustainability discourse they appear indivisible. If Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse analysis is applied, energy and environment become consistent with their concept of ‘nodal points’ (Howarth 2000: 110, 2005: 323–324; Diez 1999a: chapter 2, 1999b: 611), which are in the process of being ‘hegemonized’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985).
