Contesting climate change: mapping the political debate in Poland

We examine the effectiveness of norm diffusion by the European Union (EU) using the example of the climate debate in Poland. To explore the relationship between the salience of an issue and the internalisation of the externally initiated debate, we analyse both quantitatively and qualitatively votes and speeches in the Polish parliament. We find that the Members of Parliament regardless of their placement on the right–left dimension or their participation in government have paid growing but still little attention to climate change. Furthermore, when climate change is concerned the political debate is mostly characterised by negative assessments of the EU's initiatives.