The ‘oil capital of Europe’ in the net zero transition: A corpus linguistics analysis of Aberdeenshire newspapers

Abstract

The City of Aberdeen, bearing the moniker ‘oil capital of Europe’, has set a 2045 net zero greenhouse gas emissions target. The city has historically benefited from and depended on the oil and gas industry and its presence in the North Sea, especially for employment opportunities. Meanwhile, in The Sixth Carbon Budget, the Climate Change Committee has stated that a fossil fuel phase-out is essential to meet the UK's net zero 2050 target. At the 2022 SNP Conference the then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggested that Aberdeen should become ‘the net zero capital of the world’. This prompts the question of what this energy transition will look like in a place, whose economy and identity are so closely tied to the fossil fuel industry. I conducted a corpus linguistic analysis of Aberdeenshire newspapers (N = 3508), sampled only by the keyword ‘net zero’; and used critical discourse analysis (CDA) to contextualise the findings within the broader economic, policy and social contexts. This showed that the narrative of the net zero transition presented in the local media thus far is overwhelmingly focused on the oil and gas industry, which is mentioned significantly more than other energy technologies or other aspects of the transitions. This narrow focus on the oil and gas sector suggests an absence of a publicly discussed future vision for the region, highlighting the scope of the challenge that lies ahead if Aberdeen's identity is truly to be redefined from ‘oil capital of Europe’ to ‘net zero capital of the world’.