2025/02/13 by Joana Díaz Pont, Susana Isabel Curto de Casas, Xavier Martínez Celorrio · 1 voice
Environmental Science · #Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance #Energy and Environment Impacts
paper · doi:10.1080/1523908x.2025.2465671
openalex publication_date 2025/02/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Growing social and political concerns about climate change risk creating a new eco-social divide, where climate and social policies are seen as competing priorities. This divide also raises questions about the democratic legitimacy of pursuing economic growth and well-being within the context of sustainability. Climate change discourse often highlights negative impacts on well-being, while the ongoing welfare crisis amplifies the perception that more immediate issues related to justice, equity and poverty may need prioritization, making participatory approaches to co-create solutions seem essential. We explore the potential of integrated eco-social policies by analyzing the climate and social integration discourse within water governance through a corpus of communications and policy briefings from European-funded climate projects under Green Deal calls. Our corpus-based critical discourse analysis reveals that the concept of policy integration is strongly embedded in discussions around governance and stakeholder engagement. However, while this signals a commitment to eco-social policy integration, we argue that a focus primarily on participatory governance may not be sufficient to bridge emerging divides across eco-social lines.