Framing low-carbon pathways: A discursive analysis of contending storylines surrounding the phase-out of coal-fired power in Ontario

Transition studies have made constructive efforts to attend more closely to the politics of sustainability transitions, with discourse emerging as an increasingly important means of interrogating these dynamics. Drawing on discourse perspectives, this study deploys the multi-dimensional discursive approach to explore framing struggles surrounding a climate change mitigation experience of international significance (the phase-out of coal-fired power in Ontario), revealing how ideas, interests, institutions, and infrastructure (the four I's of sustainable energy transitions) interact in constituting pathways to sustainability. This approach captures the way in which contending actors frame issues and technologies, modulating possibilities and shaping the sequences of choices that link current societal arrangements to future low-carbon states. The study elaborates how processes of negotiation among competing interests and priorities helped define the pathway to eliminate coal. It also suggests that regulatory measures may help to accelerate the pace of transitions and succeed where market approaches are politically untenable.