Patterns in Nordic Arctic Renewable Energy Transitions: Identifying Themes, Differences, and Gaps Through Topic Modelling

This paper examines the role of energy policies that affect renewable energy expansion in the Nordic Arctic region. Applying topic modelling and qualitative analysis of a corpus of policy documents from six organisations active on the global, EU, and Nordic Arctic levels, we observe that the global and Nordic Arctic policy documents are similar to each other and express broader perspectives regarding energy transition than EU policy documents, which express a narrow focus. Qualitative analysis of these documents shows that geopolitics, justice, geographic locations, and sustainable development goals (SDGs) are surprisingly invisible in the corpus. To make policy documents more inclusive, there is a need to incorporate places and address complex situations in detail. Furthermore, land-use conflicts that are surfacing as the 'green' transition is materializing should also be addressed as part.