Politicians are vowing to roll back green policies and downplaying climate change ahead of key elections on both sides of the Atlantic, casting doubt on whether countries can maintain momentum in the transition away from fossil fuels.
In the US, former President Donald Trump, who has a long record of climate denial, is the frontrunner to challenge President Joe Biden in November. On the campaign trail, Trump has minimized the effects of climate change, attacked electric vehicles and pledged to repeal Biden’s signature climate law.
Meanwhile, in Europe, polls show right-wing parties that oppose strong climate action are likely to increase their representation after the European Union’s parliamentary elections in June, while the climate-minded Greens are expected to lose seats.
That raises the prospect of the US and the EU, two of the world’s top three climate polluters, retreating on environmental ambition following the world’s hottest year on record.
The shift is a mix of backpedaling — goals being pushed back or watered down — and backlash. The growing hostility in some cases veers into outright climate denial and is part of a drift into authoritarian rhetoric that relies on attacks and emotional appeals more than traditional policy debate.
Scientists warn that what’s at stake is a livable planet. Earth has already warmed 1.2C compared to the preindustrial era, and that’s on track to go up to about 2.5C by the end of the century if the world doesn’t speed up the shift to clean energy. Any slow-walking comes at the risk of additional warming that’s already driving disasters and costing billions of dollars every year.
Climate isn’t a core issue for most voters the way the economy and security are. But the populist right has made climate policy another culture-wars flash point — an example in their eyes of costly, intrusive overreach that compromises personal choice and national sovereignty.
Much of the right believes that the bigger threat “is not climate change; it’s the actions taken by governments to decarbonize economies,” says Mahir Yazar, a researcher at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Part of the reason the political winds are shifting is that climate regulations, as they ramp up in stringency, are starting to impinge more on people’s daily lives — at a time when many feel squeezed by inflation and the cost of living.
“Do you choose a heat pump in your house? What car are you going to drive? These are emotional things to people,” said Bas Eickhout, a Dutch member of the European parliament with the European Green Party.
Far-right politicians have prospered by tapping into that sentiment. Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders won over voters last year by promising to scrap the Netherlands’ climate law and exit the Paris Agreement. Libertarian Javier Milei, who has called global warming “a socialist lie,” became Argentina’s new president in December. Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, which rejects the decades-old scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, has promised to tear down Germany’s wind farms and has recently broadened its public support.
Closer to the political center, leaders are scrambling to show they’re not prioritizing net zero at the expense of household budgets or consumer choice.
In the UK — by some measures a world leader in efforts to cut carbon emissions — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hit the brakes on decarbonizing as one of his ministers vowed the Conservative government wouldn’t “save the planet by bankrupting Britons.” The rival Labour Party dropped its own pledge to invest £28 billion in green projects should it win the country’s next general election.
But abandoning pledges is one thing; undoing settled policy is another. The US Inflation Reduction Act and European Green Deal are enacted as law, and many billions of dollars have already been spent by governments and the private sector alike on renewable power, electric vehicle infrastructure and scaling up new technologies like clean hydrogen.
Speaking about Trump, former US Vice President Al Gore told Bloomberg Television last month that even if he wins, “we would see a continuation of this progress toward zero carbon.” During Trump’s first term, Gore said, “we continued to march toward renewable energy on the business side and state governments continued to pursue carbon reduction.”
Rhetoric sometimes runs headlong into a different political reality. Wilders, for example, is struggling to form a government in the Netherlands and may have to sacrifice his anti-climate stance to get support from more centrist parties. Climate-denying Milei is looking at setting up a carbon market as a way to increase revenue for Argentina’s government.
On the flip side, as Trump attacks electric cars and US growth in EV sales slows, the Biden administration is preparing to ease aggressive proposed requirements for cutting vehicle emissions.
We take a closer look to see how rhetoric relates to policy and where backward steps are most likely.
US
There are few issues more polarized in the US than climate change. Democrats overwhelmingly support the government acting to address the crisis, and Biden has taken more steps to do so — chief among them the passage of the IRA — than any of his predecessors.
Republicans, in sharp contrast, are much less inclined to support climate measures, and Trump knows it.
He’s said that people are too worried about global warming, and described solar energy as “massively expensive” when it is in fact cheaper than coal in the US and much of the world. He’s repeatedly bashed electric vehicles and has falsely described Biden’s signature climate law, which he vows to repeal, as “the biggest tax hike in history.”
If Trump prevails and Republicans also gain control of both chambers in Congress, they would likely try to narrow eligibility for IRA tax credits and incentives so fewer people and businesses could claim them.
But overturning the IRA — a sprawling law that supports the ramp-up of renewables and clean technology across the economy — would be very difficult, experts say.
“Its major parts are durable because Congress has a hard time doing anything unless it changes drastically,” said Samantha Gross, director at the Brookings Institution’s Energy Security and Climate Initiative. Even on a textual level, it’s not easy to unravel. “The IRA is pretty prescriptive — there’s less interpretation to be done there that you can then go to the courts and say, ‘The Treasury didn’t interpret this correctly.’”
There are many other things Trump could do to stymie the climate fight if he wins on Nov. 5, said David Victor, co-director of the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at the University of California at San Diego. His first term as president offers clues.
He could pull the US out of the Paris Agreement again, unravel climate-related executive orders with a flick of the pen, pause crackdowns of polluters, water down or undo regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency and shut down climate initiatives within the State Department and other federal agencies.
A recent analysis by the San Francisco think tank Energy Innovation found that if Trump were to win a second term, repeal the IRA and dismantle other environmental regulations, US emissions would continue to fall, but at a greatly diminished speed — getting to 24% below 2005 levels by 2030, compared to 50% if Biden were reelected and pursued the same policy course.
EU
Undoing current climate policy in the European Union would be even harder than torpedoing the IRA. The EU’s target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 is a matter of law, and there are dozens of more specific laws that regulate how to do it.
“If you’re looking at the next five years, the risk of rolling back climate legislation isn’t significant,” said Manon Dufour, head of the Brussels office at think tank E3G. “But the risk of slowing down is there.”
But a newly floated, aggressive target to cut carbon 90% by 2040 has already triggered a heated response just four months ahead of EU Parliament elections. Sylvia Limmer, a German lawmaker in the body and an AfD member, called the target “political climate madness.” The bloc’s executive branch, the European Commission, preemptively watered down an agricultural component of its new climate roadmap as farmers blocked roads and staged other protests against green rules.
The center-right European People’s Party is expected to retain a plurality of seats in the June elections, but weaker results for other parties that support climate policy would make approving new rules more challenging. “It’s all about how strong of an electoral win the EPP has in June, and what kind of choices they make in this new reality,” Dufour said. “If they side with the far right in parliament, that could slow down the transition very significantly.”
The outcome could mean “the difference between really meaningful, sharp emissions reductions versus the sort of gradual decrease” that would make the bloc’s path to net zero steeper, said Anand Gopal, executive director of policy research at Energy Innovation.
The far right’s traction doesn’t mean Europeans overall aren’t concerned about the climate crisis. A recent survey found it has changed how people think about the future more than any other issue.
UK
Mixed signals reign in the UK, where Sunak has called for a “more proportionate” response to the climate crisis but insists the government is still serious about reaching net zero.
In his messaging, Sunak has tried to balance acknowledging that climate change exists with playing to anxieties about the cost of ameliorating it, said Gideon Skinner, head of politics research at Ipsos Mori, a pollster. This is because the British public consistently says it cares about climate change and thinks the government isn’t doing enough to tackle it.
Sunak postponed a key green target last year, moving the deadline to end the sale of new gas vehicles (excluding used ones) from 2030 to 2035. Likewise, the government also pushed back a deadline for ending the sale of oil boilers, scrapped requirements for landlords to improve the energy efficiency of privately rented properties and is considering dropping a planned requirement for boiler companies to sell a minimum number of heat pumps.
At the same time, it has taken other emissions-cutting steps. It increased the subsidy offered to homeowners for installing a heat pump, prompting a rise in demand. The government also introduced a mandate requiring all car manufacturers to make an escalating proportion of their sales electric.
A spokesperson for the government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said in a statement that its approach is “fairer and more pragmatic” and will give families more time to make the transition, noting that the UK halved its emissions before any other major economy. “We will continue to lead the way with some of the strongest green targets in the world,” the spokesperson said.
Companies and industry groups say the current approach sows confusion. “Mixed messages, delays and u-turns do nothing for market confidence,” said Tamsin Lishman, chief executive officer of the Kensa Group, a heat pump company.
Last September, a group of over 250 businesses and NGOs published an open letter to the prime minister, noting the business community had made “substantial investments” in the energy transition and that sticking with net zero policies was crucial to building confidence and mobilizing investment.
David Victor, of the University of California at San Diego, contrasted politicians who “want to speak to a constituency that doesn’t want climate action and, more fundamentally, doesn’t want government involved in the economy,” with those who more pragmatically retreat from targets they don’t think they can meet.
In the UK, he said, “You’ve got both of those things going on simultaneously, and it makes for very, very chaotic public policy.”
So far, it’s not helping Sunak’s Conservatives in the polls, either: His party trails Labour by a wide margin.
Argentina
In Argentina, economist Javier Milei rose to power last year on a libertarian platform that appealed to voters grappling with inflation and poverty. During his campaign for the presidency, he denied that global warming was being caused by human activity — at one point he labeled the proven science part of a “socialist agenda” — and said he wouldn’t promote green finance, since it should be down to free energy markets, not governments, to “pick the winners.”
His rival in the election, incumbent leftist Sergio Massa, singled out Milei’s climate denial in an attempt to dim the enthusiasm building around him. It didn’t work.
Drawing comparisons with Donald Trump (the two have expressed admiration for one another), Milei took office in December with a promise to deregulate the economy to solve Argentines’ struggles. That made him an outlier among his South American neighbors: Brazil, Chile and Colombia have all recently elected leftist leaders who’ve pledged strong action on climate change. Brazil slowed deforestation in the Amazon last year, while Colombia is trying to become less dependent on fossil fuels.
As Milei has focused on macroeconomic reforms and austerity, his government scrapped the ministry for the environment and sustainable development, relegating those areas to the department for sports and tourism.
But despite being a maverick, Milei has quickly learned that in order to govern he must make concessions. And his signature reforms legislation — which failed a first attempt to get the approval of congress — includes the introduction of a carbon cap and trade system.
Under the proposed rules, which Milei is looking for a way to revive, Argentina would seek to meet its globally-agreed 2030 climate goals through annual caps on greenhouse gas emissions that the government would assign industry by industry. Companies exceeding the cap would incur fines, or they could fall back on a government-created marketplace to “buy” emissions from others that meet the cap with room to spare.
Whether or not Milei ultimately delivers on a policy that is so at odds with his fiercely anti-climate rhetoric, Argentina is not a top global emitter. Neither is the UK. But the US and EU are, and if they backslide in tandem, it will not only compromise their own and the world’s targets but send a signal to other nations that cutting emissions at a slower rate is sufficient. This year of elections is also a year when, under the Paris Agreement, countries are supposed to submit more ambitious national climate goals to the United Nations.
The energy transition will continue even if Europe’s momentum flags, E3G’s Dufour said, but decarbonizing sectors like agriculture and heavy industry would become more challenging: “That’s where a slowdown in Europe and the US would have negative impacts.”
A U-turn by the US would be consequential on a global scale, said Gopal of Energy Innovation. It would carry the “implication that the US is once more not taking climate seriously,” he said, and “could lead other countries to have less and less ambitious targets.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
