December 20, 2023 - 1:00pm
Not even a month after the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai ended with the usual slew of pledges to transition away from fossil fuels, reality is reasserting itself. This has been nicely captured by two recent headlines: “EU’s green funds are under the guillotine” according to Politico, while the Financial Times informs us that “EU countries are not on track to meet their 2030 climate target.”
Given current trends, it is unlikely that they will get back on track anytime soon. The electoral winds in Europe have shifted, especially since Right-wing populist parties made climate change policies one of the main targets of their campaigns. In Germany, the AfD’s Alice Weidel has openly stated that her party would tear down windmills and abandon the country’s 2050 Net Zero emissions goal. These sentiments are increasingly shared by other Right-wing parties from France to Austria, buoyed by continuous surges in the polls. With Europe on the brink of a recession, the climate agenda is unlikely to remain a top priority for voters — meaning it will also lose salience for politicians who have elections to win.
Once again, Germany is a bellwether. Combining environmental and austerity measures, the traffic light coalition in Berlin decided to cut diesel subsidies and increase the CO2 tax for German farmers. This would add a billion euros per year to the budget, but chancellor Olaf Scholz and his cabinet underestimated the backlash from the agricultural sector. During protests in Berlin at the beginning of this week, the president of the German Farmers’ Association, Joachim Rukwied, gave a stern warning to his government about upcoming protests. “We will be everywhere from January 8, in a way that the country has never experienced before,” he said. “We will not accept this.”
Europe’s agricultural sector feels increasingly squeezed by the EU’s environmental agenda, whether it is Dutch farmers and the use of nitrogen fertilisers, Irish farmers and the demand to kill up to 200,000 cows due to their methane emissions, or plans to reduce farmable land to make room for the EU’s “Nature Restoration Law”. There are further concerns, such as the import of cheap agricultural goods from Ukraine, which has already led to diplomatic issues between Kyiv and EU states Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.
That agricultural issues can swing elections became clear in the Dutch provincial elections of this year, when the Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB) shook off its underdog status to win the popular vote.
There is a growing perception that environmental policies and Net Zero are preoccupations restricted to an affluent elite which stands against everything that matters for the average person, especially cheap food and energy. What’s more, this is beginning to translate into significant political leverage for European Right-wingers. Once ridiculed as one-issue parties which only talk about migration, they are now combining the immigration question with the cost-of-living crisis, which could prove a potent combination in upcoming elections.
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SubscribeEurope doesn’t want a manufacturing sector, doesn’t want to feed itself, and doesn’t want reliable transportation. One wonders where the tax revenues which sustain the lifestyles of the largely public sector workers, academics and NGOs who vote for these measures will come from.
The can will be kicked down the road with substantial borrowing – as it is now.
France and Italy in particular are beginning to run out of road on that strategy.
Haven’t you heard of Modern Money Tree Theory? Didn’t you know that governments can create as much money as they like? So no tax revenues needed. What’s not to like?
You forgot about not wanting to defend itself.
Belief in the neo socialist magic money tree is alive and well in our progressive & now fully detached State – and esp Labour. Like the Soviets, they will milk the system they have broken till it crashes. 92k MPs!
Hopefully the Swingometer of how to save the planet will run back the other way for a good few years.
I have been boring people about pollution, food miles, cutting down consumption and all that stuff for years. We were talking (at Uni, degree in physiology and ecology) about all this back 40 years ago.
No one was remotely interested until some clever people realised they could make money (ie: sell things) to people on the back of a slogan of “Doing the Right Thing”. The only politician I am aware off who tried to address the issues was Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980’s and she was ignored and laughed at.
The recent “plans” for NetZero have become a middle class affectation, virtue signaling, with little thought for those on low incomes both at home and abroad. If you want to destroy food production around Europe then don’t complain when prices rise and countries around the globe rack up prices and then geo-political issues turn up (closing the Red Sea to freight traffic for example) and the shelves start to look empty and Avocados and Almond Milk are unavailable.
And when there is a severe cold snap coupled with calm weather and those oh so beautiful wind turbines rest and there is no power for the cars, the heat pumps, let alone the mobile phones.
I would like to see saint Greta and her ilk walking the walk and not just talking the talk to show me how they are all “Saving the Planet”.
Anyway, rant over, I feel much better now!
Sunk Cost Dilemma. If you’re a brilliant academic and you’ve taken a collective oath and committed your life to resolving a problem through a specific solution (like reduced consumption), how do you back out of that commitment without looking foolish or alienating yourself from fellow collectivist?
Proponents of Degrowth Growth Economics that are now recognizing the impacts, have no good options because they’ll be considered traitors to the cause if they don’t plow forward.
Your post is loaded with contradictions. You appear to care yet go on to ridicule those that are actually doing something. What more would you want from Greta Thunberg?
Does anyone really believe that progressives care about the causes they grandstand on? It’s performance theatre. The performance is the point. In the performance hierarchy, when two causes come into conflict, Climate takes a back seat to Intersectionality and the “Indigenous land rights of the oppressed.”
It’s all about maximum theatre. Left Wing activists don’t care about any of it. All they know is that they need to constantly express self-righteous anger in public about a cause to keep themselves on the “right side of history.”
What do I want from Greta Thunberg ? Silence would be a good start.
She’s one of those people whose contribution is of huge negative value.
“How dare you?!”
What a peculiar claim. You will obviously not like this, but she happens to be one of the most popular people on the planet.
I presume you have some bizarre poll result to back this claim up. Perhaps you would share the evidence.
She could jump in the sea
That she shuts her preachy, hypocritical goblin mouth up already. Go clean your room, little girl.
Their hypocrisy should always have been the giveaway that this was never going to work the way they intended. NetZero was the political equivalent of selling snake oil. People can be hoodwinked by a good salesman in the short term, but trying to hoodwink the same people repeatedly over and over again after the product fails to work is not achievable in most circumstances. The rising objections to NetZero represent the people realizing the true implications of eliminating fossil fuels. When people see through the fantasy of somehow eliminating the cheapest and most efficient source of energy we know of with no consequences, their opinions on the matter change to reflect their new understanding.
In short, there will never be a critical mass of humanity willing to sacrifice for the good of all, and if the globe hopping elites giving lectures on climate change won’t make sacrifices, why should anyone else? Communism didn’t work last century and it won’t work now. Changing the motivation for the scheme, environmental protection rather than fairness and economic equality, won’t produce a different result. You’ll still end up with an inefficient system characterized by low productivity, shortages, and collective poverty. We’re better off gambling that we can handle a warmer climate.
There is only one way to solve the climate crisis, if there truly is such a thing. Invent a new technology that will produce energy as cheaply and as reliably as fossil fuels without producing carbon dioxide. That’s it. That’s the one answer. Believing humans will act collectively for the common good at a global scale is basically the adult equivalent of believing in Santa Claus. This was all terribly predictable for anyone with half a brain.
Thank you for not naming these non-elite, sane policy proposal parties as “far-right!”
Sadly he does refer to “far right populist parties” in the second paragraph.
Overall the article is good though.
Change always happens slowly, and at the margins. Currently, the trend is that populism is rising everywhere and growing in popularity, changing what counts as right, left, extremist, and centrist. The trend cuts across many issues, not all of them equally or in the same political direction. It is overwhelmingly anti-elite, so any issue that is perceived to be emanating from big business or big government or both will feel the greatest pressure and ultimately see the greatest shifts. Environment and migrant policy are two of the areas where the elites are farthest out of step with the majority of their population, so this is where they’re most vulnerable to attack.
As the perception of the majority viewpoint shifts, politicians and media adjust their expectations and rhetoric to remain in office or appeal to a broader customer base. Journalists and politicians became become accustomed to labels like far-right, alt-right, etc. and it will take time for them to break old habits. Once there is a new normal, a new left, right, and center, those that fail to adjust will get to walk a mile in the other man’s shoes as they become the extremists of the new political spectrum.
Yet the only way to tackle this issue is on a huge scale. Policies tinkering at the margins will achieve nothing. Ironically it is the Chinese who are showing how it is done with their massive projects.
China built more coal fired power plants in 2022 than the rest of the world, about 2 per week, so tell me again how the Chinese are showing us how its done. Also, there’s the little difficulty that China is a one-party surveillance state that is attempting to monitor and control every aspect of their people’s lives. Is that what you’re suggesting we emulate? I’m just curious how far down this rabbit hole you’re willing to go, and how you imagine people accustomed to freedom and affluence are likely to react.
Asserting that the only way to tackle this issue is on a global scale says to me that there is no hope of humanity tackling this issue, because human nature is part of nature as much as the climate. Good luck having any impact on either one.
Hence why I used the word ironically. They are the biggest polluter and have an abhorrent culture, but when it comes to large scale energy solutions they are showing how it needs to be done.
Ah, well yes, in that aspect you’re correct. It’s often forgotten how much of America’s energy revolution occurred during the New Deal, through WWII, or as a result of those programs. Energy infrastructure is like transportation. It’s important the government provide it because everyone needs it but it’s a huge investment and most of the benefits are indirect. It takes a long time to make a direct profit. It’s one of the few things private markets don’t seem to handle very well. In my area, virtually all the energy comes from assets built by the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal program to bring electricity to the rural south. The benefits over the decades until today would be difficult to even calculate. I’m no orthodox free trader. Emulating China in that respect is OK by me.
I’d prefer to avoid coal for reasons of pollution rather than climate change. Gas is far cleaner. It still produces carbon dioxide but doesn’t produce most of the other nasty things that burning coal does. Coal plants actually produce more radioactive pollution than nuclear plants due to trace amounts of radioactive elements in the coal, plus plenty of other pollutants, which is then sent up into the atmosphere to settle wherever. I’ll pass on the coal power plants unless the need becomes truly dire.
Do you honestly believe this? Wow. The Chinese are building two coal plants a week. It literally burns more coal than the rest of the world combined.
That is why they can manufacture all those components for the renewable energy industry at such competitive prices.
Haha, the Chinese manufacture so-called green products (EVs, windmills, solar panels) with 80% fossil fuel.
What projects? The Belt and Road Initiative? ‘Investing’ in African countries by lending them money at usurious rates? Building a military base in the Horn of Africa? Constructing the largest surveillance state in the world? Seizing Hong Kong? The social credit system? Far lefties just love authoritarian regimes, even more than they hate capitalism.
‘Populism’ is what the governing class calls democracy when we don’t vote for the policies that make them richer and more powerful. The use of the term should be avoided.
“There is a growing perception that environmental policies and Net Zero are preoccupations restricted to an affluent elite which stands against everything that matters for the average person, especially cheap food and energy.”
Net zero is the most luxuriant of luxury beliefs. That’s why developing nations basically ignore all these international treaties, that’s why coal consumption still continues to set records.
EVs are great if you don’t have to rely on a vehicle for your livelihood, or if you can afford to buy a new car instead of used. Only someone schooled in the finest sophistry of Oxford and Cambridge can look at solar and wind energy and think this is the way forward, that 500 year old technology will fuel the next great economic boom.
EVs, solar & wind energy management are computerised and hence hackable. This dimension is completely missed by all sides. I am writing as a crime-tech-demo-dummy 2009-current in a Melbourne suburb of million $ homes, where I have owned my home since 2001. Look up my name to see some symptoms of Australia’s cyber-dystopia.
The EU/Brit Progressive Elites have been captured by two deeply dangerous ideologies – Net Zero Climate Catastrophism & the toxic Race DEI derangement, whose anti discriminatory zealotry has spread hostility to enterprise & wealth creation. Our leaders have adopted the coercive Diktat and anti democratic impulses of the Soviet CCP. Yes they will be hammered by their electorates – because our both our energy and food security has been damaged long term. But this payback cannot come quick enough – see todays story that the Fake Tories are forcing through yet more coercive ill conceived boiler BS! As with lockdown, it is only a few raggedy backbenchers who fight for sanity against a weedy grouthunk liberal Executive on its knees to the State. And the ballot box gives us o escape from the madness. Labour are wedded to the Green Lies. Millibandism will prevail. And we will suffer blackouts, food shortages and worse while they pursue their neo-Pol Potism. Hashtag. No escape in UK. Viva the farmers and rebels of Europe.
Fewer and fewer people are buying the “climate emergency” narrative. Not that they do not believe in climate change, anyone with sense knows the climate is always changing, but they are not overly concerned about it. They are certainly not prepared to be put out of work or go hungry for it.
No, I suspect that the Net Zero goals and the whole climate emergency narrative are going to die off slowly. Nobody will admit it was a failure or a mistake, they will just let it fade out a little at a time and then replace it with some new world ending emergency with a new narrative that kids can feel motivated to mutilate art for.
Actually, today British wind farms set a record for power generation.
The record was still only about two thirds of installed capacity, so there still needs to be a trebling of installed capacity by 2030.
Perhaps all that extra wind needed by Britain might also help pigs fly…..
The picture. Ursula von der Leyen goes Johannes Nepomuk?
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That’s six times now Jim. A little patience?
I was really really frustrated when a perfectly banal comment was put into moderation. To credit Unherd, they changed course pretty quickly. I maybe overreacted a touch.
Your perfectly banal comment has totally vanished six times, so I have no idea whether or not it said something outrageous.
They put it back up. It’s the only comment I have on here that is not a reply.
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