How climate change backlash will impact European elections

Over the past five years, European Union leaders have sought to position the 27-nation bloc as a pioneer in global climate action.

They have made big strides: They have enshrined in law an ambitious goal to cut planet-warming emissions by more than half by 2030; set a 2035 deadline for selling new gas-guzzling cars; and increased the price industry must pay for greenhouse gas emissions.

But as voters prepare to head to the polls this week, the credibility of Europe’s environmental commitment will face an entirely different test.

Discontent over high prices is widespread; farming organisations have descended on European capitals to protest proposals to limit agricultural pollution; and the right is on the rise; the Green Party, which won the most seats in the 2019 European Parliament elections, is now struggling in popularity.

If Europe loses the green group in the upcoming elections, it could have far-reaching consequences not only for European citizens and businesses, but also for the rest of the world: Europe is one of the biggest polluters in history.

“A lot is at stake,” Laurence Tubiana, one of the key architects of the Paris climate accord and now president of the European Climate Foundation, said in an email. “We cannot take the gains of the past five years for granted.”

Here are five lessons to take from the European elections:

The climate crisis has reached a new crisis.

In the 2019 election, the European Greens won 10 percent of the seats in the 705-seat parliament, making them a challenger to the main conservative party, the European People’s Party.

The zeitgeist at the time was environmentalism: climate change protesters took to the streets of European capitals, demanding action.

The European Union quickly approved the European Green Deal, which sets out a legally binding target to reduce emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

Then three big events happened: the pandemic, inflation, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a war that forced European countries almost overnight to abandon what had been a cheap source of electricity: natural gas delivered by pipeline from Russia.

Germany, the European Union’s economic powerhouse, felt the effects so keenly that government efforts to speed up the adoption of heat pumps became embroiled in a culture war: Conservative and right-wing politicians, supported by a populist press, vehemently opposed the measure, which political parties described (somewhat incorrectly) as a ban on gas boilers. The government was forced to retract and revise the proposal.

But global warming continued to be a problem.

Europe is warming faster than the global average, and the dangers are clear from fires in Greece, floods in Germany and devastating heat waves in Italy and Spain.

Polls show strong support for climate action, but also concern about the cost and signs of what the research institute the European Council on Foreign Relations calls a “growing green rush.” ​​”People want action to be taken against the climate crisis, but they don’t want to shoulder the huge costs of the green transition themselves,” the council said in a recent analysis.

This vote will be significant for years to come.

The direct impact will be on the EU’s emissions reduction targets up to 2040.

The current proposal from the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, calls for a 90 percent reduction by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. It is unclear what the next Commission will support, especially since the next round of cuts is likely to require changes to things that affect everyday life, such as home heating (the heat pump debate) and transport. It will be interesting to see what the 2035 ban on new car sales will be.

Perhaps the toughest question is what to do about emissions from agriculture.

Farmer protests across Europe have led current governments to withdraw proposals to limit agricultural pollution.

Europe’s options for a clean energy transition are overshadowed by those in the United States and China. The Biden administration Offering tax breaks to green-energy companies, from battery factories to carbon removal projects, China is exporting low-cost solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric cars around the world.

Rystad Energy, a private company that tracks energy trends, said the European Union’s investment of about $125 billion in clean energy technologies will soon lag behind that of the United States.

Politicians are painting the Green Deal.

The European People’s Party has billed the Green Deal as its signature achievement, even as it cut unpopular provisions like agriculture with a view to a referendum. It casts it as a way to end Europe’s dependence on Russia. “We have turned Putin’s challenge into a great new opportunity,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in January.

And the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists have portrayed parts of the Green Deal – such as setting aside land for reconstruction rather than for agriculture – as a culture war issue that unfairly targets farmers. In its election manifesto, the party promised to look into what it calls the Green Deal’s “more problematic goals.”

The message the Greens want to get to voters is that European companies need a clear signal that they can compete in the green industries of the future. “This election will decide the future of European climate policy,” Green leader Bas Eickhout said by phone. “If we stop working now, it would be bad news for European industry.”

The changes have (so far) been “resilient.”

The adoption of renewable energies has made great strides, with the European Union on track to get 70% of its electricity from wind and solar by 2030, according to research group E3G, European laws have put a price on climate pollution in some industries, and European automakers are making a belated shift to electric vehicles.

The Green Deal “has turned out to be a much stronger and more robust political agenda than many had expected,” said E3G analyst Peter de Pous, “but it also now faces formidable political opposition, particularly from the far right.”

Christopher Schutze and Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.