Global Populists Have a New Take on Climate Policy

When Donald Trump won the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the risk to recent progress on climate policy was immediately obvious: He ran on a promise to increase fossil fuel production, has a long history of denigrating renewable energy, and is hostile to anything with Joe Biden’s name on it, including a raft of policies enacted over the past four years to reduce emissions.

But as unique a character as Trump is, his victory was just one part of an international surge in right-wing populism that has occurred over the past few years, especially in Europe. Right-wing populists focus their appeals on a supposed conflict between ordinary people and what they claim is a corrupt elite; the philosophy is also usually characterized by nativism and a suspicion of international cooperation and integration. All of that comfortably translates into antagonism toward climate action. So if right-wing populists are on the march globally, what are the risks for global climate policy?

The picture is complex — not every populist party puts environmental issues near the center of its agenda. The Alternative for Germany party (also known as AfD) recently gained a high-profile supporter when Elon Musk wrote an op-ed calling it “the last spark of hope” for Germany, citing “cultural integrity” as one of the reasons he supports it. But it was already gaining, even if most Germans find it repellent: In September, it became the first far-right party to win a state election since World War II.

The AfD’s platform (which it has helpfully translated into English) is as full-on denialist as you can find from any major political party; it rejects the idea of anthropogenic climate change and demands an end to German efforts to reduce emissions. “We want to end the perception of CO2 as an exclusively harmful substance and set a stop to Germany’s maverick policy in the reduction of CO2 emissions,” it says.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ PVV is now the largest party in the governing coalition (though after six months of negotiations following the PVV’s showing in the last election, Wilders agreed to let another coalition partner become prime minister). Its platform promised that the Dutch “Climate Act, the [Paris] climate accord and all other climate measures go straight into the shredder.” Austria’s far-right FPO party placed first in elections in September; it opposes most efforts to combat climate change. (Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer, from the center-right OVP or “People’s Party,” resigned Saturday after coalition talks with FPO broke down.)

In last summer’s parliamentary elections in France, the far-right National Rally pledged a rollback of environmental laws, including “slashing the value-added tax on gas, power and fuel from 20 percent to 5.5 percent; freezing all new wind projects; and easing energy efficiency requirements for homeowners looking to sell their properties,” according to Politico. The party failed to win a plurality in the second round of voting, but it displayed a strength that alarmed many environmentalists. And after last year’s European Parliament elections, far-right parties now control a quarter of the seats in the body, more than ever before.

For these parties, the single most important issue is immigration; their appeal is driven by backlash to influxes of newcomers from Syria and northern African countries, which has contributed to a changing demographic picture. But while environmental policies may be secondary, the issues are hardly unrelated. Versions of “Great Replacement” theory are visible everywhere, the idea that liberal elites are importing non-white immigrants to displace native-born whites and transform the nation. In this telling, green policy is one more way the conspiracy of cultural elites tries to control the lives of the nation’s truest citizens.

Far-right parties often get their strongest support in rural areas, just as Republicans do in the U.S., where farmers protest environmental policies imposed from urban capitals and which they see as the brainchildren of cosmopolitan elites who are either indifferent or actively hostile to their needs. Last spring, farmers staged dramatic protests in France, Germany, Belgium, and other countries, protesting environmental policies they said made it difficult for them to earn a living.

In that way, opposition to climate action fits neatly within the rest of the right-wing populist philosophy and agenda, which usually reject international accords like the Paris Agreement and even the existence of the European Union itself. Repealing climate laws can be a way of striking back at experts and cosmopolitan urbanites, whether it’s Trump rolling back EV subsidies or European rightists attacking the EU’s Green Deal, which among other things obligates the continent to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The far-right populist parties aren’t the only ones pushing back certain kinds of climate action; center-right parties are also playing a part, even if historically they have been far more progressive on climate than the GOP. Consider the European Union’s law requiring that no internal-combustion cars be produced after 2035, which passed in 2022. That law is now under attack from the center-right, especially the European People’s Party, the largest bloc in the European Parliament. The EPP (which includes EU president Ursula von der Leyen among its members) is seeking to have the ban repealed, or at least modified to allow for continued production of plug-in hybrids and ICE cars that run on biofuels.

Nevertheless, far-right parties that want to maximize their power to the point where they can lead governing coalitions have an incentive to moderate their rhetoric on climate. One can see that dynamic in Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni, whose rhetoric on the international stage sounds much more progressive than her party does at home, where it still traffics in climate denial. She has even presented climate as a right-wing issue, saying “The right loves the environment because it loves the land, the identity, the homeland.” This version of environmentalism seeks to combat climate change in order to minimize the numbers of future climate migrants from the Global South, many of whom will wind up seeking refuge in Europe.

However you feel about that motivation, it points to a vicious cycle that could emerge in the future: As global temperatures increase and natural disasters become more frequent, more places become uninhabitable and millions of people become climate refugees. They head north into developed countries, where their presence spurs a right-wing backlash that puts far-right populist parties into power. Those parties then reverse progressive climate policies, making it more difficult to reduce emissions and continuing the cycle.

That might not be our future, and the changes to climate policy advocated by the resurgent populist parties haven’t yet been implemented. It’s also possible that the far right’s political moment could be fleeting. But the next few years will offer plenty of reasons to worry.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect political developments in Austria.