How the Rise of Populism is Fuelling Climate Science Denial Across Europe

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By Mat Hope, DeSmog, and Eduardo Robaina, La Marea/Climรกtica.ย Lee en espaรฑol enย Climรกtica.

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climateย story.ย ย 

In December 2015, European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker stood at a podium to hail the worldโ€™s first comprehensive agreement to take action on climate change, and told the world, โ€œthe Paris Agreement now reflects our ambition worldwide.โ€ While the European Unionโ€™s leaders stand by that sentiment, a lot has changed sinceย then.

The Union is facing a credibility crisis, threatened by Brexit and the rise of populism across the continent. Its leadership is facing calls to simultaneously increase its ambition to tackle climate change and cut the very regulations that would deliver reductions in globe-warmingย pollution.

Climate policy โ€” a seemingly unlikely candidate for controversy back in 2015 โ€” is suddenly at the heart of a European powerย struggle.

Boris Johnsonโ€™s Cabinet of Climate Scienceย Deniers

Donald Trump and Boris Johnson at G7
President Donaldย Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson continue to talk August 25, 2019, during the G7 Summit. Credit: White House, publicย domain

The EUโ€™s struggles are mirrored, somewhat ironically, in the UK. Boris Johnson used his first address as the UKโ€™s new Prime Minister to tell parliament that his government would โ€œplace the climate change agenda at the absolute core of what we areย doing.โ€

This came as something of a surprise, given Johnsonโ€™s previous statements on climateย change.

In December 2015, following the signing of the landmark Paris Agreement, Johnson wrote a column for one of the UKโ€™s top broadsheet newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, in which he said that mainstream climate science was โ€œwithout foundationโ€. In the same column, he praised the work of notorious climate science denier Piers Corbyn (who happens to be the brother of the now leader-of-the-opposition, Jeremyย Corbyn).

This general disdain for the idea that climate change is a problem was in evidence during Johnsonโ€™s time as Foreign Secretary, where he presided over a 60 percent cut in the UKโ€™s โ€œclimate attachesโ€. And despite early words reaffirming his commitment to climate action, Johnsonโ€™s behavior as Prime Minister has been more in keeping with this latter version ofย himself.

On taking office, he quickly surrounded himself with key allies from his days leading the UKโ€™s pro-Brexit campaign, both in his cabinet and his close staff. All the appointees are part of a network of trans-Atlantic thinktanks and campaign groups pushing for environmental deregulation post-Brexit, based in and around offices at the now notorious address of 55 Tufton Street.

Matthew Elliott โ€” formerly Chief Executive of Vote Leave, founder of the Taxpayersโ€™ Alliance, and husband of a former Koch brothers employee and current chief of Republicans Overseas UK โ€” is reportedly advising Johnsonโ€™s newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid. One of Elliottโ€™s former employees at the Taxpayersโ€™ Alliance, Chloe Westley, is now working in the Prime Ministerโ€™s Office at Number 10. And several other staffers from the network are now advising cabinet members including Secretary of State for International Trade, Lizย Truss.

Johnsonโ€™s prime ministerial campaign was also funded by two donors with close ties to the Global Warming Policy Foundation โ€” the UKโ€™s premier climate science denial campaign group, which is based in 55 Tufton Street โ€” hedgefund manager Michael Hintze and Bristol Port owner Terence Mordaunt.

Johnsonโ€™s loyalty to this network is partly born from the necessity of keeping the electoral threat of Nigel Farageโ€™s Brexit Party at bay. At the last European Union parliament election in May 2019, Farageโ€™s new outfit emerged victorious, sending 29 MEPs to the European Parliament. Of those, the UK public elected 10 Brexit Party candidates who have denied or downplayed the climate crisis or who have well-publicised ties to climate science denialย groups.

To counter that threat, the Prime Minister is now largely aping the populist partyโ€™s positions, including its antipathy towards climate action.

Spainโ€™s Climate Science Denialย Revival

Vox president Santiago Abascal
VOX president Santiago Abascal greets supporters after voting in the April elections. Credit: Eduardo Robaina/Laย Marea

The Brexit Party MEPs are far from the only climate science deniers to find themselves in Brusselโ€™s corridors of power. Spainโ€™s far-right party, VOX,ย  which has three MEPs in the European Parliament and a similar disdain for climate policy, will be joining forces with the Brexit Party representatives to form an anti-climate actionย bloc.

Like the Brexit Party (and by extension, Johnsonโ€™s Conservative Party), VOXโ€™s representatives are quick to argue that climate policy is an expensive solution to a problem that doesnโ€™t reallyย exist.

โ€œAre you aware of climate change?โ€, โ€œWhat do you do every day to fight against climate change?โ€. Earlier this summer, a television journalist asked these questions to Santiago Abascal, founder and leader of VOX. His brief response was: โ€œI don’t know the scientific issues and I have to admit that I’m not in that debate. (โ€ฆ) The debate on climate change, if it is a natural change, if it is a change that obeys the human being, then it is something that I really don’tย knowโ€.

The answer, though predictable, perfectly reflects how climate issues for the far-right Spanish party are still a debate, despite the fact that 97 percent of climate scientists, and virtually all scientific literature, confirm the idea that humans are causing climateย change.

This rejection of the issue was also evident in the ‘100 measures for Live Espaรฑaโ€™, the electoral programme that VOX presented for the elections held last April. The document made no mention of the effects of climate change or its causes, let alone mitigation and adaptation measures. However, this did not prevent the party from entering the Spanish Congress for the first time with 24 deputies and more than 10 percent of theย votes.

Before the election, an internal document used to establish party positions on various issues called it โ€œvery arrogantโ€ to believe that โ€œmanโ€ is responsible for changes in the climate, but that โ€œit is even more soโ€ to believe that it can be changed through strong laws and taxes. That is why, the text states, they do not intend to โ€œwaste more money on thisย scamโ€.ย 

To support these claims, VOX refers to former Greenpeace Canada employee Patrick Moore, known in recent years for making public statements minimizing the dangers of climate change while posing as co-founder of the environmental organization. Moore is now a director of a public relations firm. Greenpeace calls him a โ€œpaid representative for pollutingย corporations.โ€

Jorge Buxadรฉ, Rocรญo Monasterio, and Santiago Abascal of Vox
Jorge Buxadรฉ, Rocรญo Monasterio and Santiago Abascal during a VOXย  campaign event. Credit: VOX,ย publicย domain

Other VOX party personalities have also made disparaging statements about the need for climate action. Rocรญo Monasterio, president of the party in her branch in Madrid, described in an interview climate change as the โ€œclimate hoaxโ€, while MEP Jorge Buxadรฉ said in a recent debate that โ€œthe rest of the countries must fulfill the same commitments as Europeans in the fight against climate change. The current situation is anย injusticeโ€.

One of this partyโ€™s latest attempts to discredit climate science occurred at the end of August. The Spanish Senate had planned to approve a declaration showing support after three fires burned nearly 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) on the small Spanish island of Gran Canaria. However, this initiative was frustrated after the only VOX representativeย there, Francisco Josรฉ Alcaraz, voted against it because, he said, โ€œits content was being used to justify progressive ideological postulatesโ€ and because of its reference to the effects of global warming, which has contributed to more intenseย wildfires.ย 

An even more recent effort came this past Tuesday when the Spanishย Congress approved a proposal toย declare a state of climate emergency. The motion went ahead withย all parties voting in favor, except forย the bloc led by VOX‘s Santiagoย Abascal.*

While VOX is a political newcomer, these ideas have long been installed in Spain. VOX was born from the hand of politicians who abandoned the Partido Popular (PP), the hegemonic formation of the right wing in Spain that has governed for much of democracy. Josรฉ Marรญa Aznar, former president of the PP government for eight years, founded the FAES foundation after abandoning politics. One of the many economic activities of this Spanish ultraconservative thinktank is to publish books such as those by Nigel Lawson and Vaclav Klaus, two of the most prominent European voices in denying the climateย crisis.

Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus welcomes former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar
Czech Republic’s President Vaclav Klaus, left, welcomes former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, right, in Prague October 24, 2011. Credit: REUTERS/David Wย Cerny

More Examples inย Europe

Spain and the UK are not the only countries in Europe to see a populist revival, leading to a re-emergence of climate scienceย denial.

Extreme right party representation in the European Parliament
Extreme right party representation in the Europeanย Parliament

Since entering Germanyโ€™s parliament two years ago on an anti-Muslim and anti-immigration manifesto, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has embraced climate science denial as a campaign strategy. Its election manifesto denies human-induced climate change and erroneously claims that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has meant โ€œworld food harvests have increasedย significantlyโ€.

Likewise, Belgiumโ€™s Peopleโ€™s Party rejects climate action as a โ€œcollective hysteriaโ€. Netherlandsโ€™ Party for Freedom argues that there is no independent evidence that humans cause climate change and slams the work of the UNโ€™s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as unable to prove that relationship. And Austriaโ€™s far-right Freedom Party sees climate change as a globalistย threat.

Powerย Struggle

European Parliament
Outside the European Commission. Credit:ย Thijs ter Haar,ย CC BYย 2.0

While dragging national debates into an anti-scientific mire, these populist parties are expected to have a limited impact on the European Unionโ€™s climate policies, however โ€” partly thanks to a strong showing for Europeโ€™s green parties in Mayโ€™sย election.

Overall, the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) won a total of 69 seats, 19 more than in the last election in 2014. Germanyโ€™s alliance of environmental parties were the biggest winners, getting 22 seats. The UK elected nine Green Party MEPs, two more than in 2014. Spain elected three green party candidates. Now, after some changes, Greens/EFA have 74 MEPs, representing nearly 10 percent of the Europeanย Parliament.

The influence of this bloc of green representatives is already being felt. In July 2019, the European Commissionโ€™s new president, Ursula Von Leyden, was forced to commit to increasing the Unionโ€™s climate ambition in order to secure the support from the green bloc which she needed to win herย post.

Number of seats held by the extreme right in parliaments of countries in the European Union.
Number of seats held by the extreme right in parliaments of countries in the Europeanย Union.

The rapid growth of the green movement across Europe, both in terms of its electoral success and public support thanks to new campaigns inspired by Swedish student Greta Thunberg, has helped curb the extreme right, which aspired to become the second most powerful force in the European Parliament. And the success of greens also has been enough to seriously worry opponents of climateย action.

A coalition of Europeโ€™s fringe climate science denial groups had been planning a media blitz for mid-September, according to recently leaked documents. These plans include press conferences in multiple European capitals and a letter supposedly signed by โ€œ400 independent climate scientists and professionalsโ€ to be sent to European Union leaders, the UNโ€™s Secretary-General, and the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climateย Change.

While that action is unlikely to have any real impact on the continentโ€™s climate policy, it is symbolic of a new politics confronting EU leaders โ€” one in which fringe voices increasingly have a platform, which they are using to try and deconstruct the European Unionโ€™s long-held leadership on climateย change.

Updated 9/19/2019: This story has been updated to include the VOX party voting against a climate emergencyย declaration.

Main image: In the European Union, the populist movement is going in one direction and climate science the other. Credit: Laย Marea

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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