Year in a word: Greenlash
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(portmanteau noun) backlash against environmental politics Not to be confused with greenwashing, green silence, or green desire
It seems like it was only yesterday that green politics was on the move. If the US didn’t pass the biggest climate law ever the history of the countryit was EU law for the world first major carbon border tax or UK pledges to stop sales of new petrol and diesel cars until 2030.
Green progress was particularly noticeable in Europe. By 2022, the EU’s renewable energy production was so large that solar and wind has overtaken gas for the first time. EU emissions are set to fall by 8 percent in 2023, the sharpest annual decline in decades outside 2020.
But as climate promises materialized, inflation fueled cost-of-living worries. Net zero-skeptic populist parties used them to denounce green policies as an expensive elitist conspiracy against working people.
As 2023 turned into 2024, the green march began to slip withdrew from green targets. Germany watered down The controversial heat pump law that helped boost poll numbers for the far-right AFD party Above 20 percent. Brussels scrapped plan to halve the use of pesticides Green parties were defeated in the European Parliament elections in June.
In the UK, the former Conservative government delayed the ban on new petrol and diesel cars until 2035.
However, the Conservatives still suffered a crushing defeat for the Labor Party, which pledged to restore the 2030 target and is still committed to an ambitious decarbonisation agenda.
It’s a reminder that going green has limits, as does China’s ruthlessness toward green energy dominance. But with the incoming Trump administration expected to change climate policy and populism showing no sign of abating in Europe, it’s clear that pregnant green politics is by no means the norm. doesn’t end.
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