This year was not an easy time to be Green. Green parties took a beating in June’s European elections, with their seat count plummeting from 71 to 53. In national elections they have not fared much better. The Green party was nearly wiped out in last week’s general election in Ireland, losing all but one of its seats after having been part of a coalition government.
At the same time, climate-skeptic parties framing environmental policies as elitist and unfair have surged across the continent. In Germany, for instance, the far-right Alternative for Germany owes some of its electoral success to its rallying cry against an emerging “eco-dictatorship.”
However, for Green politics, this year was not just a setback — it was a wake-up call, too. The “greenlash” does not mean that the fight against climate breakdown is unwinnable. As European Greens meet in Dublin in the coming days, they will need to reflect on why some people oppose climate action — and think harder about how to construct durable climate coalitions.
Illustration: Mountain People
To start with the first piece of good news: Most Europeans support climate action. Last year, 93 percent of EU citizens rated the climate crisis as a serious issue and 88 percent supported actions to achieve climate-neutral status by 2050. In the UK, the picture is similar: More than 75 percent of voters have expressed concern about climate breakdown, with more than 50 percent calling for government action. Public support for tackling the climate crisis is not in question.
However, here is the hard truth: Turning this broad support into action is not simple. Support often polarizes when concrete policy action is at stake, because the costs of climate policies fall immediately and unevenly. Decommissioning coal plants or scaling back energy-intensive industries can lead to job losses and devastate communities reliant on these sectors. New renewable sources such as windfarms can be unpleasant for those who live near them. And energy taxes hit consumers’ wallets, particularly those who are struggling. The people affected by these changes have valid reasons to challenge them.
The question for policymakers is clear: how to translate overwhelming public support for climate action into workable policies that address the concerns of workers, communities and businesses about the consequences of such policies.
This is where the second piece of good news comes in: Political resistance is not immutable, and we know a lot about how to reduce it. Research from our Progressive Politics Research Network shows that while poorly designed climate policies can trigger protests and polarization, well-designed ones can avoid backlash.
First, policymakers must compensate people for the costs of the climate transition. A just transition is not only about bold climate measures — it is about recognizing the inequalities these measures can create and addressing them head on.
Consider the example of carbon taxes, often a flashpoint for political unrest. In France, the “yellow vest” protests were a stark reminder that poorly designed carbon tax policies can alienate those who feel unfairly targeted.
However, when revenues from carbon taxes are progressively redistributed as cash payments, as in British Columbia, public opposition softens significantly. By returning the revenues directly to citizens, the policy offsets economic burdens, especially for lower-income households, and fosters a sense of fairness.
Compensation does not have to be purely financial. Investing in job training programs, providing subsidies for renewable energy adoption that allow particularly those on lower incomes to benefit, or improving public transportation can create tangible benefits for affected communities. When people see personal benefits to climate action, their willingness to support it increases.
And compensation works: In Spain, for instance, the governing Socialist Workers’ party closed 28 coal mines without losing votes in local communities because it provided generous social benefits and invested in new local job opportunities.
However, compensation alone is insufficient. Political trust is the foundation upon which successful climate policies are built. Research shows that when people trust the government, they are more likely to support climate action, even when it entails short-term costs, but trust is often lacking, and for good reason — governments have a track record of overpromising and underdelivering.
Building trust requires developing processes that people see as providing credible long-term promises. This could mean safeguarding public funds for compensation, aligning climate policies with concrete job opportunities and training programs, or partnering with trusted organizations such as trade unions or business associations to show a genuine commitment.
Finally, policymakers can recast climate action not as an elite agenda, but as a collective endeavor, by partnering with a broad set of actors. The structural changes required by the climate transition can feel deeply unsettling to people. Successful action requires convincing ordinary people that they are part of the solution — not treating them as the problem. Collaborating with unions and workers in fossil-fuel sectors in transition planning ensures that their voices are heard. Partnering with moderate climate activists also helps to shape public perceptions in favor of climate action. In both cases, portraying climate action as a pragmatic necessity, rather than a moral imperative, can build more permanent bridges.
By listening to affected communities, designing policies that address inequities and partnering with trusted local organizations, policymakers can turn climate ambition into sustained progress.
The tools to move forward exist; the challenge is using them wisely.
Bjorn Bremer is an assistant professor of political science at Central European University and a John F. Kennedy Memorial fellow at Harvard University. Jane Gingrich is a professor of social policy at the University of Oxford. Hanna Schwander is a professor of political sociology and social policy at the Humboldt University of Berlin. They are all conveners of the Progressive Politics Research Network.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS