Europe is in the middle of a ‘greenlash.’ If Canada doesn’t put workers first in its green transition, we could be next

Seven in 10 Canadians say they’re worried about climate change, so you might think it’s strange to hear Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives railing against “woke” green policies and vowing to “axe the tax.” But Canadians who want to see action on climate change should pay closer attention to what’s happening in Europe, where a cost-of-living crisis, and far-right populists are threatening to derail years of progress towards a green transition. Last week’s European Union elections revealed two troubling but interrelated trends: a collapse in support for green-friendly parties on one hand, and a rise in support for far-right parties on the other. Green parties, who are significantly more successful in Europe than Canada, were among the biggest losers on election night, losing one-quarter of their seats in the EU parliament, and falling from fourth to sixth place behind two separate blocs of far-right parties. PressProgress editor Luke LeBrun. Handout photograph Germany’s Greens—who appeal to affluent white-collar urban voters, and might be more closely aligned ideologically with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals than Elizabeth May’s “not left, not right” Greens—are currently partners in a coalition government and control several important ministries. But even in Germany, Green support was cut in half from 20.5 per cent in 2019 to 11.9 per cent in 2024. The social democratic SPD—the party of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that currently heads the coalition government with the smaller Greens and Liberals—didn’t do much better: the party received 13.9 per cent in the 2024 vote compared to 15.8 per cent in 2019. Both coalition parties actually got fewer votes than the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party so extreme French far-right parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen kicked them out of her group after their top candidate went on a "not all Nazi SS officers" tangent. If that’s not troubling enough, the AfD is also under surveillance by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, and one of its former MPs was arrested for planning a coup. The AfD, whose official climate change policy rejects mainstream climate science, spent much of its campaign attacking Greens and green policies. The stakes could be high. The loss of so many Green MEPs could put the European Green Deal in jeopardy. Both centre-right and far-right voices in the EU parliament are now musing about rolling back key features of the landmark climate legislation. While this backlash against green policies—or “greenlash”—might surprise some Canadians, the underlying conditions in Europe are really not so different from what’s happening here at home. In both Canada and Europe, polling shows a clear consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activity. Most people also want the government to do something about it. But both here and abroad, people are also unhappy about rising costs of living, and they’re directing their anger and frustration at incumbent governments. While Canada’s affordability crisis revolves around real estate and the post-pandemic impacts of inflation, Germany and other European countries have been dealing with that, too, plus rising energy and food prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Laura-Kristine Krause, the Berlin-based executive director of More in Common, a non-profit group focused on issues of social cohesion, said polling data is clear that the collapse of Germany’s Greens is not a reflection of a sudden shift in beliefs about climate change. “Eighty per cent of Germans are worried about climate, 67 per cent of Germans want more action on climate,” Krause pointed out. “We don’t have a huge climate-denier camp.” In fact, other research from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) shows climate change remains a top issue in the minds of voters, though this was overtaken by those worrying about the rising costs of everyday life, and later morphed into anxieties about immigration. “Our data shows momentum for the European Green Deal is a bit lost,” ECFR senior research fellow Jana Puglierin said. “More people would say—if it were up to them—European governments should do everything possible to reduce energy bills, even if that meant missing carbon emissions .” Scholz’s coalition government found that out the hard way after his Green coalition partners brought forward legislation to phase out oil and gas heat pumps from German homes. The coalition was forced to make changes after it nearly led to the government’s collapse. Canadians may see parallels between Scholz’s heat pump debacle and the Trudeau government’s decision to pause carbon pricing on home heating oil last year, an acknowledgment of the impact of inflation and rising costs of living. Here in Canada, costs of living and housing affordability also overshadow climate change, though climate change consistently ranks as a top concern for Canadians. While carbon pricing is not unpopular per se, Abacus Data says opposition in Ontario and Atlantic Canada could make it a “decisive factor in the next federal election.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a carbon price carveout for home heating oil, backed by members of his Atlantic caucus, in October 2023. It was an acknowledgment of the affordability crisis, but also a blow to his party’s messaging on the environmental file. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Over in Berlin, senior SPD officials acknowledge green policies need to centre the interests of working people. One challenge for them is that their Green coalition partners—who are to the right of the SPD on economic issues—are steering that agenda. Manon Luther, an SPD candidate for the European Parliament, insists Germany’s coalition government has an “outstanding record” on getting new solar and wind energy infrastructure built, but acknowledges the way its green policies were implemented and communicated has been problematic. “In Germany, we had a big consensus that we want cleaner energy, and I still believe that there is this consensus, but there have been some policies that made it very difficult,” Luther conceded. “We always told them, ‘clean energy is great and we will make it in a social way and you’re not going to pay for it.’ And the first thing we did? We made them pay for it.” It’s been difficult in Canada, too, where the Liberal government has struggled to communicate how carbon pricing works, and Poilievre has inaccurately blamed carbon pricing for higher food prices. This can feed perceptions that green policies are implemented in ways that feel technocratic and tone deaf, something that not only erodes support for those policies, but also plays into the hands of far-right populists. René Cuperus, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute, said the far right portrays green policies as a “technocratic transition laid upon society without consent.” The concerns of ordinary people are seen at odds with the “policy-making classes” who appear “only interested in climate.” In Cuperus’ view, what’s playing out across Europe are symptoms of a deeper malaise, a “struggle between transition and tradition” casting those on the periphery of society against “metropolitan elites.” Far-right messaging and conspiracies online that play on these themes are also a big factor in what’s going on, and help explain the literal and figurative attacks on Greens by the far right. The AfD’s YouTube channel has videos with more than one million views claiming Greens are trying to restore East German-style communism, while one AfD politician was quoted declaring that the “Greens are our main enemy.” ECFR research shows majorities in some European countries believe their leaders—including Germany’s Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron—are deliberately driving up energy prices as part of a green agenda when, in reality, other factors, like Russia’s war on Ukraine, were bigger drivers of that. The AfD’s anti-green rhetoric also invokes conspiratorial narratives about the World Economic Forum and the “Great Reset,” topics Canadian Conservatives have engaged with, too. Poilievre has himself claimed the World Economic Forum is plotting against “working-class people” so they can’t “heat their homes or drive their pickup trucks.” He has even accused Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault of having a secret “radical” agenda to “deindustrialize” Canada. Meanwhile, other Conservative MPs keep railing against random objects like vegan Häagen-Dazs ice cream, and “woke paper lids” at Tim Hortons. Leslyn Lewis—one of three Conservative MPs who dined with an AfD politician last year—also sponsored a petition calling for Canada’s exit from the United Nations, in part due to the UN’s “Agenda 2030” and “sustainable development goals.” Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have been similarly working to mobilize resentment against green policies, but it remains unclear whether this rhetoric will give rise to a European-style greenlash in Canada, writes Luke LeBrun. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade A recent report from Re.Climate, a Carleton University academic unit focused on communications and climate change, highlights data showing overlap between Canadian right-wing online networks and “foreign right-wing and conspiratorial influencers.” During Germany’s convoy-esque farmers’ protests earlier this year—a backlash against cuts to diesel fuel subsidies—the most shared content within Canadian right-wing networks were from far-right European influencers “framing protests as resistance to alleged extremist environmental policies by government and global elites exploiting climate change to control food supply and restrict freedoms.” Researchers found Canada’s own right-wing media and influencers attempted to mobilize similar protests in Canada, but it was “unclear if these efforts are slowly building or generally failing to mobilize farmers against climate policy.” While Poilievre’s Conservatives have been similarly working to mobilize resentment against green policies, it also remains unclear whether this rhetoric will give rise to a European-style greenlash in Canada. But what is clear is that far-right messages and conspiracies have less space to take root when working people feel like their interests are front and centre in policy discussions about the green transition. Luke LeBrun is the editor of PressProgress, and regularly reports on federal and right-wing politics. Original reporting on the 2024 European Union elections and travel was facilitated through a transatlantic journalism program sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a non-profit German foundation funded by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany. This piece is exclusive to The Hill Times. The Hill Times

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Europe is in the middle of a ‘greenlash.’ If Canada doesn’t put workers first in its green transition, we could be next

The European far right’s pivot to attacking green policies shows why Canada needs a climate change approach that centres the interests of working people.

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