Sunday, April 17, 2022
Climate change and the hard right
The Independent has a disturbing article on how right-wing parties are taking aim at climate policies as the cost of energy soars.
They say that research from the University of Sussex Business School and the University of Warwick, suggests that while right-wing populists taking over mainstream centre-right parties is relatively rare, when they have done so, as with Donald Trump in the US, the impacts on climate policy have been strongly negative.
Soaring energy prices potentially create a new opportunity for populists to attack policy, despite the fact that concern about climate change is at record levels, with the influence of right-wing populist parties leading to a 24 per cent reduction in climate policy scores.
The research also highlights how strongly majoritarian systems, when both the head of government and all the cabinet posts are held by right-wing populist parties, rate 58 per cent lower than the average.
In a boost for those of us who support proportional representation, he study found that the influence of right-wing populist parties on climate policy is weaker in countries with PR electoral systems than those with majoritarian first-past-the-post systems.
They say that research from the University of Sussex Business School and the University of Warwick, suggests that while right-wing populists taking over mainstream centre-right parties is relatively rare, when they have done so, as with Donald Trump in the US, the impacts on climate policy have been strongly negative.
Soaring energy prices potentially create a new opportunity for populists to attack policy, despite the fact that concern about climate change is at record levels, with the influence of right-wing populist parties leading to a 24 per cent reduction in climate policy scores.
The research also highlights how strongly majoritarian systems, when both the head of government and all the cabinet posts are held by right-wing populist parties, rate 58 per cent lower than the average.
In a boost for those of us who support proportional representation, he study found that the influence of right-wing populist parties on climate policy is weaker in countries with PR electoral systems than those with majoritarian first-past-the-post systems.
That is no comfort to us in the UK, however, as the research also highlights how strongly majoritarian systems, when both the head of government and all the cabinet posts are held by right-wing populist parties, rate 58 per cent lower than the average.
So we are going into an energy crisis, with a government that is not prepared to invest in the alternative technologies that are the long-term solution to our problem.
