One of the main points in my PhD dissertation on climate change and activism is that, in order for them to improve outcomes, policies to control climate change and abolish fossil fuels need to be sustained for decade after decade (§5.7, p. 201).
Only when there is confidence about the future direction of policy can individuals and firms make sufficient investments in post-fossil fuel infrastructure.
Likewise, if people think that policies to get off fossil fuels are changeable, they will exert their efforts to lobby the government to make those changes, instead of working to decarbonize.
Right now, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is demonstrating the dangers of policy instability: Rishi Sunak announces U-turn on key green targets. Also:
The backtracking on electric vehicles was most surprising. Just two months ago, the government promised a £500m ($643m) subsidy to Tata, an Indian conglomerate, for a new battery plant in Somerset. (And in July Michael Gove, a cabinet minister, had agreed the 2030 deadline was immovable.) Other carmakers immediately reacted angrily. Ford said the industry needed “ambition, commitment and consistency” from government, all of which had been undermined. Sir Simon Clarke, a former Conservative cabinet minister, asked how businesses should plan “if we respond to one by-election…by tearing up key planks of government policy.”
As always, it is vexatious and painful to see that our leaders don’t have a serious plan to avoid climate change catastrophe. The fact that they don’t shows how they see it as someone else’s problem: just a legacy of ruin that other people will need to endure.
I feel like I have been seeing increasing journalistic coverage about young people not wanting to bring new children into this world. Often the focus of these stories is economic, but I feel like there must be deeper climate-related motives too. The message older generations have sent is that they are quite happy to ruin the Earth for future generations if doing so will protect their personal interests. When their elders have made that choice — and keep voting consistently with it — perhaps the young deserve praise for not wanting to keep this species going.
Scotland to abandon pledge to cut carbon emissions by 75% by 2030 | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/18/scottish-government-carbon-emissions-pledge-carbon-budgets-2030
Rightwing NZ government accused of ‘war on nature’ as it takes axe to climate policies
Government of Christopher Luxon has made sweeping cuts to climate projects in its first budget, with no new significant environmental investments
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/rightwing-nz-government-accused-of-war-on-nature-as-it-takes-axe-to-climate-policies
France, Italy, and Germany are three of the countries where the far right just did best, with a collective jump from thirty-seven to sixty-nine seats in the new EU. But immigration isn’t the only grievance fuelling their success. Another is the perceived cost of ecological protection. Meloni holds the EU’s aggressive decarbonization plans in the same regard as illegal immigrants. Le Pen has promised to take down France’s wind turbines and cancel all subsidies for renewable energy if elected. Support for Germany’s AfD is strongest in the country’s coal-producing region, where plans to phase out coal by 2038 (and possibly sooner) are about as welcome as the carbon tax in Alberta.
The Greens suffered some of the continent’s worst losses, dropping from seventy-one to fifty-three seats. (At the time of publication, Ireland has not yet finalized its results.) According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, a prominent think tank, this means “the biggest policy implications of the 2024 European Parliament elections are likely to concern environmental policy.”
https://thewalrus.ca/far-right-environment/
Europe’s dynamics echo those in North America with astounding precision. The main difference is that the EU doesn’t produce much of its own oil and gas, whereas North America leads the world in fossil fuel production. But Canada and the US have made progress under their respective Liberal and Democratic governments; these environmental gains are unlikely to survive should the Conservatives in Canada and Republicans in the US win the upcoming elections. On the climate front, Donald Trump’s Republicans will do everything they can to shred Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act; Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are likely to give Justin Trudeau’s Emissions Reductions Plan the same treatment, starting with the carbon tax. This trickles all the way down to regional politics. Consider British Columbia’s impending October election: on Canada’s west coast, a newly invigorated Conservative Party of BC is rocketing upward in the polls and now poses a genuine threat to the incumbent NDP. John Rustad, the BC Conservative leader, recently promised to axe not just the province’s carbon tax but also BC’s commitment to protect 30 percent of the land base by 2030. “What are we going to do if we have 30 percent less food production?” he asked The Narwhal. “What are we trying to achieve here as a province?”