The new European parliament is on course to have more politicians from parties that deny climate science and fewer from parties that want to cut pollution faster.
The results of the four-day election, which are still being finalised, show sizeable gains for far-right parties and a drop in support for the Greens that has cost them about a quarter of their seats. It has raised fears that the EU is about to put the brakes on climate ambitions that have helped set pollution-cutting standards globally.
Sven Harmeling, the head of climate policy at the European branch of the campaign group Climate Action Network, said many of the far-right groups that won seats could be characterised as climate deniers that were not up to the task of solving the climate and energy crises. “However, European climate policy cannot be rolled back easily,” he said.
After the last elections, in 2019, the EU pledged to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by cutting pollution and protecting nature. Under the leadership of the centre-right commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and with the support of other centrist factions, it passed a raft of measures known as the Green Deal, most of which ultimately made it over the finish line after being watered down by politicians and member states.
The European far right, while deeply divided over cutting its ties to its fascist roots, has mostly stood together in its opposition to the Green Deal. But its members have treated climate policy as a side issue – one that scores easy wins in culture wars but that is not worth pushing in election campaigns based on immigration, identity and the economy. Their supporters generally accept the science of climate change and vote based on their other policy positions.
Analysts say far-right gains are unlikely to unravel Green Deal policies put in place over the past five years but may dampen support for bringing the continent’s policies in line with what scientists say is needed to stop the planet from heating by 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels.
Vincent Hurkens, the lead on EU politics at the climate thinktank E3G, said: “Despite a lot of the attention going to the far-right gains, a vast majority of Europeans still voted for parties in the political centre. It is up to the centre right, liberals and social democrats [to decide] how much power and influence they allow the far right, and their ideas, to have on the future of the European Green Deal. Choices by these political families in the upcoming weeks will be decisive for Europe’s capacity to act against dramatic impacts and risks of climate change.”
The policies that have attracted the most ire from the right are those that affect voters directly – from phasing out combustion engine cars to in effect banning new gas boilers – and those that increase short-term costs for farmers. The centre-right European People’s party, which is projected to have increased its seats, had already begun to backtrack on support for some Green Deal measures in the outgoing parliament.
The next commission president is likely to be under even less pressure from the Greens, who are projected to have shed 20 of their 72 seats. The party took big losses in Germany and France but had small wins in the Nordic EU countries. Among the under-30s in Germany – traditionally seen as champions of climate action – exit polls showed the Greens shedding votes as the far right and newer parties gained them, a shift that could sound alarm bells for progressive parties that rely on younger voters in other countries holding elections this year.
Jessica Haak, a political scientist at Hamburg University, said there was no single explanation for Green losses but that a shift in the perceived importance of the climate crisis partly explained the trend in western Europe.
“In previous European parliamentary elections, climate protests had pushed environmental concerns to the forefront of the political agenda across most of the EU,” she said. “Although voters in some western European countries still consider climate issues important, they prioritised economic concerns, migration and war.”
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Big battles remain over existing climate policy proposals. The EU plans to set a legally binding emissions target for 2040 under the next commission, while European environment ministers will vote on Monday on the fate of a proposed law to protect nature that has faced a huge backlash from farming lobbies.
European leaders are also still struggling to respond to the vast subsidies pouring into green industries in big economies such as the US and China.
Matthias Buck, the Europe director at the climate thinktank Agora Energiewende, said the election underlined the importance of affordable energy, security, safe jobs and competitiveness. He said responding to this would mean speeding up investments in clean energy and developing a robust industrial strategy that provided certainty to companies investing in a climate-neutral future.
“The past five years have firmly established the Green Deal as the EU’s growth strategy on its path to climate neutrality,” Buck said. “The main task for the next five years is to make sure that citizens and businesses fully benefit from the transition.”
