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Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
(portmanteau name) the reaction against environmental policies. Not to be confused with greenwashing, green hushing or green wishing.
It seems like only yesterday that green policies were in motion. If the United States had not passed the world’s largest climate law, the history of the countryit was the EU that legislated for the world First of all a major carbon tax at borders or the UK pledging to end sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.
Green progress has been particularly notable in Europe. By 2022, renewable energy production in the EU had exploded so much that solar and wind power passed the gas for the first time. EU emissions plunged by 8% in 2023, the steepest annual decline in decades outside of 2020.
But as climate promises became reality, inflation fueled concerns about the cost of living. Net-zero-skeptical populist parties have seized on it to denounce green policies as a costly elitist plot against workers.
As 2023 turns into 2024, the green march begins to stumble. Businesses retreated green targets. Germany watered bring down a controversial law on heat pumps which had helped to boost the poll results of the far-right AFD party above 20 percent. Brussels scrapped a plan to cut pesticide use in half. Green parties were defeated in June’s European elections.
In the UK, the former Conservative government pushed back the ban on new petrol and diesel cars until 2035.
Yet the Conservatives still suffered a crushing electoral defeat at the hands of Labor, which pledged to reinstate the 2030 target and remains committed to an ambitious decarbonization agenda.
It reminds us that the green light has limits, as does China’s ruthless race toward green energy supremacy. But with the new Trump administration expected to roll back its climate policy and populism showing no signs of abating in Europe, it’s clear that fraught green politics is by no means over.
2024-12-28 05:00:00