What Lessons for German Greens after the Bavarian Election?

On 8 October, Bavarians and Hessens went to the polls after a toxic campaign where nothing seemed off limits. The sober tones of previous election contests were swapped for scandals, death threats, and stone throwing. With this strategy, the conservatives have managed to hold on to power but also right-wing extremists now have a foothold in government. But Greens cannot despair just yet.

A stand in front of a campaign event by the Greens offers tomatoes, eggs, and stones to anyone who wants to “express themselves”. The state’s serving minister-president discovering his niche on Instagram, proceeds to post videos of him eating Bavarian food and with the tagline #soederisst (Söder is eating). An election candidate comes under fire for allegedly spreading antisemitic propaganda papers during his school years. In a dramatic plot twist, his brother steps forward and claims responsibility for the papers which had allegedly been discovered in the candidate’s school bag. Meanwhile far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Party Leader Alice Weidl who was supposedly taken to a safehouse and had cancelled a campaign appointment for that reason turned out to be vacationing in Mallorca.

What sounds like a badly written political sitcom is how the Bavarian election campaign unfolded.

A toxic campaign

The campaigns in Bavaria and Hessen leading up to the 8 October elections were uncharacteristically toxic, reflecting polarisation in German politics.

During the campaign, topics such as rising costs of living, loss of jobs due to industries moving away from Germany, the consequences of the Ukraine war – a new wave of migrants and an energy crisis – were pushed aside. Instead, parties concentrated their attacks on opponents and sold the election as an opportunity to express discontent with the federal coalition between Social Democrats (SPD), Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), and Liberals (FDP).

While green politicians have always been unpopular in Bavaria and with the CSU (the regionalist counterpart of the centre-right CDU), this year’s election campaign was unusually hostile, causing several green politicians to go under police protection. The conservatives Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU) and Freie Wähler (Free Voters) run attack campaigns against the national government and singled out the Green party. The CSU argued that Greens lacked the ‘’Bayern-Gen’’ (Bavarian DNA), that they were not “real Bavarians’’, and they would deprive Bavarians of the good life.

The campaigns in Bavaria and Hessen leading up to the 8 October elections were uncharacteristically toxic, reflecting polarisation in German politics.

At the entrance of a Green party event in Chieming, where Green Minister for Agriculture Cem Özdemir was in attendance, a stand offered tomatoes, eggs, and stones to anyone who wanted to express their opinion of Greens – apparently a joke. At another event in Neu-Ulm, someone threw a stone at the lead Green candidates Katharina Schulze and Ludwig Hartman. Neu-Ulm turned out to be the city where Greens experienced their highest losses in the elections.

Green party leader Ricarda Lang appealed to CSU and Freie Waehler to moderate their tones for the sake of democracy. From her perspective, defending democracy should be more important than stirring populist sentiment.

The results

The outcome of the elections were unsurprising. In both states, the conservative parties CDU and CSU  won the elections with 35 per cent and 37 per cent respectively.

While the CSU’s win in Bavaria is celebrated as a success, the record low voter turnout – lowest since 1950 – and it retaining about half of its election record in the early 2000s makes this performance less than impressive. The CSU will nevertheless continue as the ruling party in both Hessen and Bavaria, accompanied by the Freie Wähler who seem to have survived the antisemitism scandal involving their leader Hubert Aiwanger. In fact, Freie Wähler gained more votes than previously, bringing its share to 15.8 per cent. In toe is the right-wing AfD, which now has a stronger foot in parliament to push its extreme agenda.

The far-right AfD outperformed all parties that are currently in the national government with 18.4 per cent in Hessen – their best result in a Western German state so far – and 14.6 per cent in Bavaria. For the Greens in Hessen, the results were especially bitter as they won just 14.4 per cent of the votes despite being the second biggest party in the last elections and a coalition partner of the CDU in the state. 

But compared to other parties in the national coalition, Greens can still count some blessings in Bavaria. They maintained support in their strongholds, which are predominantly big cities. In some cases, they became the strongest party – in central Munich they received 44 per cent of votes. Overall, they were the only party in the national coalition to gain more than 10 per cent of votes in Bavaria. By contrast, the Social Democrats are now the smallest party in the Bavarian government with a record-low 8.4 per cent, while the Liberals did not even manage to clear the threshold to stay in parliament.

As the biggest progressive party in a state run by right-wing conservatives, and with just 17 Social Democrats to count on, the Greens in Bavaria will be under considerable pressure. A potential ally is the Bavarian Left, which has never been in the federal government in its current history.

The results from these two states and the polls across Germany open up the possibility of having a very conservative national government in 2025.

CSU leader Markus Söder has already been named as a possible candidate of the conservatives for the federal elections. His confirmation as the leader of the joint CDU-CSU ticket is possible for two reasons. One is that the CDU’s candidate lost the last election – a first after Angela Merkel. The second is that the conservatives seem to have a working agreement to nominate an CSU candidate every 10 to 15 years.

Key lessons for Greens

As for the Greens, they will need to decide if they want to ride the wave of populist campaigning and position themselves as the true Brandmauer against the far right. They can continue focusing on their thematic agenda and using this to show that the Green Party is more than an advocate for expensive climate action.

While this focus might work for their base – a majority of young, educated women living in big cities and students – it’s proven insufficient to win over new voters, particularly in rural areas. Many rural voters have bought into the narrative about the Greens being a party of unreasonable prohibitions. It’s a narrative stirred by the predominantly male conservative candidates framing the Greens as party wanting to spend money on “useless things’’ such as gendered language or cycling routes in bigger cities.

The bigger lesson progressives should draw from the toxic campaigns in Bavaria and Hesse is that they need to find new ways to speak with people outside their base and pull the debate back to substance. 

To win this demographic, Greens must show themselves in upcoming election campaigns not just as a party with valuable solutions to problems that disproportionately affect rural areas – rising costs of living, loss of medical aid, school closures – but also a party for people from all backgrounds. Such a shift in the Greens’ discourse will unlikely cost them their base; the number of Green voters turning to the AfD is rather low due to Green supporters often having a strong ideologic view of politics and despising right-extreme forces.

Greens will need to hurry up though, as 2024 already has a long list of elections, from local to regional and European. The prospect of conservatives applying the same tactics used in Hesse and Bavaria in states like Saxony, Brandenburg and Thüringen in Eastern Germany should already raise alarms. In the previous elections in those states, the AfD came out as the second strongest party, with at least 23 per cent of votes. All those states have a large rural voting group and not many big cities or university towns that could save the Greens from a dramatic downfall the Liberals experienced.

The bigger lesson progressives should draw from the toxic campaigns in Bavaria and Hesse is that they need to find new ways to speak with people outside their base and pull the debate back to substance. The far-right especially does not face the same constraints of implementation and accountability, but simply makes wild promises to anyone who will listen. More responsible and experienced parties like the Greens understand that election promises need to be kept and, therefore, should prioritise realistic proposals.

Africa Climate Summit: Historic Turn or Wasted Opportunity?

In the context of broken promises and a deepening climate crisis on the African continent, the bar was set high for an Africa-focused and –led climate summit. From 4 to 6 September, delegates and dignitaries from around the world descended on Nairobi, Kenya for the Africa Climate Summit under the theme ”Driving Green Growth and Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and the World”.

While some pinned their hopes on the summit breaking the deadlock on climate finance, others saw it as an opportunity to put African solutions to the climate crisis on the map. Others still expected African leaders to advance the critical look at their climate action ahead of negotiations at COP28 in Dubai. Civil society already critical and mobilised against corporate influence over the meeting certainly expected more accountability, even as they organised a People’s Summit on the sidelines.

With such high expectations, the summit could not afford to under-deliver. On the sidelines of the summit, Jennifer Kwao asked climate justice researcher Roland Ngam whether the meeting lived up to expectations and what the alternatives to the green growth model it promoted are.

Jennifer Kwao: What does the Africa Climate Summit mean for Africa?

Roland Ngam: Coming decades after the Rio Summit, and other similar gatherings, the inaugural edition of the African Climate Summit (ACS) was really long overdue. We are a continent beset by climate crises. We face the biggest impacts of climate challenges caused by others, and we do not have the capacity to respond quickly to many of these issues. So it is an important event that should have happened a long time ago in terms of consolidating African positions in UN COP negotiations and in negotiations with highly industrialised nations and blocs like the European Union.

What is your assessment of the summit so far?

Unfortunately, the organisation seems to have been a bit hasty. The planning is not so well done. It’s clear that those most coordinated and coming here with a clear agenda are organisations, corporations, and partners from the Global North.

To echo the UNHCR African chief’s statement at the summit: “When you come to these gatherings, do not just show up to meetings. You need to hold people to account”. Unfortunately, I have not seen a clear questioning of the system or of Africa’s political economy and its future in the global constellation in the meetings I have followed. A lot of the discussion seems more concerned with what people can capture and accumulate. Just looking at the agenda, many of the discussions are about carbon markets. It is about Africa as a carbon sink, but we are not getting enough money for that. What are we planning to do in terms of the global stocktake? How do we plan to hold the highly industrialised nations to account for historic pollution?

We know that the pollution that is already locked in is causing serious harm to African countries. We’re talking major droughts in the Sahel, famine in Madagascar, massive rains in Cote D’Ivoire, DRC, and so on. Like HOMEF’s Nimo Bassey said last year, “COP is lost and damaged”. And the African Climate Summit is unfortunately starting off just like COP, and it could very quickly also become lost and damaged.

There’s been a lot of talk about growth and investment, which sounds exactly like the EU’s Green Deal and green growth agenda. Where are the African solutions? What would those look like?

African solutions really would be radical in terms of demanding reparations – not just adaptation and mitigation finance – for the Global North’s historic pollution and continued damage to the environment. It would be demanding also reparations for the offshoring of the Global North’s extraction, which has damaged our environment and really impoverished our people. We make some of the cars that are used in the Global North. Our children are pulled out of classrooms to dig up the transition minerals that they use in their electric cars. Every day, there are massive dumps of pesticides, insecticides and fertilisers to produce citrus fruits, avocados, bananas, strawberries, nuts, grapes and so on for the EU. A few people get rich off of that, but the majority inherit only poverty and toxic chemicals, some of which are banned in the EU. And of course we have to remember that the EU dumps a lot of its electronic waste in Africa.

Reparation is really the number one thing we should be demanding. The second one is that we need to be demanding massive transfers of technology and resources to improve all Africans’ lives, not to get government officials to buy bigger cars. We are here to improve the lives of all African citizens and we should be working towards that objective.

Could our leaders not argue that the discussion on expanding energy production and access, for example, is precisely about helping the ordinary African?

Well, it clearly isn’t. Just look at the hydrogen corridor between South Africa and Namibia, for instance. South Africa’s Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said very clearly that the solutions that are on the table right now are market-based, that is policies developed to incentivise private-sector participation. In other words, they are going to create a framework and they will let private investors come in and leverage the 9-billion-euros opportunity that Germany is offering for green hydrogen projects for example. In addition, African governments want to liberalise energy markets, which would mean companies like Electricité de France take up massive 20 to 30-year contracts. Things like what we’ve seen, for example, in Zimbabwe with the upgrades to a power plant in Hwange, which were done by China through concessional and non-concessional loans. What are we doing to transform energy markets in such a way that the grid, or at least power generation, is owned by African citizens? We are not seeing it. Ordinary Africans are locked out of the negotiation rooms at a time when people-owned and managed grids are more possible than ever before.

Do you think the case for climate reparations for Africa is dead given that this conference is almost not speaking about that?

Unfortunately, too many governments are afraid to bring up this topic because they do not want to rub their partners the wrong way. It is about politeness. It is about kowtowing as usual to former colonial powers. It is about staying within the same paradigm. It is shocking that the person who made the statement: “Who put the CO2 up there that is causing the problem? I’m sorry: PAY UP! You need to pay up!”  is a billionaire, Mo Ibrahim. It is by and large activists who have always pushed governments to achieve the small wins that we are getting. If we look at the language used, it is activists around the world who pushed for “loss and damage” and won that victory at COP 27. It was not governments. But loss and damage is just an insignificant achievement compared to the trillions of dollars that were stolen from the Global South through exploitation of our peoples and environment. And we need to keep up this fight. We have to drag our governments kicking and screaming to the table, just like we did with loss and damage.

The number one thing we should understand right now is that it is thanks to the environmentalism of the poor that the planet is still livable.

African leaders are singing a new song; they are talking about what Africa has to offer and presenting Africa as a business opportunity rather than a burden. Do you find this an appropriate framing, given the historical context of Africa’s resources benefitting everyone but its people and economies?

I think that, like South Africa’s President Ramaphosa said during the recent Summit for a New Global Financing Pact convened by French President Macron, Africa is often treated like a beggar. The number one thing we should understand right now is that it is thanks to the environmentalism of the poor that the planet is still livable. It is thanks to the majority that the planet does not exhaust its carbon credit within the first couple of months every year. The world really needs to understand that to keep that trend, Africa needs financial support as well as technological support so that the majority can live decently while helping the planet stay within its remaining carbon budget.

We are here because of the few in the highly industrialised nations who cause the extractivism, pollution, productivism, hyper-consumerism, and supermarketisation that have driven the world to the brink.

Remember that Africa does not appear on the map in terms of carbon emissions. Every year we are somewhere at 3.9 per cent or less, which tells you that if we were to change course and start polluting like the others, then the risk of three, four, five degrees warming or even higher is much greater. So African countries should be using their negligible contribution to the climate crisis as major leverage – more assertively and aggressively than what we are seeing now.

If not a business opportunity, what should Africa’s climate action be about?

A transformation opportunity. Decency. Quality of life. Happiness. We do not want the 7 billion majority to remain poor. Our aim should be to enable most people on the planet to live sustainable lives with access to universal basic infrastructure: decent housing, education, hospitals, roads, internet, resilient communities, etc. Most people do not want to live in 18-bedroom mansions, neither do they want to drive luxury cars. And so what we have to try and do is to ensure that these people are comfortable in their communities. Give them access to internet, health, schools, hospitals, and good roads. This is the ideal that every person seeks. And giving people those basic comforts within their communities should be the absolute priority of COP processes.

What new path could Africa chart without taking on this growth blueprint from the Global North? Are there models that we’re not hearing of, that we should be pursuing?

We need to understand that modern capitalism is a relatively recent invention. The Rostovian social Darwinist development model with its Fordist production system is not more than a century old. The orgy of advertising that we see on our screens every day, which gives us a warped understanding of what development should look like, what self-actualisation should look like, what women should look like – all of those things have really damaged the human psyche. But at the same time we still have alternatives, healthy circular ontologies that still exist and in which many people still live, in harmony with nature. And these communities exist all over the world. Whether we talk about buen vivir in Latin America or we look at different ontologies in Africa, – for example Ubuntu of the Bantu ontologies, Voodoo of the Yoruba–  –all these are secular, very healthy ontologies based around respect, conviviality, happiness, fairness, honesty, mutual respect, ecology, only using according to one’s needs, and so on. And that is the kind of model that we should be taking forward. Because when everybody is happy and satisfied, when we are able to share the earth’s resources and carbon budget amongst everybody in an honest, democratic way, then we can finally bring global emissions under control.

The economy on steroids that we have right now works only for a tiny minority, and this is what we should try and dismantle. That would be climate justice.

This interview was conducted at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi on 5 September 2023.

Europe on the Ballot: Is Secessionism Back?

A striking mix of left-wing and centre-right separatists, along with advocates of regionalism, are the new kingmakers in Spain after an inconclusive general election this summer. Around Europe, separatist and nationalist forces are gaining influence. What could this trend mean for Europe and what role for the EU in addressing resurfacing questions around secession?

The July election has made representatives of regionalist, sovereignist, and separatist parties Spain’s new kingmakers. Comprising 39 MPs from a wide array of political parties, this influential group constitutes 11 per cent of the parliament. Its members include left- and right-wing Catalan and Basque separatists as well as other advocates of sovereignism and regionalism. With the left- and right-wing blocs both short of a majority, the election result has renewed attention to the political conflict over Catalonian independence as well as the uneasiness with which the Spanish system deals with its geographical plurality.

The nationalist movements in both Catalonia and the Basque Country are not recent. The unification of Spain only happened in the 16th century. As nation-building movements emerged throughout Europe during the 19th century, Basque and Catalan national sentiment also came to life. The independence question resurfaced in the public debate in the late 1970s when democracy was restored in Spain. After the armed Basque separatist group ETA ended its terrorist campaign in 2011, the question became one to be settled through democratic means. Today, parties that identify themselves as paving the way to independence, from both the left and the right of the political spectrum, receive two-thirds of the vote in the Basque Country – and 30 per cent in Navarra – and close to half in Catalonia.

The centre-right has traditionally represented these ambitions for independence. Their platforms brought together neoliberal economic politics that serve the interest of big capital in these two rich regions and a centrist approach open to deals with both the all-Spain centre-left PSOE and the right-wing Partido Popular. After the financial crisis of the late 2000s and as discontent with status-quo politics grew, left-wing pro-independence forces gained prominence. The Republic Left (ERC) in Catalonia currently leads the regional government, whereas Basque Country Unite (EH Bildu) recently became the biggest nationalist party across the Basque regions.

Unlike Canada and the UK, the Spanish government refuses to offer a legal and democratic pathway to independence. This stance led to the 2017 Catalonia political crisis, when the region unilaterally declared independence and the subsequent suspension of its autonomy. A return to stability has taken years, starting with the 2018 vote of no confidence in the right-wing government of Mariano Rajoy and with Pedro Sánchez becoming Spain’s prime minister with the support of Catalan independentist parties.

But Spain is not the only EU state where parties that question the national status quo have developed into key players.

On the island of Ireland, Sinn Féin has become the biggest party both in the North and South. Its rise has forced a previously unlikely coalition in the Republic of Ireland between two centrist establishment parties, to the extent that it now represents the alternative party of government. While the debate over Irish reunification will unlikely happen anytime soon, especially with the UK turning ever more to the right, the European Union needs to work towards a scenario that if a border poll happens and is favourable to reunification, then all democratic and peaceful paths towards that have all the necessary support from the Union.

Belgium is yet another case. Unlike Basque and Catalan nationalism, which exists across the entire political spectrum, Flemish nationalism today is a radical right-wing project represented by the right-wing Flemish National Alliance (NVA) and far-right Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang). This does not make it any less legitimate – the right to self-determination is a fundamental right that does not hinge on the arguments used to defend it – but it makes the discussion fundamentally different; we are not talking about a real debate over a national project but a debate over how an exclusive and racist nationalism can take power. The rise in Flemish nationalism is thus linked to the rise of the far-right and the radicalisation of the centre-right in other European countries. Belgium’s deadlock of constant grand coalitions which leaves little room for political alternatives has further fuelled its growth. In Flanders, like in other European countries, the path forward should be that of the isolation and defeat of the far-right, together with the revitalisation of Belgian democracy through alternatives within the democratic spectrum.

Post-war Europe has been characterised not only by the longest period of peace and democracy but also by the crystallisation of the nation-state model. The homogenisation of many European countries is one of the consequences of the Second World War, whether through the genocide of large parts of the population of European Jews and Roma or the enormous amounts of population transfers seen across Central and Eastern Europe. The collapse of Yugoslavia continued the trend. Today most states of the EU are nation-states without sizable national minorities, but there are exceptions.

The centre of politics has lost its monopoly over power in Europe. In Spain, this has brought forward a progressive coalition that includes its national diversity. In Ireland, it has opened a path to a future where a government can be anchored to the left of the political spectrum. In both countries, democratic politics has defeated violence as a path to achieve national independence and showed how through democratic participation the legitimate right to self-determination can be respected. A progressive future for the European Union passes through respecting these historical learnings. In Belgium, on the other hand, the politics of secession increasingly stands in the way of progressive majorities.

The EU, as a union of people, not only of states, has a role to play. This role is a recognition that these conflicts are long-lasting and that they need to be settled through democratic debate. The EU should also – as it did during the process of German re-unification – guarantee that no change in the borders of a member-state affects EU membership. Such clarity can help avoid a repeat of the abuses of 2014, when the Scots were told that leaving the United Kingdom meant leaving the European Union.

Looking to the future, the outcome of the negotiations around the July elections in Spain remains uncertain. The next federal elections in Belgium will take place on the same day as the European election in 2024. Ireland will vote in 2025. All we can say today is that the politics of borders, referendums and flags is back.

No World Order: In Sudan, the Geopolitical Chessboard Unravels

Four years after protests led to the fall of dictator Omar Al-Bashir, rival military forces have plunged Sudan into war over control of it. While democratic forces are the country’s best hope, it is military factions and regional players that are shaping its immediate future.

Sudan is experiencing renewed conflict as tensions between the army and the paramilitary group, Rapid Support Forces (RSF), turned violent in April 2023. The power struggle centres around army leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), who together ousted President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

The overthrow was enabled by popular protests, which played a key role in destabilising the regime. Starting in December 2018, people took to the streets to decry the cost of living crisis and Sudan’s deteriorating economy. Soon afterwards, in January 2019, the demonstrations turned into calls for al-Bashir’s resignation and a transition to a democratic government.

After al-Bashir’s overthrow, a power-sharing agreement was established between the military and civilian opposition for a transitional phase towards full civilian rule. Disagreements between civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, Hemedti, and al-Burhan hindered progress, leading to a military coup in October 2021. Following international calls for civilian rule, Hamdok was reinstated. Lacking real power, he resigned in January 2022. Since the coup, protests against military rule were persistent, reaching their peak in October 2022, on the coup’s first anniversary.

The Sudanese population’s discontent contributed to the signing of a Framework Agreement in December 2022 to resolve the political crisis. It aimed to form a new national unity government with a civilian prime minister and hold elections within a year. The military conceded to only be represented on a security and defence council and establish a truth and reconciliation commission to address human rights abuses during the crisis.

The agreement was bound to unravel. It threatened both al-Burhan and Hemedti’s wealth, by potentially stripping away their control over the country’s resources and export trading companies, as well as their followers’ safety, by focusing on justice and accountability.

The military leaders had no incentive or reason to accept a transition of power. The April 2023 escalation between al-Burhan and Hemedti reveals not only their unwillingness to share power with civilians, but even with each other.

A region on the edge

Sudan’s location in a volatile but strategic region, bordering the Red Sea, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa, has rendered it a chessboard for regional and international actors to play out their interests. It has also made it a powder keg for vulnerable neighbouring countries that only need a slight push to plunge into political chaos.

A key regional tension currently playing out in Sudan is the battle for the Nile River between Egypt and Ethiopia. Egypt is deeply concerned about preserving access to the river, which covers around 90 per cent of its water needs. Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) could disrupt Egypt’s freshwater access, farming output, and power generation.

Ethiopia has consistently rejected demands from Egypt and Sudan for a binding agreement on the dam’s filling and water distribution rules. A prolonged conflict in Sudan could complicate the Nile negotiations.

Ethiopia’s manoeuvring in Sudan has also raised alarms. In July 2023, Ethiopia called for the deployment of an East African force in Sudan to protect civilians. This is a dangerous move that could escalate the internal conflict into a regional war, potentially drawing in more countries, including Egypt.

Even if it were to end soon, the Sudanese internal conflict has already destabilised the region, exacerbating tensions between and within countries.

Ethiopia itself has only recently emerged from its own violent internal conflict between the Ethiopian army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a paramilitary group that controlled the Tigray region. The conflict came to a resolution at the end of 2022 with the signing of a ceasefire agreement.

In an effort to address the Sudanese crisis and the GERD tensions, Egypt organised a summit of Sudan’s neighbouring countries in July 2023, where Egypt and Ethiopia agreed to expedite GERD negotiations over the next four months. Sudan was not present at the talks.

The potential spillover of conflict into neighbouring countries, particularly Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR), is another significant concern. Both countries are grappling with insurgent movements seeking to overthrow their governments.

In these fragile conditions, it would not take much for these countries to descend into full-blown internal conflicts. The influx of Sudanese refugees could strain resources, fuel popular discontent, and increase support for existing rebel movements or create new uprisings. Sudanese fighters infiltrating the two countries could also lead to a similar outcome, especially as the RSF often recruits fighters from both territories.

Further instability in Chad and CAR would transform the region into a breeding ground for terrorism and extremism, posing broader security implications. The porous borders between Sudan, Chad, and CAR could facilitate illegal arms trade, leading to new smuggling corridors, including through Libya.

Red Sea rivalries

The Red Sea region’s strategic significance for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia adds another layer of complexity to the Sudanese crisis. The Red Sea is crucial for Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, its strategic framework to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and diversify its economy. A key Vision 2030 component is developing Red Sea tourism infrastructure to attract international tourists.

Raging conflicts and extremist actions across the Red Sea could jeopardise Saudi Arabia’s ambitions, including its 500-billion-dollar NEOM project. NEOM aims to be a sustainable, car-free region, centred around a vertical city with a zero-carbon mass transit system. Having collaborated with both al-Burhan and Hemedti in its Yemen coalition of Arab States, Saudi Arabia is cautiously navigating diplomatic waters, focusing on brokering peace.

When it comes to Russia, it recently obtained approval from the military leadership to establish a naval base in Port Sudan. This move would assert Russian presence in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, possibly impacting control over the Suez Canal. The deal can only enter into force when adopted by Sudan’s still non-existing legislative body.

In exchange for supporting both al-Burhan and Hemedti, the Wagner Group, Russia’s paramilitary force, gained access to gold worth billions of dollars. These resources could be used to fund other Russian initiatives, including the war in Ukraine. Russia’s main interest is to ensure peace, rather than favouring either warring faction.

As suggested by these complex dynamics, even if it were to end soon, the Sudanese internal conflict has already destabilised the region, exacerbating tensions between and within countries. The crisis could have been averted in 2022 through a Framework Agreement that acknowledged the central role of Sudan’s military forces, since the country’s independence.

Completely depriving them of power is not a viable option: the fear of accountability and losing control over resources only embitters their struggle for power. This extends, beyond the forces under al-Burhan and Hemedti’s command, to other armed rebel groups as well.

To navigate the country’s history of armed factions and widespread abundance of weapons, a prudent approach could involve sharing power between the military and civilians in the initial and midterm stages. Tough discussions on immunity, resource control, and military reform must be tackled through painful compromise.

Integrating armed groups, like RSF, into the army may take a decade. The full transition to democracy could span several more.

Given the many interests at play in Sudan, the EU needs to assume a long-term role in the country that goes beyond humanitarian aid and peace mediation. The EU should support and be an ally to pro-democratic forces building Sudan’s future, but there is no way around engaging with the country’s crucially influential military leadership.

In a region plagued by failed revolutions and military-backed governments, this imperfect approach is the only way towards lasting peace.

The Green Colonialism of Norway’s Wind Power Boom

With new economic opportunities emerging in renewable energy, oil-rich Norway is now pursuing an aggressive scaling of the country’s wind energy capacity. However, this approach comes at a cost to indigenous communities and local representation.

Norway’s energy sector is riddled with paradoxes; it is the 3rd and 15th largest exporter of oil and gas respectively, as well as a leading producer of renewable energy with hydropower supplying most of its electricity.

The seeds of wind power were sown in Norway in the 1990s, but it was around 2010 that the industry blossomed and gained momentum. For decades, wind power was considered unnecessary and unprofitable in Norway. That changed when they launched, with its neighbour Sweden, a green certificate scheme, to support wind projects with state subsidies. In 2015, the Norwegian government amended its tax policies to make investments in wind energy more lucrative for developers. In the meantime, the technology improved in efficiency. With the government changing its policy on renewables and the technology improving, wind power began to take off in Norway.

While Norway has earned international praise for developing its renewable energy, its achievement isn’t without controversy. In 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination asked Norway to suspend the construction of one of the Fosen Vind wind parks, dubbed Storheia, while they assessed its potential impact on the Saami, the Indigenous population residing across Nordic countries. Disregarding the UN request, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (OED) proceeded with development.

In 2021, a Norwegian Supreme Court ruling invalidated the licenses granted to Storheia’s wind farm for violating the cultural rights of the Saami to herding. Despite the ruling and continued calls from activists to dismantle the wind farm, the government has kept the turbines running.

Meanwhile, Norway’s oil exports have been growing since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; in 2022, it exported 80 million standard cubic metres (Sm³) of crude oil to Europe, 4,8 million Sm³ to China, and 9,1 million Sm³ onshore in 2022. Norway’s oil export revenue surged from 27 billion euros in 2021 to 121 billion euros in 2022. 

With Norway expanding its oil business while presenting itself as a leader in renewables, it is worth asking why wind power is being pursued aggressively and how environmental injustice flourishes in such circumstances. Primary data for this article was collected in the summer and autumn of 2021. 

Wind energy governance in Norway

All wind projects must follow a three-step process: project notification, application by the developer, and then a decision by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). With the high volume of applications, some informal practices have emerged in the sector. For instance, wind construction companies outsource the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – mandatory under EU law –  to private consultancies, even though this is an important requirement for a license.

Wind farm projects are required to evaluate the impacts on biodiversity and concerned populations, including on Indigenous communities and livelihoods. Several proposed wind farm projects were expected to disrupt key grazing spots for reindeer, endangering reindeer herding practised by the Saami. However, current EIA practices conducted flawed analyses of energy projects’ impacts on the reindeer and Saami livelihoods. Consequently, a group of Saami decided to establish their own consultancy to conduct complementary impact assessments.

Following an amendment to the Planning and Buildings Act (PBA) that transferred local powers over energy to the national government, the government and private companies have the final say on licensing and municipalities can be consulted on environmental impacts on a voluntary basis. While the ministry is unlikely to approve an application that a municipality strongly opposes, municipalities cannot veto a government decision to go ahead with a project it disapproves. The rules for licensing, therefore, allow the government and developers to ignore local concerns.

These constraints on local power benefit energy developers and give them an advantage over other industries that operate under stricter rules. Fosen Vind is a good example of how the rules undermine oversight rather than strengthen it. The town of Åfjord received the first notification about a wind power plant in their locality in 2006 yet the farms were not built until 2017. In the meantime, the developers changed the design, resulting in taller but fewer turbines being installed. The municipality was not consulted about these modifications because the 2008 PBA amendment did not require such consultations. A local development official explained that inhabitants were shocked when they saw the size of the turbines that were passing through their town to be set up in the nearby environment. He believes that many Åfjord residents withdrew their support of the project because of the turbines’ size.

Green colonialism

Susanne Normann, a Senior Researcher at the University of Oslo’s Centre for Development and the Environment, characterised renewable energy development as a modern form of the violent assimilation strategies and “Norwegianization” endured by the Saami historically.  She defines green colonialism in the Nordics as  the “current trends of renewable energy development with historical processes of dispossession and subjugation inflicted on the Saami.” The Alta Dam conflict in the 1970s can be seen be viewed as an earlier incarnation of “green colonialism”.

Several laws have been put in place to redress discrimination by the state, namely: the Cultural Heritage Act (1978) which protects all Saami cultural heritage sites and buildings over 100 years old; the 2005 Finnmark Act which recognises the rights of the Saami to use land as a basis for their culture; and the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the practice of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). The Alta Dam conflict played a key role in the Norwegian government’s decision to ratify the International Labour Organization Convention 169 which focuses on the rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. Despite these protections in law, the Saami are still denied autonomy over their land and livelihoods. 

The wind energy industry extends the colonial practice of erasing Indigenous voices, disregarding their concerns, and undermining their livelihoods.

Non-Saami Norwegians stereotype the Saami as primarily reindeer herders and see protecting this practice as a minority issue prioritised over green energy production. In reality, only 11 out of 96 wind power plant projects on reindeer grazing lands have been rejected.

The Fosen Vind project was fiercely resisted by the Saami for years. With growing contestation, the Norwegian government suspended licenses for new onshore wind power in 2020, but this resumed two years later. In the meantime, the construction of the Fosen Vind farm went ahead. Today, Fosen Vind turbines are fully operational and the state is marching on with more oil, gas and wind energy developments and shows little signs of slowing down.

Wind power for growth

Wind power development in Norway is driven by a strong commitment to green growth and the sector serves as a hub for emerging industries focused on climate change strategies.

Despite its energy and electricity production exceeding domestic demand, Norway is pursuing a large-scale expansion of its wind power capacity. This scaling of wind power is motivated by the new market and growth incentives around renewable energies.

The sector is attracting foreign investments to Norway’s economy. While 90 per cent of hydropower projects in the country are owned by the state, county or municipality, 75 per cent of wind power projects are controlled by foreign investment.

Wind power is also seen as an opportunity to revive the economies of town, particularly those with mountainous terrain or coastline and experiencing a decline in population. Locations like Berlevåg (Raggovidda) or Åfjord (Fosen Vind) have served as a hub for new wind farms.

Åfjord serves as a prime example of how wind energy turned a local economy around. Estimates show that it attracts 65 million kroner annually by hosting the Fosen Vind farms. These fresh funds have enabled it to invest in key infrastructure including roads, schools and industry.

Local supporters enthusiastically point out that towns neighbouring Åfjord, which rejected hosting wind farms, face dismal economic prospects – unlike Åfjord. The implication is that Åfjord is a shining example of the benefits of hosting wind power infrastructure and how local economies can turn their fortunes today.

Furthermore, wind energy presents new energy export opportunities. Norway’s connection to the European electricity grid mean that chunks of the wind energy produced beyond domestic needs are automatically exported. Berlevåg in the Arctic illustrates the intersection of these challenges many northern communities face. Climate change is disrupting traditional activities, its population is declining, and the local economy is weak. The economic and job opportunities from energy projects thus offer the region and its citizens hope. To some, this prospect make a compelling case for wind power projects in the Arctic.The Raggovidda farm produces more energy than the town of Berlevåg, or its surrounding region will ever need.  Yet the parent company of the farm received authorisation to expand production.

While the economic dividends of wind power at both local and national level have incited demand for more construction projects, these have to be reconciled with the widening inequities between municipalities and co-option of land for an already over-producing energy sector.

The environmental injustice of wind energy

From a sustainability perspective, Norwegian wind power is difficult to justify based on the country’s current path of energy and electricity consumption.

Large-scale wind power plants are also wrongly promoted as sustainable alternatives to current methods of using land, including those for Indigenous nature-based livelihoods.

Norway invests in wind power because of the immense export opportunities it represents. Those reaping the benefits of this new industry are the private sector, the national government, and municipal governments clinging to economic competitiveness. With their sights set on profit and the economy, the Saami remain overlooked.

The wind energy industry extends the colonial practice of erasing Indigenous voices, disregarding their concerns, and undermining their livelihoods. In the licensing and consultation process, the impacts on the Saami are inadequately assessed, and their demands are often misrepresented. The process also disregards UNDRIP, FPIC, and national laws protecting the Saami. The Saami are not only disproportionately affected by climate change, but they are also now forced to bear the burden of the government’s response to it, exacerbating the injustices they already endure.

Qui paie pour un monde qui se réchauffe ?

On a souvent coutume de dire dans les milieux écologistes que les questions environnementales et les questions sociales sont les deux facettes d’une même médaille ne pouvant être traitées séparément. Dans notre monde actuel, le changement climatique vient ainsi heurter de plein fouet des sociétés d’ores et déjà traversées par de très fortes inégalités. Tant et si bien qu’on parle de plus en plus d’inégalités climatiques, celles-ci devenant l’objet de recherches universitaires spécifiques. Nous avons voulu en savoir plus avec Lucas Chancel, économiste de renommée internationale ayant beaucoup travaillé sur les inégalités climatiques, notamment avec Thomas Piketty. Lucas Chancel est professeur à Science Po Paris et co-directeur du laboratoire sur les inégalités mondiales à l’Ecole d’économie de Paris

Benjamin Joyeux: Nous entendons de plus en plus souvent parler « d’inégalité climatique » , mais comment la définissez-vous et quels en sont les exemples dans la pratique, au sein des sociétés européennes et au niveau mondial ?

Lucas Chancel : En fait je m’intéresse aux inégalités dans le monde en lien avec les questions environnementales : qui pollue ? Qui est touché par la pollution ? Qui peut financer des efforts de décarbonation et comment la transition écologique peut venir se heurter à la question des inégalités ?

Il y a au moins trois types d’inégalités climatiques : D’abord l’inégalité des dommages, inégale exposition aux dégâts du changement climatique. Nous ne sommes pas individuellement touchés de la même manière, de même que les pays ne le sont pas, certains ayant des niveaux de réchauffement plus importants que d’autres. Typiquement, pour des pays qui sont déjà très chauds, un degré de plus ce n’est pas la même chose que ceux qui ont un climat beaucoup plus modéré. Et à l’intérieur de chaque pays, on remarque un gradient important entre le niveau de vie, de revenu et de patrimoine et la vulnérabilité aux chocs climatiques.

Ensuite l’inégalité des contributions : là on voit une différence très nette entre pays riches et pays pauvres ainsi qu’à l’intérieur de chaque pays. Il y a des gros pollueurs dans les pays riches et des pollueurs nettement moins importants, et inversement dans les pays pauvres on trouve aussi de très gros pollueurs qui aiment souvent se cacher derrière la multitude. On observe notamment cela parmi les élites du monde émergent.

Enfin la troisième inégalité est celle des capacités d’action : nous n’avons pas tous les mêmes capacités pour agir sur la transition : pour changer de voiture, rénover son logement, protéger sa maison de la sécheresse ou des inondations, etc. C’est un type d’inégalité extrêmement important. Pour donner des ordres de grandeur, au niveau mondial, sur ces trois formes d’inégalités, ce que nous démontrons dans notre dernier Rapport sur les inégalités climatiques, avec mes collègues Philippe Both et Tancrède Voituriez, c’est que la moitié du monde la moins émettrice, peu ou prou les plus modestes, est responsable de seulement 12% des émissions totales. Pour autant, elle va faire face à 75% des dégâts du changement climatique quand on mesure ces derniers avec l’indicateur de perte de revenu relative. Là où il y a une asymétrie flagrante, c’est également au regard des capacités d’agir. Celles-ci se mesurent par la capacité de financement basée sur le patrimoine des individus. Là on sait que le monde est très inégal, ce n’est une surprise pour personne. Mais dans des niveaux extrêmement frappants : les 50% les plus pauvres du monde possèdent moins de 3% de tout ce qu’il y a à posséder. Avec ces trois dimensions des inégalités climatiques mondiales, émissions, exposition aux chocs climatiques et capacité d’action, on se représente parfaitement les immenses tensions du monde actuel. Ceux qui sont le plus touchés sont ceux qui polluent le moins et possèdent le moins de capacité d’agir sur le problème.

De quelle manière les impacts du changement climatique vont aggraver les inégalités que l’on observe déjà au sein de nos sociétés ?

On peut rappeler que les impacts du changement climatique ont déjà aggravé les inégalités mondiales entre pays. On est déjà à 1,3° C de plus par rapport au niveau pré-industriel, et les pays tropicaux et subtropicaux ont été davantage touchés que les autres. Les pays plus pauvres ont déjà pâti de la hausse des températures. Aujourd’hui ils auraient plus de ressources économiques s’il n’y avait pas eu le changement climatique. Maintenant au sein même des sociétés, le changement climatique constitue un choc, des vagues de chaleur, des inondations, des entreprises qui doivent fermer et se relocaliser, etc. Ces chocs sont davantage néfastes pour les plus modestes, qui n’ont pas de coussin de sécurité pour rebondir. Dans tout un tas de pays pauvres, les 40% les plus pauvres sont touchés de l’ordre de 70% plus fort que la moyenne de la population face au choc climatique. C’est un fait établi assez marquant. On l’observe également dans les pays riches. L’exemple célèbre est celui de l’ouragan Katrina aux Etats-Unis, où on voit bien que, même dans un pays riche, les catastrophes environnementales ne vont pas heurter de la même manière les différentes catégories de la population.

Il y a l’inégale exposition aux risques : par exemple vous allez avoir des quartiers plus proches des zones inondables et d’autres situés sur des collines. Et la plupart du temps les quartiers les moins inondables sont souvent les plus anciens et les plus huppés. Ce n’est pas systématique et il faut bien garder en tête que tout le monde peut être touché. Mais il y a une tendance à ce que ces chocs touchent davantage les plus modestes. Si on étire le prisme d’analyse au-delà de la seule question climatique, on observe beaucoup plus de zones à bas revenus, de zones urbaines sensibles proches de zones industrielles ou à risque chimique comme les zones Seveso.

Mais il y a également l’inégale vulnérabilité face aux risques : non seulement vous êtes plus exposés, mais vous avez par exemple un logement construit dans un matériel moins solide. C’est aussi le fait que vous n’avez pas de patrimoine. L’une des grandes inégalités fondamentales de nos sociétés contemporaines, que ce soit en France, en Ouganda ou aux Etats-Unis, c’est qu’environ la moitié de la population ne possède pas de patrimoine, donc aucun coussin de sécurité financier pour rebondir suite à un choc. Le changement climatique, c’est la multiplication de ces chocs (sécheresses, inondations, feux de forêts…) qui viennent heurter des sociétés déjà inégalitaires et exacerber ces inégalités.

Mais tout n’est pas écrit d’avance et on dispose des moyens de casser ces différents vecteurs de propagation des inégalités. Il y a quelque chose de fantastique, c’est la protection sociale. Aux Etats-Unis, on a une protection sociale défaillante et plein de familles laissées à elles-mêmes. Avec un système de protection sociale fort, et des assurances gérées par la puissance publique pour que tout le monde soit couvert, vous pouvez casser ces canaux de propagation des inégalités. Malheureusement on observe surtout un défaut de protection sociale dans de nombreux pays pauvres. C’est vraiment un des enjeux de notre époque : comment est-ce qu’on augmente le niveau de protection sociale dans les pays riches, comment est-ce qu’on la crée dans les pays moins riches en prenant en compte ces nouveaux risques environnementaux qui n’étaient pas à l’agenda des créateurs de la Sécurité sociale à la sortie de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale ?

Sauf que les limites de la croissance, le vieillissement des populations et l’évolution de l’économie mondiale sont autant de facteurs qui menacent la viabilité économique des systèmes d’État-providence, en Europe comme ailleurs. Comment la nature des prestations sociales doit être étendue et développée pour atténuer les risques environnementaux en même temps que la pauvreté ?

Rappelons d’abord une chose essentielle : du point de vue de la richesse économique, nos pays n’ont jamais été aussi riches qu’aujourd’hui. La France n’a jamais été aussi riche avec un tel niveau de patrimoine. La richesse n’a jamais été aussi élevée aux Etats-Unis. Simplement il y a un vrai problème de répartition. Pour commencer entre la richesse accaparée par le secteur privé et celle possédée collectivement soit par l’Etat, soit par les collectivités locales, soit par des organismes non lucratifs. Il y a un vrai sujet non pas sur le niveau total de la richesse mais sur qui la possède. Déjà pour relativiser le fait qu’on ne pourrait plus rien financer. On dispose de marges de manœuvre phénoménales. On peut aller chercher des ressources et de nouvelles recettes notamment dans le patrimoine, dans le capital très largement sous-taxé au regard de son poids économique et de sa progression au cours des dernières décennies.

Maintenant, c’est vrai qu’il y a des enjeux fondamentaux concernant la limite de la croissance et le vieillissement des populations. Les systèmes de protection sociale créés à la fin de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale sont précisément créés dans un monde où la croissance est très forte : croissance de rattrapage, croissance de reconstruction, les Trente Glorieuses et la croissance démographique avec le baby-boom qui aujourd’hui se transforme en papy-boom. Comment est-ce qu’on fait pour adapter des mécanismes de solidarité créés dans un monde de croissance forte à un monde de croissance faible, voire un monde de décroissance ? Il y a une difficulté car le mode de financement de la protection sociale dans un pays comme la France, comme de nombreux autres mécanismes, est directement connecté à la croissance du PIB. L’enjeu est de travailler sur plusieurs axes : premièrement, avoir des mécanismes de financement moins dépendants de la croissance du PIB. Typiquement, si on redistribue davantage les patrimoines et qu’on taxe davantage les stocks de richesse (patrimoine) que les flux (PIB), on déconnecte les canaux de financement de la protection sociale de la croissance du PIB en allant chercher davantage de financements dans les plus grandes fortunes et leur transmission par l’héritage.

Deuxièmement, il faut s’intéresser à tous les coûts induits et mal pris en compte des dégradations environnementales, qui pourraient être réduits si on améliorait notre environnement. Aujourd’hui une grande partie des maladies chroniques sont liées à des facteurs environnementaux. Par conséquent, les améliorations de notre environnement doivent faire partie de notre manière de penser un cadre systémique pour la protection sociale. La prévention et l’amélioration de notre environnement devraient faire partie de façon bien plus intégrantes de nos politiques de santé, permettant alors de réduire la pression sur les besoins de financement.

Comment est-ce qu’on fait pour adapter des mécanismes de solidarité créés dans un monde de croissance forte à un monde de croissance faible, voire un monde de décroissance ?

Troisièmement, le coût réel des dégâts environnementaux est très largement sous-estimé. En le prenant davantage en compte, on réduirait d’autant le coût de l’action environnementale. Ce qui coûte très cher, c’est l’inaction des politiques publiques. Un seul exemple, les subventions versées aux énergies fossiles, plusieurs centaines de milliards d’euros par an. Le coût pour les systèmes de santé est énorme en maladies respiratoires, en maladies cardio-vasculaires… Non seulement on dépense des centaines de milliards pour les énergies fossiles mais viennent s’y ajouter les centaines de milliards pour la santé. Si on arrête de subventionner ces énergies fossiles, on dégage des marges de manœuvre de l’ordre de plusieurs centaines de milliards par an.

Est-ce que les inégalités climatiques peuvent expliquer certains des conflits environnementaux qui apparaissent en Europe (par exemple l’utilisation de l’eau et des terres liée à l’agriculture et à la transition, observée aux Pays-Bas, en France avec les méga-bassines, et dans le sud de l’Espagne) ?

Ces conflits sont des cas particuliers de luttes environnementales et d’inégalités d’accès à la prise de décision. Cela semble surtout refléter les intérêts d’acteurs puissants ayant la capacité d’accéder à la prise de décision. Nous sommes là dans des inégalités environnementales telles que parfaitement décrites par le chercheur Joan Martinez Alier qui a cartographié ces luttes environnementales et démontré qu’il existe une sorte d’Internationale de ces luttes : on retrouve des tensions de ce genre en France et en Europe, mais également contre des barrages en Amazonie, contre des mines en Afrique, etc. On est toujours face à cette dialectique de pouvoirs publics qui justifient certaines décisions par une métrique économique face à des militant.e.s mettant en avant d’autres formes de légitimité, comme la protection de la biodiversité ou le respect d’un processus démocratique plus large. Il y a également tout l’enjeu de la procédure dans le cadre de la transition écologique qui demande non pas moins de démocratie au nom de l’urgence, mais plus de démocratie, car on perd énormément de temps par des décisions prises en petit comité et qui souvent ne font que reproduire la défense des intérêts établis.

L’un des principaux outils du Green Deal européen est le système de tarification du carbone, qui sera étendu au logement et au transport dans les années à venir. Il semble être efficace mais aussi assez régressif. Faut-il tenter de régler le problème du climat par ces solutions de marché ? Le risque d’une réaction brutale qui s’accélère n’appelle-t-il pas une autre approche ?

En soit, la tarification du carbone peut être un outil. Mais les experts du sujet répètent la même chose depuis 20 ans : s’il n’y a pas de réforme sociale associée à la réforme de la tarification, alors tous les ingrédients sont réunis pour que ça explose. Dans un monde où il y a déjà des tensions, des sociétés fragmentées, des individus qui ont du mal à se déplacer parce qu’ils n’ont pas de transports publics et n’ont absolument pas les moyens de s’acheter une voiture électrique, l’extension de la tarification aux transports individuels peut être extrêmement dévastatrices du point de vue social. C’est exactement ce qui s’est passé en France en 2018 avec les Gilets Jaunes. En effet, le principal problème des politiques de tarification est leur aveuglement face à la question sociale. Le Green New Deal est censé avoir pensé aux ménages modestes – sauf que les sommes en jeu pour opérer une redistribution et un soutien à ces derniers ne sont à mon sens clairement pas suffisantes pour se prémunir de mouvements de type Gilets Jaunes bis.

Et sur la tarification, il faut voir également quelle est la fin et quels sont les moyens. La tarification est un moyen qui vise une fin, la baisse du CO2. Mais il y a une fin intermédiaire qui est d’augmenter l’écart des prix entre les services et les biens non polluants et les services et les biens qui polluent, pour faire se déplacer les consommateurs vers les biens et services moins polluants. La condition, c’est qu’il faut qu’il existe des biens et des services moins polluants disponibles. S’il n’y a pas d’alternative, le bilan pour le climat est nul, et celui de du pouvoir d’achat est très mauvais. Ce qu’on oublie souvent, c’est qu’il y a une autre manière de réduire l’écart des prix entre ce qui pollue et ce qui ne pollue pas, en subventionnant ce qui ne pollue pas au lieu de taxer ce qui pollue. C’est encore mieux de faire les deux en même temps ! Ce que les Américains font dans leur Green Deal, l’Inflation reduction Act, c’est essentiellement de subventionner ce qui ne pollue pas. Pour eux, la taxe carbone est un épouvantail et ils préfèrent avancer en subventionnant massivement ce qui ne pollue pas. Il y a par exemple tout ce pan de l’industrie automobile américaine qui a bénéficié de subventions pour la voiture électrique et pour la production d’énergie bas carbone. Dans l’idéal il faudrait faire les deux, le « bâton et la carotte », le problème du bâton étant la question sociale et donc le versement nécessaire d’aides plus fortes aux ménages les plus modestes. Les Européens devraient également à mon sens mettre le paquet sur ce qui ne pollue pas.

Si on oriente les taxes sur la consommation ostentatoire de carbone par individu, en ciblant les plus riches, par exemple avec cette idée qui grandit en France d’interdire les jets privés, est-ce que ça vous paraît être une bonne solution ou relever plutôt du gadget ?

Ce n’est pas juste un gadget, car d’abord toutes les tonnes de CO2 supplémentaires comptent. Et un voyage en jet, c’est davantage de tonnes pour un voyage de quelques dizaines de minutes que pour les déplacements domicile-travail d’un Français pendant un an. Mais l’argument le plus important est celui de l’exemplarité. On entre dans une phase où chacun va devoir faire des efforts considérables pour transformer son mode de vie. Comment peut-on raisonnablement penser que les classes moyennes et populaires vont opérer ces efforts si les plus riches tout en haut de l’échelle sociale continuent à polluer en quelques minutes l’équivalent d’un an d’émissions de la classe moyenne ? Historiquement, quand les responsables politiques ont demandé des efforts considérables à leur population, ils en ont demandé beaucoup aux plus aisés. Par exemple Roosevelt en 1942 devant le Congrès demandant aux américains d’immenses sacrifices, expliquait alors que les revenus des plus aisés ne devaient pas pouvoir dépasser une certaine limite. C’est une question de cohésion sociale et de contrat social derrière. Or un nouveau contrat social dans le cadre de la transition doit demander aux « gros » de faire de gros efforts. Sur la question de l’aérien, on a une loi depuis deux ans qui dit que si vous avez une alternative en train de moins de 2h30, les compagnies aériennes ne peuvent plus vendre ce type de billet. Or les jets ne sont pas inclus dans le dispositif. Il y a donc un trou dans la raquette constituant un trou dans la cohésion sociale.

Est-ce que ce ne serait pas le rôle de l‘UE de légiférer sur ce sujet ?

Dans un monde où les enjeux sont globaux, l’échelle la plus pertinente est toujours la plus large possible, cela ne veut pas dire qu’il ne faut pas commencer au niveau national. Et c’est souvent ça le problème. On a trop entendu l’excuse de l’échelon supranational pour justifier l’inaction. Il faut que les Etats membres se coordonnent au niveau européen mais il faut qu’ils commencent à agir. On l’a très bien vu sur la question de la taxation des super profits où, contrairement à ce que raconte le gouvernement français, on a obtenu un accord européen parce que des pays moins hypocrites que la France ont mis en œuvre des mesures de manière unilatérale. Et c’est sur cette base qu’on a ensuite construit un consensus politique européen.

Ce sont souvent les villes et les régions qui s’occupent des impacts climatiques. Le niveau national s’occupe de la fiscalité, de la redistribution et de la sécurité sociale. Le niveau européen encadre désormais la transition écologique avec son Green Deal et ses politiques associées. Tout cela s’inscrit dans le cadre des politiques internationales et, bien sûr, de notre système planétaire. Quel est l’échelon qui vous paraît le plus pertinent pour lutter efficacement contre les inégalités climatiques ?

Il faut cibler tous les niveaux, c’est cela qui est fascinant et vertigineux dans cette transition. Tous les niveaux sont interconnectés. Il faut partir du local pour aller vers le national, le fédéral puis le multinational. Il ne faut surtout pas utiliser les lenteurs et les frustrations que l’on peut avoir à certain niveau pour justifier l’inaction à d’autres niveaux. Sur les inégalités climatiques, si on regarde la question des dommage et de l’exposition aux risques, il y a tout ce qui peut être fait au niveau local, avec les plans locaux d’urbanisme et comment est-ce qu’on réorganise notre territoire pour réduire ces risques à travers des politiques publiques qui, là ne vont pas cibler les plus pauvres mais qui vont être bénéfiques aux plus modestes. La végétalisation des villes, la transformation des systèmes agricoles… vont bénéficier davantage à celles et ceux qui seraient les premiers touchés par d’immenses vagues de chaleur, par l’inflation des denrées alimentaires à cause de sécheresses, etc. On peut travailler là-dessus au niveau local, départemental et régional.

L’échelon national est pertinent pour fabriquer des lois et y mettre les moyens financiers et l’échelon européen a son rôle à jouer pour mutualiser les risques. Il faut penser à l’échelle de grands espaces pour partager l’énergie : si vous n’avez plus assez de lumière, ou de vent pour faire tourner vos éoliennes par exemple, il faut partager ça avec d’autres territoires. Mais également pour pouvoir rebondir face à un choc comme un ouragan sur un territoire spécifique, en partageant avec d’autres les coûts. La question assurantielle fonctionne d’autant mieux que le pool d’assurés est grand et que le territoire qui assure l’est également : ça on va le faire à l’échelon national, comme la sécurité sociale.

Et il faut qu’on se dirige rapidement vers un Etat social européen qui va permettre de mutualiser encore davantage les risques. Pour créer un état social européen, il faut créer des ressources fiscales européennes. Il y a une émergence de cela, mais on est encore loin du fameux moment hamiltonien[4] du fédéralisme américain. On a un budget européen de l’ordre de 2% du PIB, ce qui n’est rien comparé par exemple au budget français de l’ordre de 45 à 50 % du PIB. Il y a tout un travail à mener pour fédéraliser les ressources et les dépenses qui vont permettre de lutter contre les inégalités environnementales demain. »

Class Politics for the Eco-Anxious

Once a symbol of unrestrained freedom, islands are now an outpost of ecosystem loss. Meanwhile, billionaires are taking off into space, leaving behind the existential conflicts of a climate-damaged planet. If eco-anxiety has no earthly escape, argues Nikolaj Schultz, we need to find new ways of organising, and of relating to the non-human forms of life that we depend on to sustain our lives.

Green European Journal: Eco-anxiety is increasingly recognised as a particularly prevalent psychological issue among young people. Is there any escape from the feeling that our world is changing due to the ecological crisis?

Nikolaj Schultz: I see eco-anxiety as part of a wider set of changes to the planet Earth and to our existential condition as human beings. Both are undergoing transformation. The term “land sickness” is my attempt to describe this nauseating, simultaneous double movement of the soil and the human. I’m not sure if it’s possible or desirable to offer “escape routes” from this situation; what I am trying to do is better understand these new conditions. We need a clearer idea of how our emotional and existential landscapes are changing. What does it mean to be a human being in an epoch in which the conditions needed to sustain life on Earth are disappearing? We need descriptions of what it is like to experience the “self” in a world that is shrinking because of our actions, habits, and ways of inhabiting it. What are the emotional registers at play in this situation?

Like Bruno Latour, I strongly believe in description, even if what we are trying to sketch out is the psycho-existential terrain of human beings. If we want to stitch this terrain back together, we should probably first collect its splinters and fragments.

In Land Sickness, you visit the French island of Porquerolles and come across an elderly woman driven to desperation by the erosion of her land, her home. Who is she, and what did this encounter show you?

The woman I met was born on the island. She explained to me that, while this land shaped her identity, there is no longer room for her on the beach because of erosion and mass tourism. She explicitly asked me to leave, because my presence and the traces I was leaving behind were forcing her off the territory where she belongs. This encounter shows that there is no escaping the Anthropocene. Whatever you do – eat, drink, dress, shower, travel – mirrors your entanglement with the unfolding climate catastrophe.

Will environmental conflicts draw the lines of politics in the years to come? You describe how such lines lie even within your family, with your future buried in your grandmother’s past.

Yes, I believe they will. The intergenerational aspect of this issue has landed straight in the middle of politics. As philosopher Pierre Charbonnier has shown, the climate situation is characterised by a modern disconnect between the world or the territory we live in and the one we live off. In the same way that certain groups live off other people’s territories, certain generations colonise other people’s present.

My grandmother’s generation, for example, lived in the present, but off the future. This is becoming increasingly visible with the threat to the material conditions of life of younger and future generations. This is why it makes sense that young climate activists are framing their battles in terms of generational struggle: the young are those who have witnessed the colonisation of their territory and their present. Their futures have been stolen from them.

At an existential level, this weighs heavily. In the same way as I unwittingly leave destructive traces behind me, my grandmother has become the bearer of a responsibility she did not know she was carrying.

She is part of a generation that, after the Second World War, fought to develop an economy that could secure freedom and affluence. She was sure that her descendants would embrace these values with open arms. But now, things have changed, giving her life a completely different meaning. She now realises that the horizons she believed in have become obsolete. Even worse, she knows that everything she fought for has trapped her descendants on a burning Earth. This is an existential drama, the depth of which is difficult to fathom. This is why I think it’s so important to describe the affective implications of this experience.

Cover of Land Sickness by Nikolaj Schultz

Environmental divisions and conflicts are starker on a small island like Porquerolles. Are the social and existential questions you analyse in Land Sickness present more generally?

Just like existential divisions on the individual level, geo-social conflicts are at play everywhere: indigenous peoples resisting land dispossession, activists in Germany opposing the expansion of coal mines, people in France fighting against the development of méga-bassines [massive water reservoirs], and so on. But I find island and coastal settings especially interesting. They formerly encapsulated the idea of distance, isolation, and freedom. Now, islands are among the places where climate issues are manifested most visibly and violently – in the form of rising sea levels, coastal erosion, biodiversity loss, polluted waters, and disappearing beaches.

Coastal areas have turned into “Anthropocene laboratories” that can teach us a great deal about what we have become, where we are now, and where we are heading. They are a petri dish for many of the dynamics of [Bruno Latour’s] New Climatic Regime – including intensifying socio-territorial conflicts and agonising existential divisions.

These aesthetic, social, and territorial conflicts are leaving their mark on our emotional landscapes, terrains of life, and existential modes of orientation.

Your work with Bruno Latour theorises a new class politics around the ecological crisis. Who and what is the “new ecological class”?

What we argue in On the Emergence of an Ecological Class: A Memo is that we are beginning to see the emergence of an “ecological class”, assembled around a collective interest in fighting against the destructive consequences of current production practices, and for the habitability of the planet.

On Porquerolles, a new type of division and conflict has emerged from the ecological ruins of the tourist economy. On the one hand, you have those who wish to maintain or develop the island’s tourism sector. On the other, there are those who are fighting the ravaging effects of tourism on the island’s habitability. This is a conflict between two distinct geo-social classes. The group fighting for the habitability of the island exemplifies what we call the “ecological class”. This emerging class is not simply fighting to take over the means of production or distribute profits differently; it has detected the damaging costs of current production practices and is working to safeguard the island and its ability to sustain life.

It is the responsibility of Green parties to represent the ecological class.

The Memo was intended to be read by Green party members and Green voters; it even says so on the cover of the original French edition. Are they the forces that will lead the new ecological class?

It is the responsibility of Green parties to represent the ecological class, to take part in its ideological and organisational development, and to present a political offer in line with its collective interests. But yes, the book is also meant for present and future Green party voters. It has been picked up differently by different people in different countries.

In France, certain groups within the Green party – which suffered an awful defeat in 2022 – have used the book to restart discussions on the party, its ideological foundations, the people it represents, and the alliances that should be made. In Germany and Denmark, the book has been embraced by climate movements and distributed among participants, including younger activists, as a starting point for organising their actions. German climate activist Luisa Neubauer has done a great deal of work with and for the book. So it seems that the idea of an ecological class has been picked up on two different fronts at least. Ideally, these fronts would cooperate more closely, especially in Germany, where there is a big conflict between the Green party and young environmental activists.

Land Sickness starts with a feeling of being trapped and ends with billionaires taking off into space. What does this mean for our politics?

Like the billionaires buying up climate-safe bunkers in New Zealand or elsewhere, these space cowboys represent an extreme example of the geo-social class struggle. Of course, they frame their space projects as a collective endeavour – a continuation of modern principles and politics. But to me, these efforts more closely resemble escapism.

The elites are going beyond the earthly limits of a climate-damaged planet, leaving behind the ideals of collective progress. They are abandoning the idea of a common, habitable world, sacrificing it on the altar of personal survival. At the end of the book, I try to sketch out a few individual and collective principles for staying together on a damaged planet. These principles can be most easily explained as doing the opposite to the space-conquering billionaires. They involve constructing a link between humans and the ecological conditions needed to sustain life, embedding society in local and planetary habitability. We need to approach the future in a reflexive manner, continuously mediating between the multiple forces and life forms that ensure the world’s habitability. This requires knowledge mixed with curiosity, attentiveness, prudence, and imagination.

Can we be free amid the ecological crisis?

I believe we have to stick with the concept of freedom, even if many ecological theorists consider it unfashionable or problematic due to its contemporary connotations. People’s emotional, existential, political, and aesthetic attachment to the ideal of freedom is too strong to simply leave this concept behind or think of it as an outdated fiction of the past. We need to stay loyal to the ideal of freedom but betray the hegemonic notions currently attached to it. Luckily, this is not impossible, because freedom has been understood, institutionalised, practised, and experienced in various manners and forms throughout history.

We need to develop an idea of freedom grounded in the earthly dependencies that allow us to breathe, live, and prosper. This kind of freedom is negotiated with the non-human forms of life that human societies depend on to sustain their lives. Freedom could be experienced as “being-myself-with-another”, where “another” includes forms of life that have traditionally been excluded from the realm of freedom. Of course, it will be difficult to institutionalise a new conception of freedom, and even more so to make it emotionally appealing. Like all other values, it must be nurtured. Yet we have no choice but to try.

The Cities Feeling the Heat

Rising temperatures are making European cities increasingly unliveable in the summer months. Access to cool homes and climate-resilient facilities such as parks and pools should not be limited to those who can afford it.

Experiencing a historic heatwave – every year – has become the new normal in Europe. As is the case with diseases and natural disasters, though the heat will affect us all, the pain will not be shared equally. Zoom in to street level, and you will find that it is the delivery rider who has the most sweat on her brow. Underpaid for her shift, she worked long hours under the burning sun without sufficient protection. Now she arrives home to a cramped apartment in a treeless, concrete neighbourhood. There is no air conditioning, and she has no shady garden to cool off in.

As the continent warms, Europe’s growing cities and their ageing populations will become increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Temperatures are rising in the Mediterranean region much faster than the global average. Cities such as Madrid, Rome, and Athens are some of the most likely to be struck by heatwaves, according to a study co-led by the Italy-based Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA). But while heatwaves will hit the south harder, vulnerability to heat exposure associated with ageing, disease, and urbanisation is highest in northern Europe, according to the European Environmental Agency.

North or south, no one will escape the high temperatures. Yet for a long time, the urgent need to adapt to climate change has been ignored by the EU and its member states. This is slowly shifting. Since the adoption of the European Climate Law in 2021, EU member states have started developing climate adaptation strategies. The year 2023 will be important in this context, with the European Commission due to publish a progress report on adaptation measures. However, the picture is still far from ideal. Where adaptation policies are put in place, they generally fail to embrace a multilevel and intersectional approach, which should be non-negotiable. Most countries still rely on soft policies, and the social justice aspect is often overlooked.

More cities are boarding the adaptation train, but access to cooling tends to be unevenly distributed.

People belonging to certain groups are more vulnerable to high temperatures than others: older people, children, people with pre-existing medical conditions, pregnant women, and socially isolated individuals. Perhaps surprisingly, low-income residents are particularly at risk. A study by Spain’s National School of Public Health (ENS) on the impact of heatwaves on mortality in Madrid found that more people in lower-income neighbourhoods die from heat-related causes than in richer ones.1 Income level was found to be a greater explanatory variable than population age. Cristina Linares Gil, who co-led the research, explained to the Green European Journal that “people on lower incomes generally live in city centres, with inadequate housing conditions, increased exposure to air pollutants, and lower access to air conditioning, and more of them live alone”.

In Nomad Century, journalist Gaia Vince [see interview on page 72] argues that demand for cooling will skyrocket this century, and that access to cooler temperatures will become a key social justice issue. During heatwaves, this can be a matter of life or death. More cities are boarding the adaptation train, but access to cooling tends to be unevenly distributed. And when poorly implemented, adaptation tools can even cause further harm to vulnerable groups.

Escaping the heat at home

Air conditioning is the elephant in the room when it comes to cooling. In southern cities during the summer months, society seems divided between those with air conditioning systems and those without. “Your friends when you just had your air conditioning installed,” reads a Spanish meme depicting a man looking on expectantly from behind a tree. In the summer of 2019, sales of air conditioners and fans in France grew by up to 300 per cent compared to the previous year as households sought refuge from the heat.

Global sales of air conditioning units are poised to increase dramatically, but it is the high-income households that will find it easiest to buy and install the equipment. Aside from the environmental impacts of energy-hungry cooling technologies, researchers at the University of California have found that this disparity in access will deepen existing inequalities in health, productivity, and learning outcomes in education.

Not everyone can afford an air conditioning unit, but even if they could, they would also need to be able to cover the running and maintenance costs. When electricity prices increase, costs already push households with the lowest incomes into energy poverty. While we are accustomed to thinking of energy crises as a winter problem, summer demand for cooling will increase – especially in France, Italy, and Spain – causing surges in electricity consumption that leave power systems vulnerable. Climate adaptation for the energy sector therefore also means maintaining the stability of electricity networks during heatwaves.

Air conditioning will become increasingly common. The European Environmental Agency warns, however, that social and individual dependence on air conditioning can lead to overuse. This can prevent people from naturally adapting to the heat and cause them to forget traditional energy-free practices, such as using natural ventilation at night and blinds during the hottest hours.

Natural ventilation is often praised as an alternative: effective, low cost, and environmentally friendly. In some neighbourhoods, however, it is not so straightforward. Keeping windows open may be difficult because of pollution, noise, or even safety issues at night – all of which are generally more prevalent in low-income neighbourhoods. The European Environmental Agency highlights that this could be counteracted with integrated urban planning aimed at lowering noise pollution by reducing the number of cars and adapting buildings to noise and heat by using, for example, ventilation openings with sound-attenuation features.

Some households have air conditioning or may already live in climate-proofed buildings, but many do not. The fact that lower-income neighbourhoods experience a greater burn during heatwaves is also a question of housing quality. Daniel Aldana Cohen, director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative at the University of California, Berkeley, calls for a Green New Deal for Housing: an egalitarian green investment to address the climate and the cost-of-living crises at the same time. This would include “targeted investments in racialized, working-class communities to decarbonize and increase resiliency”, which would go to “improving building design and increased greenery and cut energy demand further”.

Until recently, climate action in the EU – including for housing and energy – focused almost entirely on reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than on helping cities prepare for frequent and intense extreme weather events. Energy efficiency efforts tend to focus on managing through the winter rather than the summer. The “green buildings” strand of the European Commission’s European Climate Pact aims to double building renovation rates by 2030 and ensure this leads to better energy- and resource efficiency. But the European Commission’s article on the initiative focuses on reducing emissions and preventing heat from escaping, mentioning cooling only in passing.

A Green New Deal for Housing would look at building planning, including measures such as painting roofs and other surfaces with white paint, as traditionally done in Greece, or a specialised reflective coating that operates according to the same principle. This simple step has been proven to have an effect on temperatures not only inside buildings but also in their surroundings.

Urban planning made social

Stepping outside buildings to look at the broader urban environment, there is a wide consensus that nature-based solutions such as trees and artificial lakes are silver bullets for reducing the “urban heat island” effect, i.e. the higher temperatures urban areas experience compared to their surroundings. Vegetation also improves the air we breathe and offers other physical as well as psychological benefits. Recently, the World Health Organization introduced the “3-30-300” rule: everyone should be able to see at least three trees from their home, every neighbourhood should have a tree canopy cover of at least 30 per cent, and every citizen should have a green area within 300 metres of where they live.

In most cities, the achievement of this goal remains far off. A 2022 European Environmental Agency briefing on access to green and blue spaces finds divergent situations across Europe. Overall, cities in the north and west of Europe have more green space than those in southern and eastern Europe. Within cities, the degree of greening varies across neighbourhoods, with fewer and lower-quality green spaces typically found in poorer communities. In the socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Helsinki, Berlin, or Lisbon, urban parks have less greenery and fewer facilities than those in wealthier city areas, reducing their appeal to residents.

Paradoxically, whereas the greening and blueing of cities seems to be pure common sense, such steps can trigger “climate gentrification” in the context of unequal housing markets. A study published in 2022, led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, looked at 28 European and North American cities over six years. It found that green cities risk becoming more unequal and unjust: “[While] creating green space or deploying climate-adaptive green infrastructure improves an area’s attractiveness, [it also results in] increased property values, housing prices, and physical displacement of working-class residents and racialized groups and cultures.”2

Copenhagen, Nantes, and Barcelona have all experienced the green gentrification dynamic in recent years. These cities have also seen social protection and housing affordability policies dismantled to various degrees over decades. Progressive mayors, however, are making nascent efforts to put the right to housing at the centre of their politics. Barcelona, for example, is introducing measures to keep housing prices down and curb tourist rentals.

Although not natural blue infrastructure, swimming pools can also act as weather shelters when even the shade becomes unbearable, especially for those for whom switching on the air conditioning is not an option – making access a social justice issue. On this basis, this year the regional Government of Catalonia has allowed community swimming pools to be filled despite drought conditions. The decision has been justified for public health reasons.

Climate action in the EU focuses almost entirely on reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than on helping cities prepare for frequent and intense extreme weather events.

In July 2022, temperatures reached 40 degrees in Madrid for the first time since records began. The city recorded the highest number of public pool users in history in the same month. While in 2021 and 2022 pools were kept open at the highest rate since 2008, some remained closed. These were mainly in lower-income districts. There is one public swimming pool for every 59,000 people in Spain, but availability is halved in the capital. However, when private pools are added into the equation, Madrid is the municipality with the highest number of pools in the country. Pozuelo de Alarcón, located within the region of Madrid, is one of the wealthiest municipalities in Spain and ranks tenth for the number of pools per capita nationally.

The question of who gets to cool off in the pool then leads to another question: at whose expense? In periods of drought, swimming pools compete with industry, agriculture, and households for limited water resources. Jorge Dioni López’s award-winning essay La España de las piscinas (Swimming Pool Spain) highlights this reality. The title alludes to the green and blue islands found in the affluent suburbs of Spanish cities, where a large part of the aspirational middle class resides. “A world of villas, housing developments, mortgages, alarms, charter schools, multiple cars per family unit, shopping malls, online consumption, and private medical insurance. A world that favours individualism and social disconnection,” Dioni writes.

The tendency towards urban sprawl that has developed over recent decades is not only detrimental to social cohesion but also to the environment. “Around the world, the most successful migrant cities tend to be dense but not too high,” featuring buildings with direct street access and the presence of schools, healthcare, and social services in the local area, as well as green spaces clustered in communities, points out Gaia Vince.

Although there is a link between higher temperatures and more populated cities, population density in itself is not what causes temperatures to rise. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid professor Javier Neila, who specialises in bioclimatic architecture, explained the dynamic to the Green European Journal: “Population density is not a simple determining factor in increasing the heat island effect. The use of more household appliances, vehicles, and air conditioning systems is.”

Interestingly, a study of 53 US metropolitan regions found sprawling urban development patterns suffered more acutely from extreme heat events compared to those that accommodate more compact ways of living. According to a 2022 report from the American Planning Association, denser development patterns can also increase the urban heat island effect, but greenery, cool surfaces, and other heat mitigation strategies at the design level can mitigate such increases. “15-minute cities reduce dependence on combustion vehicles, and therefore pollution. At the same time, they are a strategy of social cohesion in contrast to the dispersed city,” concludes Neila.

For cities to adapt to climate change in ways that protect all communities, experts highlight the need to involve vulnerable groups in urban planning. There are some good examples: Barcelona has been cited by the European Climate Adaptation Platform for its work involving stakeholders in the greening of the city. Moreover, some cities have recognised the need for special assistance in the context of rising temperatures. The region of Kassel in Germany, for example, operates “Heat Hotline Parasol” (Hitzetelefon Sonnenschirm), a free-of-charge service. Volunteers call registered elderly people and provide them with information on the health risks posed by heatwaves; they also suggest ways to stay cool and reduce the dangers.

A climate-proof welfare state

Climate adaptation policies have always taken second place to mitigation. For a long time, some believed that full acknowledgement of the need for adaptation would mean accepting the inevitability of climate change. But while policy has remained passive, people have not, as shown by the drop in housing prices in coastal areas of the US prone to flooding. Writing in The Atlantic, Jake Bittle, author of The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration, states, “As home values fall to reflect climate risk, wealthy homeowners and investors will dump their distressed assets and flee, while middle-class homeowners will be left to deal with climate catastrophes and costly mortgages.” Climate adaptation is already happening. Without state involvement, personal wealth and resources become the determining factors.

The welfare state was built around the notion of social justice. Prior to the rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s, Western democracies developed vast social programmes to fulfil the right to housing. Housing was a pillar of the post-war social model. To rebuild that vision for the 21st century, we also need to recognise the central place of climate and environmental risks in inequality and social injustice.

Climate adaptation – including the greening of the welfare state to mitigate climate-related risks – concerns all levels of political and institutional power. Cities and regions cannot act alone. They need the backbone of nation-states and supranational entities such as the EU to fund and enable their resilience. Climate-proofing our homes and cities will require a multi-level plan that reaches across sectors from urban planning to public health to education and that ensures the participation of vulnerable groups. The alternative is what Aldana Cohen refers to as “eco-apartheid”: a society where the rich cool off in pools while the poor suffer in the ever-increasing heat.

Nitrogen Wars: How the Netherlands Hit the Limits to Growth

The Netherlands’ ongoing nitrogen crisis is the result of the government’s failure to adopt a consistent, forward-looking food policy. The rise of the Farmer-Citizen Movement, Jeroen Candel argues, heralds new political conflicts around the ecological transition.

Green European Journal: A political conflict over nitrogen emissions and the future of farming in the Netherlands played a decisive role in the Dutch provincial elections in March 2023. Could you give us some background here?

Jeroen Candel: The nitrogen crisis is linked to a longer process of agricultural intensification in the Netherlands. Over the years, the country has grown into a major food producer in the EU and is the second-largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. Consequently, the Netherlands has seen rising nitrogen emissions from agriculture, which has contributed to the depletion of its nature reserves. The crisis spiralled when a 2019 Council of State decision struck down the Dutch government’s nitrogen action programme (PAS).1 Under the PAS system, construction projects and other economic activities were allowed to pollute nature reserves with nitrogen on the condition that this was offset by future reductions in deposition levels and by restoration measures. The ruling required nitrogen levels to be reduced before additional polluting activities could be permitted. This effectively froze all building permit applications, leading to economic paralysis: farmers are unable to expand their farms, big tech companies to build data centres, the government to construct new highways, and people to build new homes.

In the meantime, the Dutch courts have repeatedly ruled against proposals that merely adjust the permit system. Drastic measures are needed from the government to ensure the Netherlands complies with EU law, but the political landscape has made this very difficult. While most parties agree that nitrogen pollution must be reduced, they disagree on how this should be done, and at what pace. At the same time, there is insufficient recognition from political parties that the nitrogen crisis is also connected to the implementation of climate goals and the country’s broader food system crisis.

These drastic steps you mention – would they involve shutting down or buying out certain farms?

Yes, especially the so-called peak emitters that put a lot of pressure on nature – either because of their size or because they’re geographically very close to nature reserves. Different options are on the table, such as closing farms or moving them to parts of the country where there are fewer nitrogen-sensitive areas, and trying to reduce pressures through innovation. It’s now up to the provinces to develop strategies for achieving the targets that the government has set.

The Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging) was the big winner of the recent provincial elections. This new force will have quite a lot of power at the provincial level. Who are they and who do they represent?

The BoerBurgerBeweging, or BBB, is rooted in the agricultural sector. Caroline van der Plas – formerly a journalist covering the pig sector – founded the BBB in 2019 with help from various agri-food industry stakeholders out of frustration about the nitrogen crisis and the proposed (non-existent) government response.

BBB has close ties with the livestock feed and other agricultural input industries and uses an agricultural marketing company to advertise its policies and create its campaigns.

Over time, the party has successfully broadened its agenda to speak to the growing urban-rural cleavages previously ignored by the other political parties. Even though farmers make up a very small percentage of the electorate, BBB won around 20 per cent of the vote. The party gained significant support in the countryside, where frustration is strongest over the closure of schools, public transport options, and hospital infrastructure due to austerity measures. But it also attracted urban voters who previously supported the more extreme, right-wing populist parties – which lost out considerably. The BBB has connected various groups who currently feel underrepresented in the Dutch political system or are disillusioned by the parties that have traditionally represented them, such as the Christian Democrats.

Arguably, the world is hitting the limits to growth. Has the Netherlands – a small, highly developed, and densely populated country – hit them first?

I would agree with that statement. The Netherlands is an extreme case; it has the highest livestock density in the EU. Even if it reduced its livestock numbers by 30 per cent, as the current government intends to do, it would still end up with the same livestock density as the Belgian region of Flanders, which also has a nitrogen crisis on its hands.

The Dutch government still believes it can decouple economic growth or further economic development from environmental impacts and resource use. But environmental indicators – biodiversity decline, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions – demonstrate that it has not been very successful in doing so. There’s a very strong tendency by techno-optimists to invent end-of-pipe solutions, such as more innovative stable management, rather than looking at some of the root causes of this crisis of ecological poverty. The current state of the agricultural sector clearly shows that the functioning of the economic system is the source of multiple and interconnected crises.

Why didn’t the Dutch government and political parties make preparations for an agricultural transition they knew needed to happen?

We’ve known for decades that nitrogen is a problem for both biodiversity and the climate. It’s the same with greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector and peatland degradation. Yet the government enabled farmers to expand their businesses and increase livestock numbers. Now it’s telling them to do the opposite. Farmers are understandably angered by the inconsistent directives and poor planning.

The environmental permitting system was deliberately designed to prevent the slowing down of economic development and also to delay effective environmental action. But with this approach, the government has unwittingly created public resistance to the latter. Countries such as Denmark or France may have their own issues, but their governments have been promoting organic agriculture or agroecology and sustainable consumption for years. The Dutch government decided to do otherwise.

Is food particularly tricky because its symbolism is tied up with identity? You have the caricature of granola-eating lefties telling meat-eating “real” people to change their diets.

Identity certainly plays a role. In a neoliberal country like the Netherlands, market regulation is taboo and can feel like an interference in individual choices. Food plays an important role in people’s lives and livelihoods, which makes it a challenging domain for the government. This explains their reluctance to go beyond simply providing consumer information.

Farmers are understandably angered by the inconsistent directives and poor planning.

Compared to other countries in Europe, Dutch food policy tends to not look too far into the future; it is reactive. It is also more consensus-oriented and neoliberal. The government bargains with industry and relies on self-regulation. By contrast, French food and agriculture policy is more anticipatory and favours more coercive measures – although it must be said that this approach doesn’t always work.

More effective measures would involve taxing or simply banning certain products or regulating food environments. In the UK, for instance, the Tories imposed sugar taxes on sodas and regulated the amount of salt in products, justifying it in public health terms and particularly as a response to rising obesity. I mentioned the example of Denmark earlier, with its organic agricultural policy. And New Zealand is now introducing a system of emissions taxes for its huge dairy sector.

How do you assess the EU plans to support the green transition in agriculture?

Farm to Fork is one of the more salient strategies of the European Green Deal. It’s a first step towards a more comprehensive reintegrated food policy at the EU level. At the moment, however, the Farm to Fork strategy, which aims for coherence across all sectors and policies, exists in parallel with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Commission has been unsuccessful in aligning the two policies, so major inconsistencies remain. This is mainly because the current CAP was put forward in 2018, before the new Commission came into office in 2019 and proposed its Green Deal the following year.

What is also difficult with Farm to Fork is that, although agricultural policy is one of the most Europeanised policy domains, it largely relies on the national level. Apart from labelling, anything related to consumption – such as fiscal interventions, education, or spatial planning to change food environments – is still within the remit of member states. While the Commission has put the food system transition relatively high on its agenda, most of the member states have not.

The incoherence between the CAP and Farm to Fork and the recognition that these challenges are all related has only resonated in a relatively limited number of member states. The Netherlands has so far failed to develop a more integrated food policy. In that sense, the new sustainable food system initiative that the Commission is likely to propose in 2023 will be an exciting development; it will probably include some reporting requirements and may ask member states to develop national food strategies. Consumption has been one of the main weaknesses of the Farm to Fork strategy. If you look at the targets, they are quite specific on the farming side regarding pesticide and fertiliser reduction, for example. But on the consumption side, they are very generic.

What are the key lessons to learn from the Dutch case?

We need to be thinking about how we will evolve. The fact that food policy is even on the agenda is a positive step, but the approach remains very technocratic. At the same time, society is interested in adopting sustainable practices. The question is, how are we going to organise new forms of participation by food system actors to increase not only the quality and effectiveness of our food policies but also their legitimacy? This is crucial in fostering behavioural change at the scale that is needed.

The key lessons for transition management are to anticipate; to adopt a systemic agenda; to recognise that challenges are interconnected, and to address their root causes, rather than come up with short-term solutions. These are rather abstract and generic recommendations, but I think the Dutch government has clearly failed on all these aspects.

Do you think forces similar to the Farmer-Citizen Movement will become a part of European politics more generally?

Yes. Political scientists have long predicted that the ecological transition will become one of the new political cleavages. An increasing number of political groups and scientists argue that our current capitalist system is running its course and call for radical economic system change. What will come in its place remains to be seen. There are certainly vested interests in keeping things as they are and using politics to accomplish this.

Green parties’ food policies are built around approaches such as agroecology. But, in the Netherlands at least, it seems that farmers aren’t convinced, and green politics are far less popular in the countryside than in urban areas. How can a green-minded party win them over?

Green parties tend not to do too well with farmers. If you argue in favour of systemic overhaul, it’s not going to go down well with the people who would have to radically transform businesses they feel genuinely proud of and land they are deeply attached to.

What the Greens in the Netherlands are doing – also through cooperation with the Labour Party (PvdA) – will be essential to a successful ecological transition that avoids a populist backlash and deepening polarisation. My conviction is that the transition can only work if it’s combined with a radical redistribution of financial resources. Many political scientists suggest that people only accept large-scale change if they feel that it’s fair. We live in a time where a small percentage of society profits from economic growth while the welfare state and public infrastructure are deteriorating. This has eroded public support for the ecological transition. A green future would also need to include expanded public services and more generous social safety nets. This could serve to convince a large part of the electorate, including rural residents and particularly farmers. It may well be challenging to persuade farmers who don’t embrace progressive farming ideas to switch to sustainable farming. But for society at large, this has to be the strategy to follow.

Yes to Renewables for the Climate

Record temperatures in summer, less rainfall, severe storms – Spain’s climate reality is harsh and intensifying. But the Spanish government isn’t sitting idly by; it plans to source 74 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2030. This ambitious goal is now the subject of fierce debate and opposition. Rosa Martínez Rodríguez asked climate activist and Madrid regional assembly member Héctor Tejero why renewables have become controversial in Spain, and how its government might sway the public.

Rosa Martinez Rodriguez: The slogan adopted by campaigners against large-scale renewable energy projects in Spain is “Yes to renewables, but not like this” (Renovables sí, pero no así). What does this mean, exactly?

Héctor Tejero: First of all, we need to acknowledge the part that says “Yes to renewables”. On a rhetorical level, this is a step forward from a decade ago, when it might have just been “No to renewables”, full stop. This slogan is employed by a broad coalition united in its opposition to a certain way of doing renewables. It also captures long- standing grievances about ongoing changes to traditional ways of life in some places.

On the surface, their proposals are reasonable. However, they fail to fully appreciate the complexity of the situation and, if implemented, would impede the development of renewable energy. In my opinion, the problem is that climate change is disappearing from the debate. In the context of the climate emergency, even the most badly placed renewables are better for the climate than fossil energy sources.

Can the concerns raised by these movements be easily resolved?

In Spain, the green transition has ignited debates about biodiversity, land use, and agriculture.

While renewable infrastructure undoubtedly has an environmental impact, it’s important to realise that the leading cause of biodiversity loss is climate change. Certain species may be affected by the construction of renewable energy infrastructure, but steps are being taken to tackle this. There are plenty of examples – in the field of photovoltaic energy in particular – of renewable energy projects that actually have a beneficial effect on biodiversity.

The second debate is land use; that of rooftops versus the ground. Selected studies are used to support the argument that our (photovoltaic) power needs can be met via rooftop-mounted solar panels alone. However, most experts will tell you that this isn’t the case. The studies in question focus solely on technical potential and fail to factor in the time needed for installation. Given the challenges of climate change, we can’t wait for rooftop solar capacity to be exhausted before we start developing ground-mounted photovoltaic systems. It’s not just a question of generating the maximum amount of energy; we also need to do so as quickly as possible.

The green transition has ignited debates about biodiversity, land use, and agriculture.

The debate on agriculture tends to focus on the threat to a perceived way of life. Urbanites often romanticise agriculture as something natural – in opposition to solar panels. The reality is that intensive, monocultural, heavily irrigated agriculture is extremely destructive to biodiversity and to the wider environment.

I agree that green energy goals must be reconciled with protecting biodiversity and that the impact on agricultural land should be minimised, but the latter isn’t necessarily that much of a challenge. In order to reach the extended targets of the Spanish National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan by 2030, we only need 0.3 per cent of usable agricultural land. That’s assuming that everything is set up in the countryside. In Spain, 10 per cent of land is abandoned, so there is no widespread problem. Where the development of renewables is handled badly, however, it can still lead to conflict.

What role does territorial inequality play in these grievances?

Electricity production is very poorly distributed in Spain. There are regions that produce far more electricity than they consume, such as Galicia, Aragón, Navarra, and Extremadura. Others consume much more than they produce, the extreme case being Madrid, though this is also true for the Basque Country and the Valencian Community. This discrepancy needs to be rectified, taking into account the fact that our future energy generation will depend on the availability of wind and sun.

We must also remember that electricity only accounts for 20 per cent of the energy we currently consume. Once everything is electrified, this balance will shift significantly. Even with greatly reduced energy consumption, none of the regions are presently producing enough electricity to cover their needs under this scenario.

There’s an aspect to this debate in Spain that doesn’t exist elsewhere in Europe: the concept of España Vaciada (“Empty Spain”, referring to Spain’s rural depopulation), which has helped to politically mobilise this sense of territorial grievance.

Over the last 20 years, this concept has taken shape as a social movement involving political parties. However, it is first and foremost an emotion-driven movement. It’s a group of people who feel they have been short-changed, neglected by the Spanish state. It focuses heavily on very small villages and less on cities in medium-sized provinces. The movement has created a pushback against the development of renewables, which basically says, “Not only do we have fewer services, depopulation and a sense that nobody cares about us, now we also have to shoulder the burden of something that only benefits others.”

So far, the fairness of the energy transition has been seen exclusively in terms of employment. We now need to think about its equitability in territorial terms. Right now, the distribution of renewable projects on the basis of political influence doesn’t seem fair. For instance, [the eastern Spanish city of] Teruel could use its relative overrepresentation in parliament to minimise impacts on its territory, or tourist-rich coastal areas could displace projects into other areas. Renewables planning can’t simply be a matter of “Whoever shouts the loudest gets off the hook”.

Is there a sense that Europe is imposing the energy transition on the Spanish people?

In Spain, the common sentiment is “Europe is making us do it”, with a dash of “They’re making us do it, but it’s good”. Surveys show that people support the ecological transition in principle but disagree with the details.

Three elements have to be underlined. The first is that Spain, as a Western country, has a moral responsibility to make a more sizeable contribution than other non-Western countries. The second is that Spain is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change in Europe, as we see every summer. And the third is that the energy transition presents an opportunity to change the country’s economic model for the better. There’s no guarantee, however, that this will be done right, or that any new economic opportunities will be fairly distributed. This is central to the conflict that we now have on our hands.

However much it may frustrate ecologists, at the end of the day we need to sit down, ask questions, understand people’s points of view, and offer something in return.

What is the position of the Spanish environmental movement?

The environmental movement is facing a dilemma. On one side, there’s what we could call the old guard, steeped in the tradition of the 1970s and 1980s, for whom climate change is not the central issue. This more conservation-oriented environmentalism is now encountering new movements that are focused firmly on the climate.

Environmentalists in Spain have performed herculean feats to prevent genuine tragedies from occurring on the ground. Now, however, it’s not as simple as just opposing certain projects because of their specific environ- mental impact; there will be bigger problems further down the line if they are not implemented. The situation is extremely complex, and there’s a lot of tension within environmental organisations. Everyone understands that renewable energy infrastructure is necessary, but at the same time it has an impact on rural life, or on biodiversity, and is opposed by local residents.

Then you have what we call “climate pessimism”. This perspective – which has taken root across the world, and in the United States in particular – holds a lot of sway within certain organisations in Spain. These organisations have adopted a vision of environmental catastrophe that doesn’t, in my view, match reality. For these people, the effects of climate change are going to be so swift, so violent, and on such a large scale that nothing we do really matters.

Politically, Spain is very fertile ground for this outlook due to its decentralisation, the association between the rural and the local, and its libertarian tradition. Climate pessimism may be a minority viewpoint, but it is strongly represented in the media and within environmental organisations. This is feeding anti-renewables rhetoric here. It’s not hard to find speeches from platforms or organisations with links to territorial politics claiming that renewables are worthless, that they’re just another form of pollution, that they aren’t really renewable, or that they rely heavily on petrochemicals.

In contrast, we are also seeing the emergence of a new current of environmentalism with a much stronger focus on climate change. These new environmentalists are far more open to engagement with state institutions and refuse to accept climate pessimism, and that’s where the conflict lies. It was very easy to oppose a climate-change denier, but now it’s the ecologists versus the heel-draggers, or the electricity oligopoly, or even other ecologists with different views on what needs to be done and how quickly, and the costs we should have to bear.

These debates are tough, even aggressive. Is there a risk of a rift developing within the environmental movement?

It’s the same for any movement that starts on a small scale; when it grows and becomes more diverse, it generates conflicts that cannot always be solved. Everyone thinks they’re doing what’s best for the planet, for their country, for society, or for their children. It doesn’t help that the platform for public debate is often Twitter, which is a very confrontational space.

This potential rift worries me, as does the fact that it’s very easy for newcomers to climate activism to buy into the rhetoric of impending catastrophe that forms such a big part of the zeitgeist. The first risk of this outlook is getting caught in a political dead end. Social movements have an extremely important role in politics, but they ultimately need institutions to enact change. The second is environmental anxiety. The climate pessimist worldview creates a sense of powerlessness that I think is troublesome for mental health and activism more generally, especially among young people.

The electricity oligopoly is central to the public debate in Spain, and it has a bad reputation. How can we counteract this, considering that we can’t rely on small-scale investment alone?

Any project that seeks an ecologically and socially just transition has to be committed to the democratisation of energy markets. We might sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that everyone will become a pro- sumer [an individual who both consumes and produces electricity, selling excess back to the utility], but there are people, maybe even a majority, who aren’t interested in joining an energy community. That said, we need to act fast. We don’t have time to dismantle the oligopoly before we move forward with the transition, but every effort must be made to rein it in. This is the state’s responsibility. We also have to keep in mind that not all companies are the same when it comes to handling the rollout of renewables on the ground. You hear little talk of the photovoltaic companies, which, unlike those rooted in the construction industry, are doing things well – very well, in fact.

Even more problematic than the electricity oligopoly is the fossil fuel one. In Spain, the reputation of the latter isn’t anywhere near as bad, despite its open, direct campaigning against the ecological transition. This isn’t just a fight between a big oligopoly and the little guy; it’s a fight between two oligopolies. If you decide you don’t want to help the electricity oligopoly, then someone else is going to make money by selling gas for combined-cycle power plants and diesel for cars.

How is the government tackling the difficulties with the energy transition?

 The government in general isn’t doing badly. Teresa Ribera’s ministry [for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge] is one of the most influential in the European Union, and is playing a pioneering role. Despite a few communication missteps, the ministry is doing great work to resolve self-supply delays and ensure that energy communities are consulted on decisions such as the pathway that has been opened up to bypass environmental impact reports. I believe the impact of transition projects and the suppression of civic participation processes are the main sources of public distrust. We need to encourage people to take part in the ecological transition.

So participation is important in your view?

It is fundamental. A lot of the resistance to renewable energy projects comes from people feeling like they don’t have a say. Many conflicts are the result of a lack of information. We can’t expect the mayor of a village to find out from the BOE [Boletín Oficial de Estado, the official gazette of the Spanish state] that five renewable projects are to be built somewhere nearby.

We need to make transparency, information, and citizen participation processes mandatory and improve their enforcement – and it would also be relatively easy. This doesn’t mean that we should just accept what people in the villages say, because they may not be right, but a given impact can be minimised as much as possible.

The impact of transition projects and the suppression of civic participation processes are the main sources of public distrust.

Another idea gaining momentum is that of profit sharing. How can we compensate affected communities?

Part of the conflict stems from the perception that renewables are all cost and zero benefits. People are willing to accept certain impacts on their territory if they believe there will be benefits in exchange. Mediation mechanisms, such as specialised offices, and compensation or improvements to services could help persuade the public. Businesses can already offer free electricity, but this isn’t widely available. Another option could be to build a system that lowers energy bills according to the number of inhabitants or renewable installations in a given area. This would be complicated because it involves altering market prices, but it could result not just in savings for households, but also in more competitive, attractive locations for businesses and therefore job creation.

Another option is establishing an investment fund modelled after the Norwegian example – financed with a small increase in prices – that returns the profits from energy generation to impacted areas. Such a price increase would have little impact and could make funds available for specific investments – in health centres or taxi services, for instance – in areas with large projects. Explaining where this money comes from would help people recognise the wider benefits of greener energy besides cheaper electricity bills.

What’s at stake if we don’t manage to roll out renewable energy projects in a fair way?

The ecological transition involves dismantling one world while creating another. In doing this, you will, at least to begin with, make more enemies than friends because you’re altering known ways of life in exchange for something very abstract. Meanwhile, we’re also carrying around the weight of economic liberalism and the perpetual feeling that everything will just keep getting worse. If the first renewable projects are implemented unjustly, people will assume that future ones will mean more of the same.

At this stage, our accomplishments need to serve as examples. We’re in no position for delays, nor to wait until everything is planned out before we take action. This is the great tragedy. It’s not about simply putting up infrastructure, but about stopping the threat of climate crisis. On the whole, the fairer the transition, the quicker it will be.

What should we do differently in the future?

That’s a good question. We have to make it clear that the ecological transition will improve lives. Our framing of the situation has to move from one of impending disaster to one of possibility: a shorter working week, improved care systems, cities with cleaner air, and different ways of working.

The ecological struggle is a political struggle filled with fair and unfair conflicts, and these won’t always be predictable. First, we have to convince people of the necessity and inevitability of the green transition. We might take it for granted that people know it’s coming, but that’s not the case everywhere. Second, we must develop mechanisms for compensation and dialogue that will enable adaptation to happen. Transitions are complex, and people often struggle at the beginning, but once they start seeing the benefits they won’t want to go back – like with pedestrianised streets, for example.

The ecological transition is more than a process of technological substitution; it’s a process of social change. It needs to enlist social scientists who can offer a much clearer approach to public policies and conflicts in relation to the here and now. Political scientists, sociologists, and economists need to start thinking of climate change as more than a just backdrop; they need to recognise it as the great transformation of our times. We need to anticipate conflicts and create a political toolkit to resolve them. People understand that there is going to be an ecological transition, but they are unsure how it will benefit them. This is where the stakes are high.