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Five years have passed since the EU approved its European Green Deal to become the world’s “first climate-neutral continent” by 2050, with the target enshrined in law a year later. This includes a goal to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, with a 90% cut targeted for 2040.
“It will be our compass for the next 30 years, and it will guide us every step of the way as we build a sustainable new growth model,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
However, it’s not been plain sailing, with far-right political parties gaining ground in polls across Europe as campaigners warn that environmental policies are being rolled back at an alarming scale and speed.
The EU is stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the required speed of the clean energy transition threatening the models of fossil fuel-based economies such as Poland’s and playing into the hands of political actors who wish to see the bloc crash and burn.
It’s also been five years since the UK officially left the EU after the 2016 referendum and, while unproven, multiple sources suggest that Russian interference influenced public opinion. The petrostate continues to ramp up Eurosceptic sentiment, with the short-term costs of the clean energy transition helping to sow division.
“Russian propaganda is working very well in eastern Europe, where far right means a weaker EU,” says Lukáš Pataky, an energy procurement expert in Austria and member of the ISEP Europe steering group. "We know where the wind is coming from".
Poland has just elected an anti-EU, climate-sceptic president in Karol Nawrocki, delivering a huge blow to prime minister Donald Tusk’s centrist ambitions. “By rejecting green ideology, green taxes, and the EU ETS, and through the extraction of Polish coal, we will finally start paying normal electricity prices,” Nawrocki said at a rally in March.
Right-wing populism is gaining ground elsewhere, too. Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic all have hard-right parties in government with varying degrees of opposition to climate action, while Germany’s AfD and France’s National Rally now have unprecedented support.
Climate change is often described as an existential threat to the planet, but the policies designed to help mitigate the damage pose a threat to the stability of the EU itself if they are not understood and supported by the public.
The good news is that opinion polls suggest that most Europeans do support efforts to tackle climate change. In the EU’s latest Eurobarometer survey, 85% think the issue is a “serious problem”, and more than half believe that the bloc, national governments and businesses are responsible for providing solutions.
So what explains the rise of climate-sceptic politicians? “Populists like the AfD are not just challenging climate action, they are also against other topics like migration and position themselves as broad anti-establishment parties,” says Dr Thomas Burgdorff, a former political adviser in Germany and co-chair of the ISEP Europe steering group.
It’s ironic that the climate policies so vehemently opposed by these parties would actually cut migration should they succeed in helping reduce extreme heat and weather events in the Global South.
“Brussels is sometimes portrayed by populist or far-right parties as a very technocratic entity, with ‘faceless bureaucrats’ dictating policy while ignoring public opinion, and it’s often used as a scapegoat, but I don’t think too many people buy into this narrative,” Burgdorff says. “What concerns people is policies that don’t leave any flexibility and are seen as imposed. For example, the timescale for gas heating systems being replaced with heat pumps and the phase-out of diesel cars create some resistance.”
It’s the same story across much of the western world, although the EU has to design policies that respect the differing needs of member states, cities, towns and villages without being seen as out of touch or taking sides. For example, electric vehicles (EVs) are more accessible to high-income individuals in big cities owing to the availability of charging points and therefore have more support there. Clean energy is seen more favourably in the Netherlands and Denmark than in other European countries because of their vulnerability to sea-level rise and flooding.
Public support for the transition is likely to be tested again after the European Commission this year proposed a ban on imports of Russian gas, with some likely to bear the financial brunt more than others. Any current contracts have to be wound up by 1 January 2026 under the phased approach, but companies with pre-existing agreements have a final deadline of 1 January 2028, with the plans facing fierce opposition from Hungary and Slovakia.
While Europe has dramatically cut supplies of pipeline gas from Russia since the war in Ukraine, decreasing from over 40% of its imports in 2021 to about 11% in 2024, it bought record amounts of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) last year.
“As soon as Russian gas is banned there’ll be a certain price hike, because the markets react on it, like they did with the strikes in Iran, and this is something that far-right political parties in certain countries could use to attack energy- related policies of the EU,” Pataky says.
“But there are LNG terminals with sufficient capacities across the EU, also in Poland and Croatia, and connections to Algeria and Azerbaijan from Turkey so we should be able to compensate for the possible ban and mitigate some of the price increase, but it needs to be communicated clearly by EU officials, once the ban is introduced. And you can never rule out what might happen next year – will we still ban the gas if Ukraine and Russia somehow agree a peace deal?”
The shift away from Russia reflects broader geopolitical changes for the EU, with countries such as the US and Qatar supplying a larger share of gas. The rise of China has also had a huge impact on the manufacturing of green technologies.
The country is a global leader in solar, EVs and batteries, creating a complex dynamic of cooperation and competition with the EU as the latter seeks to balance its climate goals with concerns around over-reliance on Chinese supply chains. “We are lagging behind in Europe with production of new technologies because of resistance to digging for metals like lithium needed for production inside the EU,” says Pataky. “The EU is moving to Serbia and Ukraine for supplies, but it’s an even bigger issue for the environment, because of the pollution impact of mining these metals in countries with lower environmental standards and corruption.
“The EU also went from producing around 30% of the world’s aluminium in 2000 to about 12% in 2021 because of energy prices and climate policies. A lot of industries are moving out, and if you consider many people losing jobs, it’s very difficult.”
Another struggle for business and industry in Europe is having to follow more than 50 ESG-related laws, regulations and directives. However, in February the European Commission presented its ‘Omnibus’ proposal to water down the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and EU Taxonomy.
This will loosen the bloc’s reporting rules for many businesses, and soften a policy requiring firms to check their supply chains for abuse, with Germany and France arguing that the ‘red tape’ hinders productivity.
“EU companies will benefit from streamlined rules on sustainable finance reporting, sustainability due diligence and taxonomy,” said von der Leyen. “And more simplification is on the way.” The Commission has set a target to reduce the reporting burden by 25% for larger companies and 35% for SMEs.
However, environmental campaigners are shocked by the deregulation drive. “The Omnibus proposal was made without any public consultation, sidelining civil society, with a lack of evidence or environmental and social impact assessments, and with a primary focus on narrow industry interests,” the European Coalition for Corporate Justice argued. “This reckless move not only weakens sustainability rules but also damages public trust in the EU’s democratic foundations.”
It is yet another example of the EU’s struggle with driving the low-carbon transition while not burdening businesses with excessive red tape and maintaining public support for the union and climate action.
“These regulations can create transparency and help businesses identify their weaknesses, but they can also create additional bureaucratic work,” Burgdorff explains.“Bigger companies will be able to manage, but smaller companies don't have 20 or 30 specialists on these topics, so how can they deal with these very detailed, sophisticated requirements?”
At the time of writing, Europe is engulfed in a ‘heat dome’, with health warnings in force in Portugal, Italy, Croatia, France, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Slovenia and Spain, where temperatures are up to 46°C.
The continent is seeing increasingly extreme weather events, economic stagnation, huge migration influxes from countries at war, and a changing political landscape. “Climate change is boosting migration, but many citizens are not connecting the dots,” Pataky says. “They just think the EU is dictating what their country can do.”
Advocates for climate action are struggling with a communication battle, and just last month, the far-right ‘Patriots for Europe’ group seized control over negotiations for delivering the EU’s target to cut emissions by 90% by 2040.
“More than half of the electorate of MEPs are from rural areas in Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania and so on that are just focused on survival because the economic situation is not good,” Pataky continues.
“It needs to be made clear that the green transformation will bring benefits to the population that in general don’t support EU ideas. There’s less impact in advocating for the Green Deal with people in cities such as Amsterdam or Copenhagen because they’re always for it.”
The EU’s stated aims are to promote peace, its values and the wellbeing of its citizens, while offering freedom, security and justice without internal borders. Unfortunately, some leaders seem to have lost sight of those ambitions.
Pataky adds: “Populist parties suggest that we can be totally autonomous, and that’s definitely an illusion. We will always depend on each other, and that certainly applies when talking about the clean energy transition – the communication of unity is needed more than ever.”
Chris Seekings is the Deputy Editor of ISEP’s Transform magazine, which is published biomonthly for ISEP members. Chris’s role involves writing sustainability-related news, features and interviews, as well as helping to plan and manage the magazine’s other day-to-day activities.
