As heat rises, so too does pushback on green initiatives

It was a most unlikely setting for a watershed moment in the world’s response to climate change.

Yet a special election in the constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, on the northwest edge of London, has served notice that the arguments around protecting our overheating planet are changing. They are focused less on the reality of global warming and governments’ ambitious commitments to stanch rising temperatures. Instead, there are signs of pushback against the measures needed to deliver on those pledges.

“Greenlash,” the phenomenon is being dubbed.

It is coming largely from the businesses, communities, and individual citizens who stand to be most directly affected by the transition to a greener economy.

But it’s being magnified by world economic conditions – slowing growth, rising fuel costs, and squeezing living standards – caused by the twin shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine.  

And it’s being amplified by politicians. Not just longstanding opponents of climate action, but also some more mainstream figures concerned about the economic and political consequences of pushing too far, too fast.

That is why the Uxbridge election mattered, not just for leaders in Britain, but also for those in other countries responsible for most of the carbon emissions that fuel global overheating: the 27 members of the European Union, China, and the United States. 

Do they stay the course, which will mean finding the funds to cushion those industries and individuals who will lose out financially in a transition to a clean economy? Or do they slow down, pare back, or even jettison key aspects of their climate change policies?

The Uxbridge election provided unexpectedly stark confirmation of a shift that is noticeable in other developed economies.

The ruling Conservative Party won by a whisker by highlighting a single issue: a decision by the Labour Party mayor of London to extend the city’s ultralow emissions zone to the outer suburbs. Drivers of pre-2005 diesel vehicles in the zone will have to pay around $15 a day.

The result set off political shock waves, shaking a broad consensus among all the major parties in favor of strong climate change policies.

Leading Labour figures blamed London’s mayor for the Uxbridge loss. The result bolstered those who want to pull back from the party’s other green pledges, such as an end to further development of Britain’s North Sea oil and gas.

Some Conservative politicians, meanwhile, saw Uxbridge as a template for holding on to other seats at next year’s national election, by taking aim at the Labour Party’s climate policies and rowing back on key aspects of their own, such as an end to sales of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2030.

It’s still unclear whether either party will rewrite, or abandon, its plans to deal with climate change. But the political climate is clearly changing, even though a new scientific analysis this week concluded the current heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” without the effects of “human-induced climate change.”

The politics of climate change are also changing in a number of countries in the EU, which has adopted a range of ambitious climate policies and earmarked some $300 billion in post-pandemic recovery funds for green initiatives.

In an Uxbridge-like jolt, a new farmers party won a provincial election in the Netherlands recently by opposing nitrogen-emission limits on agriculture.

In Germany, the government has softened the terms of a phaseout of internal combustion vehicles under pressure from the auto industry. It has also faced resistance to plans to phase out gas boilers for home heating without sufficient financial incentive to homeowners.

The leaders of both France and Belgium, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, recently raised the idea of a pause in climate change legislation.

And in China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, leader Xi Jinping declared on the heels of last week’s visit by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry that China, alone, would decide the “pathway and means ... tempo and intensity” of its green policies.

Translation: Though Mr. Xi has overseen world-leading investment in electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind power, a slowing economy and the impact of searing heat on the electric grid mean he will continue expanding the use of carbon-intensive coal power.

So does this foreshadow a full-scale retreat from world climate commitments?

Not necessarily, or at least not yet.

There could be a shift toward a more-carrot-than-stick approach, of the sort taken by U.S. President Joe Biden, whose 2022 Inflation Reduction Act offers hundreds of billions of dollars to clean energy projects.

Even that has met resistance – in part, perhaps, because most of the subsidies are intended for rural areas won by Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

But there’s less sign of what might be called Uxbridge anger in the areas being offered this funding, as a recent Washington Post piece explained.

One former Ohio county commissioner, who gave the green light to a major renewable energy project, explained why he’s been urging fellow Republican officials to follow suit.

“We have new parks; the school systems are flourishing with all the additional revenue; the roads are in the best condition they’ve been in,” he said. “I am a die-hard conservative, but I support renewables because they’ve just been amazing for us financially.”