Right-wing populist parties are already part of the governments of seven EU member states and are expected to make up a quarter of MEPs after the European elections in May 2019. The dwindling trust of citizens in democratic institutions and in Europe, the re-sorting of party spectrums, the declining influence of traditional popular parties as well as the emergence of multi-party coalitions and minority governments will all make governance increasingly difficult. At the same time, we are experiencing a profound transformation of life, work and mobility through digitalisation, urbanisation and climate change. In this episode host Martin Wall talks to the authors of an explorative study on the the voices and the weight of right-wing populist parties in the formulation of European climate policy.
Interviewees: Stella Schaller and Alexander Carius, adelphi
You can download the study "Convenient Truths - Mapping climate agendas of right-wing populist parties in Europe" here.
Martin Wall is an Irish Research Council/European Commission funded Marie Curie CAROLINE Fellow who is currently seconded to adelphi and contributes to the Climate Diplomacy Project. He is funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 713279.
Using a progressive environmental security concept can help to tackle a range of environmental issues related to armed conflict, such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, tensions over natural resources, conflict pollution, and damage to ecosystems. The environment can actually play a role in peacebuilding. This article briefly outlines why such an inclusive and environmental protection approach is needed and how it could be implemented.
Climate action and free trade have been perceived as contrary agendas for a long time. Despite more and more governments seeing tremendous potential for win-win outcomes, aligning trade and climate has become harder. This is due to changes in our current geopolitical landscape, as Christian Hübner explains in light of the upcoming G20 summit.
Human activity has caused the temperature of the Earth and its atmosphere to rise by about 1°C above pre-industrial levels, triggering fundamental changes to the planet’s physical and social landscapes. On 8 October an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that temperatures were rising faster than expected, and that 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels could occur as early as 2030.
A recently published paper by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has focused on the under-researched topic of how climate change impacts may affect violence in South and Southeast Asia. Titled “Climate change and violent conflict: Sparse evidence from South Asia and South East Asia”, the report highlights how little work has been done in looking at climate change and its possible impact on security in the most densely populated regions on the planet.