Environment: The End Of The “Soft Consensus” In The Run Up To The European Election

Although scientific consensus on the climate issue is now well established, the urgency to act is rarely seriously denied, and climate policies have become part of mainstream public policy, conflicts over energy and environmental policies are on the rise.

In the introduction to the new issue of Le Grand Continent, Portrait d’un monde cassé, L’Europe dans l’année des grandes élections, political scientist Jean-Yves Dormagen analyzes the end of the “soft consensus” on environmental issues, a term he uses to describe the implicit agreement that had until recently prevailed between Europe’s different political families on the importance of environmental public policies.

Environmental issues, which until recently had not featured prominently in the campaigns of most political parties, particularly on the center and right, have recently become the subject of major controversy. From climate protests to “civil disobedience” actions by certain activists, from the “nitrogen crisis” (stikstofcrisis) in the Netherlands, to the major farmers’ protests of 2022-2023, environmental issues form the basis of one of the main fault lines running through the European political landscape today.

This discussion was first conducted as part of our electoral podcast “Decoding 2024.” You can find our audio episode on Spotify here (in French).

The Dutch regional elections of 2023 were a triumph for the Farmer-Citizen Party (BBB), which opposed a significant portion of the national and European environmental measures that affected agricultural spheres. The BBB party is ambiguous on these issues. On the one hand, the party acknowledges that “humankind has […] a certain impact on the climate” that needs to be “limited”; on the other, it asserts that “opinions and results of studies vary” as to the extent of anthropogenic/human-caused warming. What does the BBB embody?

Jean-Yves Dormagen

It is the embodiment of the new environmental divide and the rise of discourse that questions the scientific consensus and challenges transition policies or the environmental policies that follow. This is an extremely interesting example, as it is one of the first parties to emerge from the environmental divide, while at the same time representing positions that are not environmentalist, but quite opposed to transition policies. In a way, the BBB is a single issue party, a party born out of a specific and salient issue.

The BBB party has adopted climate-relativist positions, questioning, debating, or undercutting scientific consensus on these issues. And yet, in the 2023 regional and senatorial elections — which may have appeared to be of secondary importance — the party came out on top in every Dutch province, temporarily establishing itself as the leading political party in the Netherlands. Behind these positions, behind this climate-relativism or even climate-skepticism, behind this hostility towards environmental policies, there is also strong popular support. On social issues, such as abortion and immigration, the BBB is fairly conservative. It combines identity and cultural issues and a particular kind of conservatism with anti-environmental positions, which, in a way, is very representative of the times we live in.

Although the BBB opposes environmental policies and downplays the human-caused aspect of climate change, it nevertheless acknowledges the existence of climate change and that human activity has an impact on the climate. How can we interpret this position, which stands in contrast, for example, to that of some American conservatives, who flat-out deny the existence of climate change?

In Europe, the proportion of climate deniers in the general population is very low. In a country like France, for example, the proportion of citizens who deny the existence of climate change or disruption is only 3% to 4%. Climate skepticism and climate-relativism tend to be expressed in terms of the origins of climate change. Climate-relativists dispute the human origin of climate disruption, or stress that human activity is only one of the factors contributing to it, emphasizing, for example, the existence of natural climatic cycles. They also exploit a doubting mindset, implying that human responsibility is not a certainty, that science has often been wrong, or that consensus is shakier than we think. Lastly, in a curious reversal of paradigms, some people try to portray researchers and scientists as ideologues. This strategy is very visible on social media, particularly within the conspiracy or anti-vax sphere, which repositioned itself on climate issues after the Covid-19 crisis. All these narratives that we see emerging and spreading, particularly on social media, are what climate-skepticism and climate-relativism look like in Europe, whereas in the United States, we more frequently find more radical deniers who dispute the very existence of climate change or disruption.

The soft consensus is also being weakened by attacks from activists in the environmental community who criticize the spinelessness, lack of ambition, and even hypocrisy of environmental and climate policies. Demonstrations by a new generation of activists, some of whom have taken illegal action, have been highly visible in recent years, particularly in the wake of the climate protests. What do we know about the effect of these actions on public perceptions of these issues? Is it fair to think, for example, as some German Greens do, that these radical actions could ultimately be detrimental to the interests of environmental policy?

In the absence of specific studies on the subject, I’d be wary about how these actions have been received by public opinion. Generally speaking, we know that the most radical views tend to create negative divisions. In cultural battles or political power struggles, radical views rarely prevail. In a context of increasing climate-relativism and opposition to transition policies, we can postulate — though this remains to be empirically verified — that these minority actions probably undermine the cause they champion.

What I think may be more important is that a number of radical positions are now emerging within the environmentalist sphere which, in one way or another, are theorizing or justifying the idea that the democratic framework may not be the right one for advancing arguments and implementing ecological policies. This development strikes me as a rather concerning symptom, in that it indicates a losing position; this type of phenomenon appears when a political faction is in trouble, feels it is in the minority, and feels it has lost the battle of public opinion. It may arrive at the conclusion that activist minorities or authoritarian solutions might be welcome in order to achieve its ends.

Many environmental activists and supporters now feel that things are not going as they had hoped. Perhaps they expected environmental values to naturally progress as climate issues became more and more crucial, and as scientific consensus on these subjects became more widespread. It was then conceivable that, naturally, public opinion would gradually be won over to these issues and policies. But that’s not at all what’s happening now, and many of them are deeply dismayed. Paradoxically, despite an increasing number of tangible signs of climate disruption, public opinion is not following suit. On the contrary, we are seeing the emergence of climate-relativist forces that are questioning transition policies before they have even been implemented. A recent example of this at the European level is the CAP reform.

To a certain extent, this development is reminiscent of how part of the far left became radicalized in post-1968 Italy, Germany, and France, when some activists were disappointed that the movement hadn’t produced the great social and popular revolution they had hoped for.

At the other end of the political spectrum, part of the far right, as well as the traditional right, is taking advantage of the normalization of pro-environmental positions to take an anti-environmental stance. The most striking case is certainly Germany’s AfD party. But the opposite trend is also apparent, with the emergence of a new generation of what the Böll Foundation has called braune Ökologen(“brown environmentalists”), extreme right-wing activists who claim to worship the earth. At this stage, what do we know about how the various factions of the European right and far-right approach environmental and climate issues?

We can always try to rework political challenges or divisions by integrating them into broader ideological undertakings. There has always been an environmental tradition on the conservative right. In a certain way, environmentalism was born out of this political space. That being said, I still consider this a fairly marginal phenomenon. The most striking phenomenon is the rise among right-wing and far-right political forces of anti-transition and climate-relativist stances. Alongside these dynamics, far-right factions or minority groups claiming to be concerned about the environment and placing it into racialized categories are of secondary importance.

Today, parties such as the AfD in Germany and the National Rally in France — and, more broadly, the whole of the identitarian nationalist right and part of the conservative right — are tending to adopt anti-transition policy positions, openly opposing the European Green Deal, for example.

This attitude can be explained by a significant feature: the near-perfect alignment between the identity divide and the environmental divide in European political systems. Today, the more you value identity politics, and the more conservative you are on social issues, the greater the likelihood that you will be climate-skeptic, climate-relativist, or hostile to environmental transition policies. Conversely, the more you support multiculturalism, the more sympathetic you are towards migrants, the more progressive you are on social issues, the greater the likelihood that you will be in favor of strong environmental policies. These are the findings of studies carried out by Cluster 17 not only in France, but also in Germany, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. In addition to this alignment is the fact that a large portion of the traditional right-wing electorate shares climate-skeptic or climate-relativist views — in France, for example, this is true of a large portion of voters who voted for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 and 2012, or for François Fillon in 2020. The aligning of divisions and the spread of climate-relativist views is enabling the radical right to thrive within the competing electorate of the traditional right, winning electoral market share by highlighting resistance to environmental transition policies. This could, in the long run, change transition policies.

Is the growing environmental divide you describe the result of increasingly polarized opinions, or is it simply the consequence of greater salience? It’s not hard to imagine that public support for climate-relativist theories is declining in the long term but, as a result of greater prominence in the political debate, this division is materializing to a much greater extent than before…

You raise an important and rather complex issue. What is certain is that consensus on climate change is not making progress in society. Climate relativism doesn’t seem to be getting any rarer with time, and even if we don’t have much perspective on how opinion is evolving at this stage, the current trend doesn’t seem to be moving in the direction of greater support. Having said that, I think you’ve raised the right question, because it’s primarily the implementation of transition policies that is bringing about this division. So long as environmental issues remained abstract and a position of principle, it benefited from what I called in le Grand Continent‘s article a soft consensus. It was a cause without adversaries, with its own defenders — the environmentalists who took up these issues — but relatively few adversaries. As a result, environmental issues were not the subject of outright conflict. What has changed is that the climate issue is becoming the subject of public policy and concrete measures, even though the political outlook is sometimes unclear.

This lack of clarity is also an important factor. Policymakers will state that action must be taken, that a number of practices and behaviors must be changed, and that the transition must be paid for. They don’t always say very clearly how much this transition will cost and who will pay for it. This is the case, for example, with the announcement that the sale of internal combustion cars will be banned in Europe by 2035, a move that is arousing strong reactions, concern, and resistance, and thereby contributing to a deepening divide. Today, the majority of European citizens are opposed to measures against combustion engines. So it’s hardly surprising that in Germany, the AfD has run a billboard campaign defending combustion engine cars under the slogan “diesel is great”.

Young people have played a leading role in environmental protests in recent years, and a new generation of highly visible political leaders has emerged, the majority of whom are women. What do we know about the generational and gendered nature of the environmental divide?

There is a generational effect in people’s attitudes towards the environment and climate policies. On average, young people believe more strongly than older segments of the population in the existence of human-caused climate change, and are far more demanding of strong environmental policies. Young people have been socially exposed to climate issues for as long as they can remember, and have to some extent assimilated them naturally, whereas for previous generations, these are still relatively new issues which run counter to previously held perceptions and beliefs. In a way, this might reassure environmentalists; we can tell ourselves that generational change will do its work. But this does not take into account the fact that climate change — and this is what makes it so unique in the history of mankind — is an urgent matter, with each passing year making the problem worse, more dramatic, and irreversible.

Alongside this generational effect is a gender effect, which is part of a more global gender gap. Today, among the younger generations, women are very progressive and therefore very environmentally aware, while men are much more divided on social issues.

Cluster 17 has been working on a breakdown of the population’s value systems, including a group known as “identitarian”, which is the most conservative in French society. The demographic factor that most increases the likelihood of belonging to this group is being a man between the ages of 18 and 24. Within French society, young men are the most likely to be identitarian — and therefore climate skeptics and hostile to environmental policies. From this point of view, it’s quite logical that the young environmentalist leaders who have emerged as part of the climate marches — Greta Thunberg comes to mind — are female figures. This is part of a more global demographic trend in which young women are now the most progressive segment of society. Studies have shown similar results at the international level in a wide variety of countries — from South Korea to Tunisia and the United States.

The understanding of facts about climate and the environment is closely linked to general knowledge of science and the scientific method, which in turn is closely linked to people’s educational level. Can the environmental divide be interpreted as a manifestation of the educational divide — which, as we know, is higher on average among younger people than older people?

This is certainly the case in part, with education levels correlating with social standing and life path. More broadly, this division is in line with a demographic pattern. It’s quite striking to see that what we’re observing today only confirms the theories put forward by Ronald Inglehart and his famous “postmaterialist divide”. As far back as the 1970s, Inglehart predicted that the more educated generations of the new middle class would take positions on new social divisions, such as feminism, lifestyle, minority rights, etc — but also on environmental issues. This is indeed what we’re witnessing today. The university educated, urban middle classes are both progressive overall — and even very progressive on social issues — and demand environmental policies. On the other hand, older populations, who often have little or no higher education, are the ones most likely to resist these environmental policies, and to adopt conservative or climate-skeptic positions.

This also explains why a number of stereotypes are so popular, notably the opposition between those who live in rural areas and those who live in urban areas. In France, rural populations — implicitly more ‘working-class’, less educated, and representing a kind of ‘real France’ that is rural and ‘deep-rooted’ — are pitted against urbanites, the ‘hipsters’ who commute by bicycle. In the same way, the European farmers’ movement has often been framed as a clash between the figure of the farmer who nourishes and is deeply rooted to his land, and that of the out-of-touch environmentalist or technocrat from Brussels. It’s reminiscent of the slogan some German farmers use on their tractors: “We pay for your highways so you can drive on them in a Tesla”.

This is the narrative that is particularly popular with the identitarian and conservative right. But like many successful stereotypes, this one is based on the beginnings of demographic reality.

The urban-rural divide also can be seen more concretely around the issue of the personal combustion engine car. At this stage, the main strategy of European states would appear to be subsidizing the electrification of the personal car fleet, but this raises the question about a lack of resources and dependence on Chinese industry in particular. Given this context, is the lack of public debate around the prospect of much more far-reaching reorganization of living space and territories likely to generate even stronger opposition in the future?

What is certain is that we are indeed touching on people’s way of life, particularly a development model that has been both encouraged by the government and supported by the population: that of the single-family, detached home, which goes hand in hand with the use of a car — two cars more often than not in fact — by households living in suburban or rural areas. Because of this extremely strong dependence on cars, this way of life, which represents a large part of the population, can appear threatened by a certain type of discourse and public position. This perceived threat contributes to the environmental backlash that feeds the vote for the identitarian and conservative right. The populations most affected are often older people who used to vote for the traditional right. Not only do these populations feel their way of life is threatened, they also feel stigmatized — which is almost more serious. The message they are getting is, to some extent, that their everyday lifestyle is destroying the planet, and that they are responsible for the coming environmental and climate crisis. All this is bound to create resistance and mistrust, helping to sway some voters towards the more hard-line right and fostering mistrust of the political elites.

A large part of the European population feels that it did not vote for these kinds of policies. They may have the feeling that all these decisions are being made by distant, unfamiliar institutions, for reasons that are not entirely clear. They find out about these decisions — the European Green Pact, for example — through the media, and these decisions were not publicly debated. This creates a perception that policy is entirely decided from the top down, and helps to normalize some of the slogans brandished by the far right, notably that of “climate dictatorship”. In France, for example, we’ve heard many terms such as “punitive environmentalism” and “Khmer verts”, which are more or less along the same lines. One of the reasons for this type of narrative’s success is that environmental policies are essentially decided by administrations and political elites, particularly at the European level, without being a subject of major public debate or controversy, and without being truly legitimized by the electorate. This has reinforced the feeling that some decide for others and impose public policies that are not wanted by the population.

On April 24th, the European Parliament reversed its position on certain environmental obligations that were supposed to have been introduced as part of CAP reform, notably the set-aside obligation. This about-face is largely due to the stance taken by the European People’s Party (EPP). How should we interpret this setback? Is this a cyclical change, due in particular to the run-up to the European election and pressure from the agricultural sector? Or can it be seen as the beginning of a long-term reversal?

It’s always quite risky to try and predict long-term political developments.  But it seems to me that current developments are indeed significant, and that we need to take stock of all the consequences. Until relatively recently, there was a kind of consensus on the need to act, to commit to the transition. We are now seeing a number of signals within the EPP, as well as parts of the liberal Renew group, which indicate that they are experiencing tensions around environmental issues. Certain stakeholders are beginning to feel that current policy is moving too fast and going too far. A sizable portion of their voters are climate-relativists, and sometimes even more climate-relativist and hostile to transition policies than the electoral core of the populist right, which is less concerned by these issues. In France, for example, part of Nicolas Sarkozy’s former electorate is more climate-relativist than Marine Le Pen’s current electorate.

As a result, the EPP finds itself in a very complicated situation, which becomes increasingly complex as these issues become more and more pressing. Internal divisions are appearing between an electorate that is aware of the climate issue and the need for action, and an electorate that tends to take a climate-skeptic stance and reject transition policies. This situation is also reflected in the stances taken and challenges raised at the European level around transition policies.

The expectation of a radical right-wing wave in the next European election, paired with strong lobbying efforts — we are all familiar with the historical links between a segment of the right-wing and the major agricultural unions — suggest that the objectives of the European Green Deal and environmental transition policies could be challenged in the years to come.

Along with the recent Pact on Migration and Asylum, the Green Deal is probably one of the few European public policies that will feature in the election campaigns of most member states. And yet, these policies are quite unpopular in parts of Europe, particularly in the East…

The two policies you mention are becoming the two pillars of the identitarian conservative right. Rejection of the migrant and rejection of the environmental technocrat are becoming the two axes of the European right’s platform. Today, rejection of the migrant remains more prominent and decisive, but all this can be reconstructed into a single position that purports to defend European ways of life, societies, and traditions which are presented as being threatened by both migration and transition policies.

In reality, the policies themselves are not very well known. The vast majority of voters don’t know what these policies entail, which makes them even more worrying. This unfamiliarity is not beneficial, as it allows a vague threat whose outline is not exactly clear to breed opposition. When you happen to learn that you will no longer be allowed to buy a combustion engine car after the year 2035, you are left with the impression that very important decisions that affect you are being made entirely outside your control and volition. This reinforces the perception of a disconnected, authoritarian technocracy making decisions from a foreign capital about how we’re going to live in rural areas.

A similar phenomenon can be seen in the United States, where Trumpism has provided a laboratory for these trends. Donald Trump’s two preferred themes are closing the border and the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and foreigners from American soil on the one hand, and putting a stop to environmental transition policies on the other.

When we look at the presence of green parties in Europe, we see that the environmental issue has only become ingrained within the political party system in north-western Europe — the German-speaking region, Benelux, France and Scandinavia — while in the south and east, it is much weaker. Shouldn’t the observation of this limited political importance given to environmental issues lead us, paradoxically, to temper our initial observation of a weaker “soft consensus”?

In this case, we might be looking at a kind of consensus of indifference. As you point out, it’s mainly in the wealthier parts of Europe — Northern Europe, Germany — where GDP per capita is highest where strong environmental parties have emerged. Behind this phenomenon, we can surmise that these societies are undergoing demographic changes, where the left-wing parties have increasingly become those of university graduates and the urban middle classes.

The absence of green parties does, in fact, overlap with the divisions mentioned above. In some countries, the demographic of voters for Western European green parties is much less widespread…

Yes, absolutely. When we look at the core electorate of the German Greens, for example, we see that it’s mostly composed of a relatively well-off, highly educated, urban demographic that doesn’t exist in similar numbers in many southern and eastern European countries.

In reality, Southern Europe is in a somewhat intermediate position. In Spain, where we’ve just completed a highly in-depth study on environmental issues, we find exactly the same mindsets as we’ve just described, with individuals holding progressive views who also demand environmental policies. The difference is more in the intensity of the division: currently, environmental matters are less structuring in terms of both political supply and demand. An organization like Vox has in recent years adopted positions that are clearly hostile to environmental policies, but the intensity of the debate remains weaker.

In both Spain, with the ecosocialism of Sumar and Más País, and Italy, with the Five Star Movement’s (M5S) attempt to forge closer ties with the Greens at the European Parliament, a new dynamic seems to be emerging. At this stage, what do we know about the emergence of an environmental vote in Spain and Italy, and its ability to take a leading role on the electoral scene?

When we analyze the electoral demographic in countries such as Spain and Italy, it’s easy to understand why the most left-wing forces within the political arena — Podemos, Sumar, Más Madrid in Spain, AVS in Italy — describe themselves as ecosocialist. These political forces are built on an electorate that is exactly in keeping with the principles I’ve been talking about from the start, in other words, they are the most progressive voters on all social and migratory issues, and they are also the most environmentally aware. In Cluster 17’s segmentation, this is particularly true of the group we describe as multiculturalist, a group that can be found in all European countries and which combines very progressive and very environmentally aware views. It’s one of the few groups in which 100% of individuals believe in the human origin of climate change, call for strong environmental policies and are prepared to forgo a certain number of privileges or pay more for the environmental transition.

In France, the France Unbowed party has also been calling itself ecosocialist for almost a decade now, which is very much in line with what the Unbowed electorate is today; it’s a very progressive electorate when it comes to societal issues, a bit anti-capitalist and very environmentally aware, with very direct competition from the Greens in this segment. The main difference between Spain and France is that in France, groups claiming to be environmentalists, such as the Greens, can reach 13% of the vote in European election, which is currently not at all the case in countries like Spain and Italy — mainly because the divisions are much less pronounced and much less decisive.

M5S is a rather unusual case. One of the movement’s five stars represents the environment, which is in keeping with the ambitions and attitudes of the movement’s founders, who have always considered the environment to be one of the most important political issues. But this priority is no doubt less obvious among their electorate. Overall, the positions taken by the Five Stars on a number of issues are less in line with what environmentalists have traditionally stood for, namely a very progressive approach to social and cultural issues, with, for example, strong support for migrants. It’s hard to imagine French environmentalists governing with the National Rally, whereas the Five Stars have governed with the League. Of course, since this experiment in governance, the M5S has undergone considerable change and repositioned itself with the left, losing much of its right wing to Giorgia Meloni’s party in particular. But the party continues to be less influenced by social progressiveness than is usually the case with Europe’s environmental groups.

Green parties are much more rare in Eastern Europe, where divisions over the environment are also less pronounced. Can we expect this difference to lead to tensions within the Union during the next legislature?

We can, quite logically, foresee the emergence of divisions not only within Western and Northern European societies, but also between the richer parts of the Union and the poorer countries to the east and south.

We’re already seeing a division of this kind with the development of electric vehicles today. In Eastern and Southern Europe, the electrification of the automotive market is less advanced. Some populist leaders, such as Matteo Salvini, are beginning to adopt hostile stances towards electric vehicles, but this also reflects the fact that these societies are less engaged in this transition. We can imagine that this division will lead to points of conflict and geographical divisions within the European space itself.

The Union may have hoped for a kind of “Brussels effect” in its environmental actions. But between the United States, where the Republican Party continues to promote a policy of relentless exploitation of fossil fuels, a China that continues its industrial expansion, and the still-powerful petro-monarchies, establishing global leadership is a delicate matter. How can we position ourselves in a world where these issues are far from enjoying a “soft consensus”?

The issue of collaboration and cooperation between players at the international level is indeed critical. The free-riding we already observe at the national level — in other words, the fact that most citizens are quite willing to have others pay the cost of the transition for them — can also be seen at the international level. It can seem quite paradoxical to pursue proactive transition policies, especially if they are costly, while the rest of the world fails to follow this course or takes the opposite course — or adopts an opportunistic approach, such as when it comes to cars.

One of the paradoxical effects of electrifying the automotive fleet is that it gives Chinese manufacturers a very strong edge, placing Europe in a very tricky competition situation, with major economic repercussions. This trend may give rise to new tensions, further widening the divide within Europe. We are entering areas of considerable uncertainty.