The Guardian reports:

An unprecedented year of elections around the world has underscored a sobering trend – in many countries the commitment to act on the climate crisis has either stalled or is eroding, even as disasters and record temperatures continue to mount.

So far 2024, called the “biggest election year in human history” by the United Nations with around half the world’s population heading to the polls, there have been major wins for Donald Trump, the US president-elect who calls the climate crisis “a big hoax”; the climate-skeptic right in European Union elections; and Vladimir Putin, who won another term and has endured sanctions to maintain Russia’s robust oil and gas exports.

“It’s quite clear that in most advanced economies the big loser of the elections has been climate,” said Catherine Fieschi, an expert in European politics and populism.

“It’s been a bad year for climate and we’ve seen a gradual erosion in the public’s commitment to action for a couple of years now. The paradox is, of course, that major climate events are happening more frequently everywhere, yet people are no longer willing to prioritize this.”

From an apogee about five years ago, with Greta Thunberg’s ubiquitous activism and talk of massive new green investments, climate has slipped down the agenda for many countries after a pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, unease over inflation and a rise in populist political figures.

“It’s been the perfect storm,” said Fieschi. “Even the vocabulary has changed – not so much green now, but clean. There’s been a shift in the political balance where climate has taken a back seat to inflation and energy prices. Rather than climate being the existential threat, it’s the Green New Deal that is seen as the threat.” [Continue reading…]