(Reuters) – Europe faces growing pushback against policies to address climate change and protect the environment, causing its green agenda to start to fray. Here are some countries where the “greenlash” is greatest:
BRITAIN
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sept. 20 he would delay a ban on sales of new petrol cars and targets for domestic heating until 2035 to maintain the consent of the British people in the switch to net zero, among other changes to climate strategy.
Sunak denied he was watering down Britain’s climate targets, repeating earlier comments that Britain could afford to make slower progress because it was “so far ahead”.
Britain’s climate advisers said in June it was not doing enough to meet its mid-century net-zero target.
A government-commissioned review also found businesses complained of weaknesses in Britain’s investment environment, including inconsistent commitment to the energy transition.
Progress in onshore and offshore wind has been hampered by rule changes, prompting some developers to warn they will find it hard to invest in Britain without better incentives.
GERMANY
Germany will indefinitely halt plans on more stringent building insulation standards, environment minister Robert Habeck said on Sept. 24, after industry complaints the measures are too costly and hurt the depressed construction sector.
Germany’s lower house of parliament passed a bill in September on phasing out oil and gas heating systems, though the legislation was criticized by conservatives as too costly and by environmentalists as not strong enough.
Arguing over the law had brought the ruling coalition close to collapse until it agreed to water down the original bill.
The row has helped propel the far-right Alternative for Germany to second place in the polls. The party disputes that human activity is a cause of climate change.
Anger at moves to reduce the number of cars also hit support for the Greens in state elections this year, say pollsters.
Aviation industry representatives, including Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, have also warned it won’t be possible to reach the EU’s new sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) targets with current production.
ITALY
Italy’s right-wing government is pushing back on an array of European Union initiatives aimed at greening the economy, arguing that local business can ill-afford transition goals.
Italy has demanded that the EU water down a directive aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings, rewrite plans to phase out combustion engine cars and questioned a drive to slash industrial emissions.
Under current policies, Italy is behind schedule in hitting the decarbonisation goals for 2030.
At the same time, the government continues with other aspects of the green agenda. For example, it said in July it wanted to use EU money for an investment programme worth around 19 billion euros ($20.1 billion) to strengthen power and gas grids and make its economy greener.
NETHERLANDS
The BBB or BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement) party, founded in 2019 in opposition to the government’s plans to drastically cut nitrogen pollution on farms, has experienced a meteoric rise in polls.
Riding a wave of protests against the government’s environmental policies, it unexpectedly beat the conservative VVD party in regional elections in March.
The BBB’s rise was a major blow to the latest coalition government, which collapsed in July.
A poll by Ipsos ahead of a November parliamentary election put the BBB – which won a single lower house seat in 2021 – in fourth place at 9.5%, nearly 8 percentage points behind the VVD.
If the BBB makes large gains, it could set Dutch policy on nitrogen curbs on a collision course with the EU.
POLAND
Poland’s government, long conservative on environmental policies at home and facing elections in October, has gone a step further by suing Brussels.
So far it says it has filed complaints with the Court of Justice on the EU’s 2035 ban on combustion vehicles, the increase in the bloc’s emissions reductions target, the reduction of free Co2 permits, and what it called interference in national forest management.
Facing pressure from mining unions, Poland has also deferred a plan to cut its reliance on coal by downgrading the status of its upcoming energy policy update to simply a “consultation”.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett in Brussels, Sarah Marsh in Berlin, Gloria Dickie in London, Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, Angelo Amante in Rome, Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, Susanna Twidale and William James in London, Federica Urso, Pierre John Felcenloben and Anastasiia Kozlova in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi, Alexandra Hudson)
