Climate change: Faced with the “greenlash,” leaders must inspire hope
In its August 2 edition, The Economist describes the backlash against the fight against climate change, embodied in particular by Donald Trump's anti-environmental policies. The British weekly believes that this is not inevitable, as long as governments offer citizens a desirable perspective and horizon.
“Around the world, voters prefer a healthy environment to a polluted one, and a prosperous future to a threatening one,” writes The Economist . Has the venerable British weekly decided to state the obvious? In fact, this obvious observation sums up the dossier that the liberal magazine devotes, in its August 2 edition, to what it calls the “greenlash,” a contraction of backlash – a “reaction” following progress, in this case environmental – and green , underway in the world.
On the cover of the issue, against a green background, The Economist features a wind turbine held by ropes that twist it backward. This illustration is all the more symbolic since wind turbines embody the renewable energies so decried by the Europeanfar right , from Nigel Farage to Jordan Bardella, as the London-based publication highlights in an article reviewing their offensive against the “climate consensus of the Old Continent” .
In their eyes, “the fight against global warming is woke by definition, because it is paved with good intentions, justified by science, driven by city dwellers, and concerned with solving a problem that affects the entire world,” summarizes The Economist , which laments seeing this discourse flourish. According to a Eurobarometer study relayed by the magazine, the fight against climate change has also fallen among Europeans' priorities since 2019, a period marked by the pandemic, but also the geopolitical and economic uncertainties linked to the war in Ukraine and the return of Donald Trump.
“Reversing the trend will require courage and a lot of effort,” says The Economist, calling on European leaders to “convince their fellow citizens that the game is worth the candle” and to “strengthen public support so that it is more difficult to reverse the progress made.”
In the main article of its dossier, the media emphasizes that this greenlash, marked by the anti-environmental and anti-scientific policies of the Trump administration – which it returns to in another article – or the refocusing of defense spending in Europe, is not inevitable.
“The world nonetheless has the technical capacity to decarbonize a large part of its economy. In this respect, the situation has never been better. Indeed, the cost of renewable energy is plummeting and demand continues to rise.”
From a scientific point of view, adds The Economist, the goal of zero net greenhouse gas emissions also appears to be "implacable," even if the consensus on how to achieve it seems complex. Other avenues must therefore be considered, adds the weekly: taxing emissions, subsidizing decarbonization, supporting and involving the "ordinary citizen" rather than "hounding" them...
And to quote the 19th - century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who called politics “the art of the possible.” “A policy based on the universe of possibilities would begin by pursuing climate policy on sounder foundations, by restoring hope to the population ,” the magazine concludes. “Hope is what climate advocates must create.”
The Economist (London)A major British press institution, The Economist, founded in 1843 by a Scottish hatter, is the bible for anyone interested in international news. Openly liberal, it generally advocates free trade, globalization, immigration, and cultural liberalism. It is printed in six countries, and 85% of its sales are outside the UK.
None of the articles are signed: a long-standing tradition that the weekly supports with the idea that “personality and collective voice matter more than the individual identity of journalists.”
On The Economist website, in addition to the newspaper's main articles, you'll find excellent thematic and geographical reports produced by The Economist Intelligence Unit, as well as multimedia content, blogs , and a calendar of conferences organized by the newspaper around the world. As a bonus: regular updates of the main stock market prices.
The magazine's coverage may vary between editions (UK, Europe, North America, Asia), but the content is the same; in the UK, however, a few additional pages cover national news. The Economist is 43.4% owned by the Italian Agnelli family, with the remaining stake being shared among leading British families (Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroders, etc.) and members of the editorial staff.
