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Opinion: as Europe burns, the centre-right is backing away from climate action. Why?

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rangerrebew:
Opinion: as Europe burns, the centre-right is backing away from climate action. Why?
Opinion by Dave Keating
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23h

 
Europeans this summer have been presented with a disjointed reality on their newspaper front pages. On one side, they have read stories about global heat records, wildfires and floods, which few nowadays deny are being spurred and worsened by man-made climate change. Yet, on the other side of the front page, they are reading stories about their leaders walking back their climate commitments, thinking that opposing climate efforts will be a winner at the ballot box. In the most recent example, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced last week a plan to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves with a no-holds-barred push for new North Sea drilling, authorising 100 new licences. It came a week after he declared war on British laws designed to encourage a modal shift from cars to public transport or cycling. He said he will review “anti-car schemes across the country” such as low-emission zones, cycling infrastructure and low speed limits. Meanwhile, in Brussels, the centre-right European Peoples Party (EPP), under the leadership of German conservative Manfred Weber, has decided to take on one of its own, conservative European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, over what it calls overburdensome climate legislation. Weber spearheaded his pan-European group’s opposition to a central pillar of von der Leyen’s green deal, the EU Nature Restoration Law, in the European Parliament. That attempt to kill the law was narrowly defeated by an alliance of the left, Greens, Liberals and some EPP defectors. However, the language used during the debate signalled that Weber intends for the EPP to campaign on a promise to "rebalance" Europe's climate policy amid concern that the EU is being far "more ambitious" than the rest of the world. While Weber has insisted that the EPP still believes that "climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation", the group's shift suggests they will use opposition to climate laws seen as overburdensome on the campaign trail in the EU elections next June, seeing it as a vote winner. The pressure on von der Leyen looks likely to make her hold back a proposal for a new 2040 climate target, especially now that her vice-president for the green deal, Frans Timmermans, is leaving to run to become Dutch prime minister. In Italy last month, as unprecedented wildfires raged in Sicily, far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told a rally of Spain’s far-right Vox party that “ultra-ecological fanaticism” was a threat to the economy. Her transport minister said of the summer’s extreme weather, “In summer it is hot, in winter it is cold”.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/opinion-as-europe-burns-the-centre-right-is-backing-away-from-climate-action-why/ar-AA1eXKv0?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2a39b14d05f64afd84fdf63dac804efa&ei=24

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