The far right's green bashing has given mainstream parties an excuse to do nothing but we have more agency than we think | Ajit Niranjan

"Last year, I stood in front of a black-clad skinhead as he shook a fist full of rings thick enough to double as a knuckle-duster. Flecks of spit flew into my face as he railed against the green agenda of the last German government. Until recently, it would have felt bizarre to talk to protesters at a neo-Nazi-linked rally about climate change or hear them rant unprompted about heat pumps."

"But far-right parties have entered the political mainstream, and their scathing tirades against woke green rules are energising their base. That shift is one of several powerful trends that have pushed advocates of climate action on to the back foot and made the rigorous journalism that many of our readers support even more impactful. From the Trump administration waging war on its environment agencies to the EU ripping up its Green Deal, political resistance to cutting pollution is mounting."

"Much of our work involves tracking the groups working to destroy the environment. The far right has unexpectedly made green-bashing its number two priority a strategy its voters seem to tolerate, if not reward and its increasingly ferocious attacks are giving established parties an excuse to scrap protections they never fully backed. At the same time, big oil has used the political shift it helped create to double down on fossil fuels, scrapping promises to invest in renewables and hitting activists with spurious lawsuits."

Far-right parties have entered mainstream politics and adopted anti-green rhetoric that energises their voters and legitimises rolling back environmental protections. Political resistance to cutting pollution is increasing across governments, exemplified by attacks on environmental agencies and the weakening of EU Green Deal commitments. Corporate actors, particularly major oil companies, are exploiting the political shift to double down on fossil fuels, cancel renewables investments, and bring spurious lawsuits against activists. Local conflicts over resources, such as lithium mining for electric vehicles, and conspicuous high-emission lifestyles in tax havens illustrate tensions between climate goals and entrenched economic interests.

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