"The Right Wants To Go Back To A Past That No Longer Exists. The Left Wants A Future It Will Not Dare To Fund"

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How rising emissions distort our political ecosystems is not nearly as well understood as the scientific certainty that they are heating our world. Hundreds of academic papers detail the tipping point risks of an anthropologically altered climate, but very few look at the feedbacks on governance and ideology. One thing, however, is certain: all of the world’s systems – biological, physical, economic and political – are coming under more climate stress and the longer this is left unabated, the greater is the likelihood that something will break.

Democracy is starting to look almost as fragile as the rainforest. Politicians in the traditional parties will not face the fact that they are no longer living in the stable climate in which that political system was created. The right wants to go back to a past that no longer exists. The left wants to move towards a future that it will not dare to fund. Meanwhile, market zealots and xenophobes, fuelled by fossil fuel money, are using the unfolding chaos to frighten voters and take the opportunity to replace social safety nets and environmental protections with higher walls and rapacious extraction.

Here in Brazil we saw, with the previous, far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, the extremes that the ancien regime is willing to go to hold on to what it has and to burn what remains of the forest. The return of the left in the guise of President Lula has brought a respite but only slowed the pace of destruction. This is a global story. The climate crisis has pushed the right towards zealotry, and made the left appear timid.

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Since 2021, Britain’s rightwing press – the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun – has mostly treated net zero as a wedge issue, with numerous politicians following suit. The Conservative politician and former Ukip deputy leader Craig Mackinlay recently told the US news site Politico he expected net zero and energy security to be the political battleground for the next 10 years: “It is an infinitely bigger issue than Brexit.” This is gnawing into the roots of conservatism. The Tory party’s traditional instinct to conserve national and natural heritage is being eroded by a neoliberal urge to tear up regulations and exploit every resource to extinction. Rishi Sunak has backtracked on net zero and made North Sea gas and motoring central thrusts of his election campaign. If the Tories lose this week, as the opinion polls predict, the party’s hard right will push harder still against climate action. Any success by the Reform party, which is partly funded by climate sceptics, will add to the pressure. If a Farage-isation of British conservatism seems outlandish, consider the fact that the US Republican party also used to consider itself a stout defender of the environment.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/04/far-right-using-climate-crisis-as-bogeyman-to-frighten-voters-and-build-higher-walls