Following the European elections felt a bit like checking
the weather forecast constantly, hoping for beautiful sunshine instead of the
guaranteed sleet and gale-force winds. Particularly in the last week before
voting day - the polls were all a little on the purple side (although it must
be said that the Greens were polling better than they ever have done before).
The climate sceptic, anti-renewable energy Kippers seemed to have captured enough (of the low turnout) hearts and minds to make me pretty worried about the possibility of ever seeing
the cleaner, greener future that I hope for.
Then the results came in, and they’re pretty bad.
It’s a bit of a wake-up call really. If we want our government to start taking the radical action necessary to tackle the very serious environmental problems facing us at the moment, then we need to continue to up our game; because we’re not winning – and those that are doing the most damage to the green agenda are gaining more power in the UK.
But – and it’s quite a big ‘but’ – it's not all bad. Of course, there are the usual lines about how the European elections are more of a protest vote than an accurate representation of what people think; that a year in the limelight could actually damage them substantially in the year before the general election; how the electorate were voting on the issue of the European Union rather than the complex set of issues that would inform their choice in another election. All of these could be true.
Let’s think about why it’s important to be a part of the EU. Greenpeace has made a few statements in the last few weeks about why the EU matters to us and why we think it was really important for everyone to use their vote in it. More than anything, the EU is important to us because it means that we’re not isolated on our island, unable to have an impact beyond our shores. By working as part of the EU, we can be part of, and influence, a global conversation. The EU represents something much bigger than just us – an international body with far more weight than our own government.
And that’s why these results aren’t so bad for the climate. Because the EU isn’t just made up of the people we elect – it’s made up of hundreds of representatives from across all 28 member states with a long legacy of positive action on energy and climate change. In the coming days it’s very likely there will be plenty said about the rise of extremist parties (on the right and left) and Euro-scepticism in the EU, but let’s take a quick look at the three key reasons why it may not actually matter in the big picture (and thanks to E3G for their excellent paper on the issue).
- Eurosceptic MEPs (the most likely to be anti-climate and anti-green energy) have shockingly bad attendance records. Most of them just take the money, pocket the expenses, and then stay as far away from Brussels as they can.
- When they do show up, the extremist parties often don’t agree with each other – so the prospect of them forming a unified, anti-climate coalition isn’t all that likely.
- The overwhelming majority of MEPs in the European parliament (just over 750) historically supports action on climate change – the parties that don’t represent just a small proportion.
Now, of course this doesn’t mean that last night’s results won’t have a big impact on our national politics – re-centring our Government further away from a green agenda. For that reason it’s more important than ever in the year before the general election that we make sure our issues and our solutions are priorities for the major parties. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t mean that all risk within the EU is eliminated. In the coming years it’s extremely important that climate scepticism doesn’t make its way into the EU executive, which means that climate change needs to be seen as a priority when it comes to making the high level appointments that MEPs are involved in making.
So, do you know who your new MEPs are? Find them here: www.writetothem.com. What do they think about climate change – have they signed the climate pledge? If not, perhaps you wouldn’t mind sending it to them, just follow this link and play your part in making sure that climate change doesn’t slip off the agenda just when we need it to be as close to the top as possible.
