Author Russian Presidential Press and Information Office
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The alleged Russian conspiracy which is supposed to be helping populists win elections worldwide has now been blamed for a fall in EU nation state support for European renewable energy policies.
How A Populist Europe In Thrall To Russia Threatens Climate Change Action
“We are in a really dangerous moment.”
By Arthur Neslen
26/06/2018 7:45 PM AESTAs a growing number of European countries tip toward the far right politically, attempts to curb climate change are coming under pressure. The region’s race to cut planet-warming greenhouse gases is generating friction, and some Members of European Parliament and experts point the finger of blame at Russian big energy interests and populist governments in thrall to them.
This month, a bid to raise the European Union’s supply of renewable energy to 35 percent of the electricity mix by 2030 was stymied by a bloc of EU states led by populist governments in the Visegrad countries ― Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia ― even though it had the support of the European Parliament and European Commission.
The same bloc of countries helped whittle down proposals for a binding 40 percent energy conservation target, despite signs of accelerating climate change from the Antarctic to the African savannah.
“We see a pattern of populist governments clearly opposing ambitious climate and energy regulations, which is in line with the primary Russian economic interest: exporting fossil fuels and nuclear technology,” Benedek Jávor, the vice-chair of the European parliament’s environment committee and a Hungarian Green MEP, told HuffPost.
Russia supplies more than a third of Europe’s gas but this could be reduced to nothing by an ambitious energy saving target, according to analyses by several think tanks and consultancies.
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Hungary, for example, which is becoming an increasingly authoritarian government under far-right leader Viktor Orbán, is a valued advocate for Russian gas infrastructure and is also building a Russian-financed €10 billion ($11.5 billion) nuclear reactor outside Budapest.
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Russia’s energy agenda plays to a wider audience than extreme nationalists. Gas and nuclear are both seen as relatively lower carbon options than coal, which could “bridge” the path to a mid-century world powered solely by renewables. However, some climate studies suggest that, where gas is concerned, the bridge could also burn the chances of limiting global warming to no more than a 2 C temperature rise above pre-Industrial levels ― the target the majority of scientists say cannot be exceeded if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Several academic papers have found that investment in gas could crowd out desperately needed funds for renewable energy while providing few emissions-cutting benefits.
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In my opinion HuffPost are making it up as they go. If renewable energy was viable, gas wouldn’t have an opportunity to “crowd out” renewable investment, because renewable investment would make sense on its own terms.
As for Huffpost’s evidence free allegation that Russia is pushing populism to undermine the green agenda, in my opinion it would make far more sense for the Russian government to support the green agenda – to support anti-fracking, anti-nuclear and renewable energy advocacy movements.
More fracking in Europe would undermine Russian gas sales. A Nuclear power renaissance in Europe would undermine Russian gas sales. Useless green energy “investments” not so much.
Of course I’m not suggesting Russia is doing anything of the sort. Why risk scandal and exposure, when liberal green European politicians are doing everything in their power to wreck European energy independence without outside help?
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Far right. I see this term a lot, but never far left! The propaganda churned out by much of the establishment, which is itself now well to the left, really is pathetic in condeming people voting for governments who aim is to serve rather than act as master.
What you are seeing here, and in other places, is the way the activists are reacting to their failure to persuade.
The advocates have for many years been proclaiming that if the planet continues present levels of CO2 emissions, civilization is doomed. You might therefore expect them to advocate measures which would reduce global emissions.
But they do not. They instead advocate that the West should do things which will have little impact on their own emissions, and in any case none on global emissions – like install wind and solar in the US and Europe. And they object strongly to anyone suggesting that what really needs to happen, to secure their supposed aims, is for China and developing world countries to stop increasing or reduce.
They also object strongly to anyone suggesting that to meet their supposed goals in the West would require, for instance, changing where we live and work and how we travel. Like, abolishing the car, suburbs, suburban business parks, shopping centers….
No, all that has to happen is Paris. So everyone except us can carry on emitting furiously, and all we have to do is put up a few more wind turbines, and this will save the planet. Oh, and turn off our standby appliances, yes, that will help. And bike a bit more. But keep those lovely malls, cars, and all the stuff, and drive to work, just in electric cars.
For some this is a central part of the strategy, because they are following the Alinsky playbook, and being careful to make demands which are impossible to meet, and avoiding coming to power, when you could be held accountable for implementing them. It also helps if the case you are making is nonsense, because that way it will not persuade, and you can claim conspiracy by dark interested forces to account for its lack of success in public opinion.
We see this in the Huff Post view, and we can see it regularly on Ars Technica’s climate pages, and in the Guardian’s environmental pages.
The advocacy has failed, because there is no case for the alarmist view of climate to start with, and because the policy measures proposed make no sense even if there were such a case.
Now we have to find someone to blame for the failure to persuade everyone to adopt these policies. Obviously we cannot admit the deficiencies in the case or the measures. Well, we tried blaming Exxon, but that seems to have run into the sand. So lets think, who else could we blame? Not China of course, because we cannot draw attention to China’s huge and rising emissions, and huge and rising coal use. So lets think… Ah, yes, Russia. Lets join the chorus of disapproval, and blame Russia.
The movement is on its last legs. The problem in political terms is that the Alinsky model works up to a point, but at that point it needs a genuine external crisis to allow it to come to power and forget all the demands which got it there.
You need a disastrous war, a depression, something of that order of magnitude. Even a financial crisis is not enough. Otherwise you get to the peak of radicalization, but its not enough to allow what is still a minority group to seize power. And there is a reaction.
In the climate case, we’d need something more than a few floods or storms. We’d need something like Manhattan or London to vanish under the waves. Fortunately there is no sigh of this, and so we now see climatism moving slowly down the far side of the normal distribution into oblivion. Slowly at first, but with increasing momentum as time goes by.
Watch for the next moral panic. Because there will be one in a couple of years, once this one has decisively faded from view.
Che Guevara supposedly once said “if a country is not ripe for socialist revolution it is the responsibility of every good socialists to make it so.”
Note the wholly unjustified leap from “they don’t support renewables” to “but climate change is happening everywhere”.
They never stop to consider that perhaps (i) people would rather adapt to any changes rather than become considerably poorer now or (ii) there might be other solutions that would work better, and people are realising that.
This whole fiction is based on the assumptions that we must act now and we must do it this way. But neither has been properly discussed or agreed by an electorate anywhere. It is the utter lack of proper democratic discourse that is leading to “populism” across the West, not the Russians. The same happened with immigration, where various elites simply increased immigration massively without any consent from the population and withtout any discussion of the benefits and disbenefits. As with “Deniers”, anybody asking for a debate was shouted down as racist.
I can see that Russia depends heavily on oil revenues, and we can appreciate that they’d be willing to influence elections in other countries if it would make them billions of dollars. But in the US, why would they support the party of “Drill, Baby Drill!”
Government doing what the people demand. Isn’t that the “Democracy” we are supposed to all support? When did that become “Populist” and a pejorative? Isn’t the purpose of government do do the will of the people? Or is that only outside of the EU?
In EU the elite, unelcted Komisars & Co wants to do their own way, but people have that DAMN democracy. It is bad thing to give Democracy to the people !
“Populist” governments are where stupid citizens vote the wrong way.
I knew them John Birch boys was right! There’s a Ruskie under every bed!!! And theys coming for our windmills!!!
Russia, Universal bogey man.
Isn’t ‘Populist Government’ what democracy is all about? Can you believe the hubris of these elites who are so angry about the people having government do what the people want?
Wow! I’m impressed. I didn’t know Putin was so powerful.
Wow, that Vlad is one heck of a guy—almost superhuman. Or so it would seem by reading the news.
Don’t you love the utter stupidity : nuclear is to be avoided
Until Russia is under the bankers’ jackboot again they will continue to be demonized.
WTF? Right in political terms means LESS government, LESS taxes, etc. Nowhere in Europe is that happening AFAIK. Just more word-definition-twisting by the media.