The European Union’s Green Deal is at risk of being dragged into “culture wars” in which “the facts don’t matter anymore,” the bloc’s climate chief has claimed. Frans Timmermans, who has consistently warned that when it comes to climate policies, “we do not have the time to be paralysed,” this week told reporters of his concerns that the drive towards carbon net zero may be halted by vindictive political blocks.
This drive is at the ‘heart’ of the European Green Deal, which is itself the first of the Commission’s ‘legislative priorities’ for 2023 and 2024. Brusselsreport.eu’s Editor-in-Chief Pieter Cleppe told a panel event hosted by The European Conservative in March that this was “no coincidence” since it “encompasses all aspects of our lives.” He also noted that while much of the rhetoric around the Green Deal appears to be soft, the plan is actually resulting in the “sharpening up of already sharp regulations.”
Mr. Timmermans’s comments appear, however, to suggest that opposition to the policy is not based in research; that its opponents must pull political tricks just to avoid a discussion of the facts. He, quoted in Bloomberg, this week told reporters that
Some are trying to draw climate policy into the culture wars, because then you create a tribal opposition. And once you get into a tribal opposition, then facts don’t matter anymore.
The climate chief described this as his “biggest worry.”
Bloomberg pointed in particular to MEPs opposing the bloc’s Nature Restoration Law as an example of the “culture wars” at play. This, described as a “key” part of the Green Deal and “crucial” for reaching net zero, would see countries legally bound to wildlife restoration targets. Critics say the law would do great damage both to the sustainability and viability of European farms. But here too, concerns were dismissed as a foray into “culture wars.”
Responding to the opposition, Ariel Brunner, a regional director at BirdLife Europe, quoted in The Guardian, said:
Politicians are whipping up a culture war against nature, instead of facing up to reality. Without an urgent and massive nature restoration effort, we will simply not survive the climate and biodiversity crisis.
