A number of countries held elections this year. New Zealand and Poland voted for new governments in October, and far-right parties won elections in Argentina and the Netherlands in November. The results of these elections have notable impacts on domestic efforts and global cooperation to address climate change and have the potential to shape the future of climate action.
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New Zealand
In New Zealand’s general election, held on October 14, 2023, the centre-right National Party won a plurality of seats in the country’s parliament under the leadership of Christopher Luxon, who officially became Prime Minister in late November.
During the campaign, Luxon committed to New Zealand meeting its climate targets, including the first emissions reduction budget by 2025. As for his government, Luxon said he would bring his climate minister into the cabinet, adding that his government would have no place for climate deniers. However, since his election, Luxon has backtracked on both pledges, as the current climate minister remains outside of the cabinet. Winston Peters, whose New Zealand First Party is a coalition partner for National, espoused climate denial in the lead-up to the election. Peters, now deputy prime minister, previously questioned the “scientific evidence” behind climate change initiatives and said that New Zealand should not have to address emissions that would “bankrupt” the country.
One of the environmental initiatives that National campaigned for was a pledge to spend NZD$257 million (US$161 million) on developing 10,000 electric vehicles (EV) chargers by 2030, almost ten times the current number of EV chargers in the country. In fact, New Zealand currently has the fewest public chargers per EV in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with just one public charger for every 95 EVs. As approximately 20% of New Zealand’s total emissions come from transport, Luxon has previously said that promoting EVs is a “crucial” step to delivering the country’s climate change commitments. During coalition negotiations, the ACT Party gained a concession regarding National’s pledge to expand EV chargers with a clause stating that the chargers be subject to “robust cost benefit analysis” before being introduced.
In addition to the proposed expansion of EV chargers, National has committed to eliminating the Labour Party’s Ute tax and Clean Car Discount Scheme. National has referred to the policies as a “reverse-Robin Hood scheme, taxing hardworking Kiwis for the vehicles they need to subsidise other people to buy new cars.” In response to the proposal, Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Ann Genter criticised National for planning to install more EV chargers whilst making it harder to buy EVs, saying that “the Clean Car Discount has been one of the most successful climate policies Aotearoa has had.”
New Zealand’s new government is also planning to overturn the ban on new oil and gas exploration, which was implemented in 2018. Simon Watts, the country’s current Climate Change Minister, has defended the proposed overturning, saying that “we need the ability to have a degree of fossil fuel energy to power and create electricity in [the] country, particularly in a transitional state.” At the same time, the plan to reinstate new oil and gas exploration has already faced domestic and international backlash. Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Amanda Larsson said that the “new Government’s first official foray on an international stage will result in yet more raised eyebrows, as their policy to bring back offshore oil and gas exploration collides with global calls for a fossil fuel phase out at COP28.” At the Pacific Island Forum in Cook Islands in November 2023, Vanuatu Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu called on New Zealand not to reverse the ban.
Poland
Following Poland’s October 15 parliamentary election, the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), which has ruled Poland since 2015, emerged as the party with the most seats but not enough to form a government. Whereas PiS has hindered climate action both domestically and in the European Union (EU), many observers anticipate that the coalition between the former opposition parties will be stronger on climate action than the PiS government.
Under the PiS government, Poland has had a mixed record on climate action. From 2018 to 2022, Poland’s electricity producers expanded clean energy capacity by more than 150%, resulting in clean energy currently accounting for 40% of total electricity capacity. Within the same time period, solar energy capacity increased by nearly 20 times and wind energy capacity by almost 40%. Yet, despite the significant increase in renewable energy, more than 70% of Poland’s electricity originates from fossil fuels, especially coal. Out of all the countries in the EU, Poland is the country most dependent on coal; the PiS government did little to change this – in fact, PiS and its partner parties previously pledged to mine coal until 2049.
The three parties encompassing the new government – the centrist Civic Coalition, the centre-right Third Way, and the Left – have pledged to expand clean energy infrastructure and reduce carbon emissions. Former European Council president and newly-elected Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition is targeting generating 65% of electricity from renewable sources and cutting carbon emissions by 75% by the end of the current decade, though the party has yet to release plans for how they will achieve these goals. The Left supports a faster expansion of renewable energy and pledged to implement “a thorough modernisation” of Poland’s electricity grid. Lastly, Third Way has a short section on climate change in its manifesto and supports greater energy independence. “There is quite a lot of consistency on energy and climate issues within the parties that are likely to form the government. The level of ambition is also high,” said Joanna Maćkowiak-Pandera, president of energy think tank Forum Energii, after the election.
With the new government being markedly more pro-EU than the PiS government, Poland may potentially pursue greater cooperation with the rest of the EU on climate action. Last year, state-owned utilities began an advertising campaign that attributed Poland’s high energy prices to EU policy and the EU emissions trading system. In July 2023, the PiS government filed cases with the EU Court of Justice to end EU rules that would modify the carbon market, establish targets to reduce emissions, and ban the sale of carbon dioxide-emitting cars by 2035. In contrast, the incoming government is likely to withdraw this challenge.
While the coalition agrees on the need to combat climate change, a number of domestic factors may hinder the government’s climate goals. One of these challenges is high energy prices. In its party manifesto, Civic Coalition pledged to freeze gas prices at 2023 levels for households and sensitive consumers. Observers also anticipate that the government is unlikely to provoke Poland’s coal unions as there is a risk of them protesting amidst local and European Parliament elections next year.
Argentina
President Javier Milei won the November 19 presidential election runoff and was sworn into office a month later. Milei has been compared to former US President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro, who, like Milei, have often openly denied climate change. During the campaign season, Milei called climate change a “socialist lie.” He has also said that “all these politicians who blame the human race for climate change are fake and are only looking to raise money to finance socialist bums who write fourth-rate newspapers.”
As part of his efforts to reduce the size of the government, Milei has committed to dissolving Argentina’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development. The Environment and Natural Resources Foundation, an Argentine NGO, has called the ministry “a key area for the definition of policies that affect the environment and the quality of life of the population. Beyond the results of its management, it is a necessary institutional instrument.”
Javier Gerardo Milei. Photo: World Economic Forum/Flickr
The anti-environmentalism sentiment in Argentina is not confined to Milei, but also shared among La Libertad Avanza, Milei’s party. For instance, there was no reference to climate change or renewable energy in La Libertad Avanza’s campaign documents. Other politicians from the same partyhave also expressed controversial views about the environment. MP Bertie Benegas Lynch, for example, said that “the environmental problems can be solved through the distribution of property rights” and that “species extinction occurs every day and is a natural process.”
Although Milei previously planned to withdraw Argentina from the Paris Agreement[M4] , which he regarded as “cultural Marxism,” though he has since reneged on this stance. Argentina’s new climate diplomat Marcia Levaggi, who led the Argentine delegation at COP28, said that she attended the conference “to reassure our party stakeholders and people following the process that Argentina will stay committed to the Paris Agreement.” She noted that Argentina will also maintain its commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
The Netherlands
Nearly one quarter of Dutch voters voted for Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV) in the November 22 general election. The election result marked the first time a party calling for an end to the green transition has won a national election in the EU.
Historically, the Netherlands has been perceived as a leader on climate action in Europe. In April, the government introduced a package to reduce carbon emissions by supporting clean energy, sustainable homes and industry, and electric cars. The policies would help the government’s goals for the Netherlands to have carbon free energy generation by 2035 and to attain a climate-neutral and circular economy by 2050. Some of the EU’s most notable climate politicians are Dutch, including EU Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra and his predecessor Frans Timmermans, who also led the Labor-Green alliance to second place in the general election.
Although it remains to be seen if Wilders and the PVV will successfully form a government, the party could nonetheless have a sizable influence on future climate policy. The PVV’s election manifesto states that “the climate is always changing” and that “when conditions change, we adapt… by rising dikes when necessary.” The party also wants to “stop the hysterical reduction of CO2,” which it considers unnecessary and a waste of money. As for proposed actions, the PVV wants to end the Dutch Climate Act, which enshrined the country’s climate targets into law, and, like Argentina, wants to withdraw the Netherlands from the Paris Agreement. The manifesto says that “the Climate Act, the [global] climate accord and all other climate measures will go straight into the shredder.”
While the PVV does want to build more nuclear power plants, the party opposes wind energy and large-scale solar projects. The party also wants to keep coal and gas power plants open and increase oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. With much of the Netherlands under sea level, the PVV recognises that the country faces several threats, including sea level rise, flooding, water scarcity, and droughts, but also believes that those challenges can be addressed by constructing higher dikes and restoring river plains. “We should no longer allow ourselves to be frightened. The Netherlands is a smart country: we have the best water engineers in the world,” the party’s manifesto states.
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Environmentalists have expressed concern over what Wilders’ climate denial could mean for domestic and EU climate action. Greenpeace campaigner Meike Rijksen noted that the implementation of the EU’s Green Deal and Fit for 55 climate policies could be hindered by climate denial. “We do see this trend of populist, far right political parties on the rise. And…we’re worried by that because they often are climate deniers. They’re not telling the truth. And that’s…very unhelpful in this crucial decade for climate action,” Rijksen said.
Others are less pessimistic about the future of Dutch climate action, with several observers noting that Wilders may limit parts of his proposals to form a coalition with other parties. Professor Heleen de Coninck from the Eindhoven University of Technology said that “for many of its proposals, the party will not find a majority at all in parliament” because “there was an easy majority for the climate law in parliament and that has not changed.” Managing director of energy consultancy Common Futures Kees van der Leun echoed this sentiment. “The election outcome isn’t likely to significantly slow down our climate policies” and that most lawmakers support “staying the course,” he said.
Final Thoughts
Although the climate denial espoused by politicians can pose challenges for global efforts to combat climate change, there is still reason to be optimistic about international climate action. There is significant pressure, both domestically and internationally, for countries to continue acting on climate change. The way in which certain governments are structured also serves as a potential check on the implementation of regressive environmental policies.
The results of these elections also reiterate the importance of individuals who care about climate change to be engaged in the political process and to consider climate change and other environmental issues when deciding who to vote for. By demonstrating their interest for the environment through their vote, citizens can hold governments accountable to maintaining and pursuing climate action.
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