The Fall of Germany’s Greens

 If the big story of this weekend’s European Parliament elections is that voters are drifting right, one question is why they’re drifting from parties of the left. In Germany it’s more like a stampede as that country’s Green Party emerged as the biggest loser.

The Greens, one of three parties in Berlin’s governing coalition, won 11.9% of the vote for Germany’s 96 seats in the EU Parliament, compared to a combined 30% for the center-right Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) which are in opposition in Berlin. This is down from the Greens’ 20.5% share in the 2019 European Parliament elections and the 15% the party took in national elections in 2021.

Turnout was higher this year than in 2019, so that steep drop in vote share means the Greens lost an enormous number of voters. Their tally this weekend was nearly three million shy of their count in 2019. Their support among voters under age 30 has all but collapsed, to a 12% share, down 19 percentage points from 2019, according to exit polls.

Part of this is German fatigue with the national coalition government led by Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The SPD’s vote share fell nearly two percentage points to 13.9%, and the party tallied some 370,000 fewer votes than in 2019. Of the three governing parties only the Free Democrats (FDP) improved their absolute vote count, although not enough to stave off a small decline in their vote share given higher turnout.

The larger explanation for the Green Party flop is flagging voter interest in climate change—and exasperation with the costs of Green policies. Five years ago, climate ranked among the top voter concerns. A pandemic, European war, energy-price crisis and inflation wave later, not so much. Security policy and immigration now top the list of voter priorities.

Voters have noticed that the Green promise of affordable renewable energy is as distant as ever. Crucial German industries such as autos and chemicals are struggling under sky-high energy prices and anti-carbon regulations. This election also is a sign that many voters may share the frustrations of farmers who took to the streets last winter to protest climate-based tax increases on cars and fuel.

This marks a stunning reversal for Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, the most senior Green politicians in Mr. Scholz’s administration. Mr. Habeck is minister for the economy and climate protection and Ms. Baerbock is foreign minister, and for a time they were the most popular politicians in Germany.

The consequences of this election shock may extend beyond Germany. Voters across Europe this weekend turned to parties that are disinclined to sacrifice economic security today for the speculative future benefit from costly net-zero climate policies. That this happened in the European Union’s largest country is a warning to Brussels to back off its own green agenda. America’s Democrats may also want to pay attention.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New York --- What's keeping the lights on --- Grid Brief March 27

Image
  What’s Keeping the Lights On? March 27 , 2024   (Here is a graph – courtesy of Grid Brief -- showing the electric generation power source mix for New York State from  Mar 19  through  Mar 26 )   Natural gas, hydro, and nuclear kept the Empire State running.  That holds true for week after week after week. Hydro performed well last week. Nuclear was steady as always. Both of these sources are CO2 free, of course. Wind contributed something on Thursday and Friday of last week, with another little bump late Monday. Solar (yellow line) – essentially nothing.
Read more

What The Media Won’t Tell You About The Energy Transition

Image
  What The Media Won’t Tell You About The Energy Transition The hype, and the reality, about the energy transition in 10 charts   MAY 07, 2024   Cooling towers at India’s Mahatma Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project, a 1,320 MW coal-fired power plant in Haryana . Over the past few days, I’ve searched the NewsBank archive for uses of “energy transition.” One of the earliest uses of that now-ubiquitous phrase occurred in the  Christian Science Monitor  in 1981. In a dispatch from Nairobi, a reporter named Richard Critchfield explained that some “4,000 delegates from 154 countries” were gathering in the Kenyan capital for a two-week United Nations conference on new and renewable sources of energy. “The purpose of the conference,” Critchfield explained, was to “promote better understanding of the global energy transition from oil to such new sources as geothermal, solar, wind, ocean, and hydropower or energy from biomass, fuelwood, charcoal, peat, draught animals, oil shale, and tar sands.”
Read more

There Once Was a Blade From Nantucket -- Doomberg

Image
  Aug 04, 2024 ∙  “There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.” – Napoleon Bonaparte The 1930s were distinctly warm years in many parts of the world, including the Atlantic basin. Although hurricanes were not yet named and tracked to the extent they are today, meteorologists tell us that the decade saw an unusually high number of powerful storms. Among them are the Category 5 Freeport Hurricane of 1932 and the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. The latter raced up the Atlantic Coast, ultimately crashing ashore on Long Island, New York, and then again in Connecticut. The  regional damage  was profound: “ Wind, fire, floodwaters, and tidal surges all caused damage in New England. In New London, Connecticut, the tidal surge drove the five-masted school ship Marsala into a warehouse complex along the docks, setting off a short circuit and fire which consumed a quarter-mile area of the business district – the worst calamity in New London since Benedict Arnold burned the city
Read more