EU Elections See Greens Beaten Like Rented (Green) Mules

Could this be coming to the U.S.? (via Watts Up With That?)

Europe’s Greens take a beating at the polls. Is the US next?

Climate action on the other side of the Atlantic flourished after the “green wave” and “quiet revolution” of the 2019 elections elevated the Green Party into a force in the European Parliament.

Five years later, a reversal of political fortunes in Europe could upend the move to zero-carbon energy and a hard shift toward electric cars by 2035.

In a continent-wide election that ended Sunday and left Europe’s political establishment in tatters, political support for green policies was undercut by the rightward tide. The center-right European People’s Party will have the highest number of seats in the European Parliament, while far-right parties gained significant ground. Green parties lost almost a quarter of their seats, and support cratered in France and Germany.

Our reporting team in Brussels noted it marked a reversal after climate activists marched in the streets before the last election.

Parties on the left are sure to come to the defense of climate policies. But a fight among factions on the right could also be on the horizon if far-right politicians attack the European Green Deal and its goal of zeroing out climate pollution by 2050.

So, all those wackos in the streets, gluing themselves to roads, paintings, doing crazy things, acting like a doomsday cult, had the effect of turning people off? Huh.

In November, American voters face a similar choice: Endorse four more years of a clean energy-driven U.S. industrial policy that took shape under President Joe Biden that aims for a zero-carbon economy in 2050, or return Donald Trump to the White House. If Trump is elected and the federal government takes a far more skeptical viewpoint of the climate problem, hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for clean energy technology could wither on the vine.

You mean his push that has resulted in higher energy prices which leads to a higher cost of living? How he’s trying to force the peasants into EVs and buses while he takes a massive fossil fueled trip from D.C., usually to Delaware, almost every weekend? IMO, if Biden tries to run with his climate crisis (scam) record and wanting to do more, that will hurt Biden if the GOP and Trump address it correctly, showing that this fast push is hurting middle and working class Americans. It could turn the “no way am I voting for Trump” folks into “I’ll hold my nose. A bad choice is better than a worse choice, being Biden.” It could very well hurt a lot of down ballot positions, if GOPers running for the House and Senate, and even in the states, address it correctly.

But, I do not think Hotcoldwetdry will play that much of a part in the election here: it really never does. It will be on the economy, crime, immigration. If the GOP is smart, they should get ahead of clean energy by saying things like “we’re for it, we just do not think it should be government mandating it, especially when it is not ready for prime time. Let’s do more research.”

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