Summary of the day
Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, has called on supporters of environmental reforms to shed their reputation for “moral superiority” and focus on having “the better arguments” amid a backlash against climate policies across Europe.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, argued in a speech in Prague that Europe’s Green Deal goes hand in hand with prosperous industry.
Scientists said they are worried that the political consensus to protect the environment in Europe is crumbling.
After Emmanuel Macron announced a road map for his new “French-style” ecology on Monday night, there was soul-searching in the media and criticism from Greens who said he should have been more radical.
Bas Eickhout, a vice-chair of the European parliament’s environment committee, said that the fatigue with Europe’s green agenda is partly due to a faulty piecemeal approach to new policies.
Six young people from Portugal are expected to present a case before the European court of human rights tomorrow arguing that countries are breaching their rights by failing to do enough on climate change.
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Robert Habeck wants the world’s fourth-largest economy to be a global leader in renewable energy, but virtually every new climate measure that he has launched this year has quickly become bogged down.
Failure is a relatively novel experience for Habeck.
A year earlier, fresh in his new job as Germany’s deputy leader, pollsters declared him the country’s most likable and competent politician. His smiling face was all over the newsstands and headlines were hailing him as “the true chancellor”. A year later, in July, he was one of the most unpopular politicians in the government, and those same newspapers were asking if he was going to resign.
Habeck is trying to transform green politics. No longer content with his party being a protest movement or a junior coalition partner, he wants the Greens to become used to life as a major political force, comfortable with their hands on the levers of power. His success or failure will be a bellwether for the future of mainstream green politics across the world.
Check out the full long read on the trials of Robert Habeck: is the world’s most powerful green politician doomed to fail?
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