Reader Q&A: your questions about Europe’s hellish week of heat – live now

SFischer157 asks: Does the current swing to the right have its root cause in the climate crisis (social media and other factors like the pandemic aside)? People don’t want to change their lives, when clearly we need worldwide, coordinated, radical change to reduce emissions. It feels hopeless and as an individual I feel powerless to do more than I already do (mostly vegan, try not to fly more than once per year, e-bike for commuting to not use the car).

Ajit: I don’t think there’s evidence to suggest it’s a root cause, but I have wondered a lot whether it contributes. If you scroll through the social media feeds of far-right leaders in most western European countries, their top topic is migration/crime and the second is typically climate/energy. Yet if you speak to their voters, at least in Germany, where I live, it quickly becomes clear that opposition to climate policy is at most a minor issue.

That paradox is reflected in polling data. How can it be that less than 10% of the public denies the science of climate change, yet far-right parties who do so consistently get more than 20% of the vote? The obvious answer is that people are voting for them for the core issue of migration, not climate. But what is less clear is why these parties spend so much time bashing climate action. There are plausible suggestions that it plays well to fossil fuel lobbies many are linked to. A more convincing theory, I think, is that the far right sees itself as having already won the fight over migration – now it needs new battlegrounds to differentiate itself from mainstream parties.