EU policymakers have dealt several critical blows to the European Green Deal since the end of 2023. Photograph: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Observers shocked at scale and speed of deregulation drive they say is watering down European Green Deal and laws
The European Union’s rollback of environment policy is gaining momentum, campaigners have warned, in a deregulation drive that has shocked observers with its scale and speed.
EU policymakers have dealt several critical blows to their much-vaunted European Green Deal since the end of 2023, when opinion polls suggested a significant rightward shift before the 2024 parliamentary elections. Environment groups say the pace has picked up under the competition-focused agenda of the new European Commission.
The most striking examples are the “omnibus” packages that water down sustainable finance rules, some of which have been put on hold even before they came into force, and which member states proposed diluting further on Monday. The European Commission has promised more simplification measures to “radically lighten the regulatory load” on people and businesses.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Responding to the Climate Change Committee’s latest report, co-leader Carla Denyer MP said:
“Last year fossil fuel giants Shell and BP made a total of £26 billion in profit – while ordinary people struggle every day to pay their energy bills, and the climate crisis takes its toll on communities across the UK.
“The Climate Change Committee’s latest report shows some movement in the right direction towards trying to keep us all safe, but the truth is we’re not moving nearly fast enough. Stalling progress means we all have higher bills in cold and leaky homes, while wildfires, extreme heat and flooding put lives and livelihoods at risk. The best time for action was years ago – the next best time is now.
“We need urgent action to bring down the cost of electricity more widely, to reduce household bills and keep us all safe from the growing threat from the climate crisis. Instead of handing fossil fuel giants a licence to keep profiting from climate destruction, or wasting money on slow and expensive nuclear projects, now is the time for a national push to roll out energy efficiency, heat pumps, solar panels and battery storage for our homes.
“Crucially, it’s time for the government to stop throwing money at the fossil fuel industry and instead make big polluters like Shell and BP pay up. Currently the government subsidises the fossil fuel industry to the tune of a staggering £17.5 billion per year – it’s time to pull the plug and put that money into lowering bills instead.”
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions.
That’s the stark warning from more than 60 of the world’s leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming.
Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.
But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests – leaving that international goal in peril.
“Things are all moving in the wrong direction,” said lead author Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds.
“We’re seeing some unprecedented changes and we’re also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as well.”
These changes “have been predicted for some time and we can directly place them back to the very high level of emissions”, he added.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
‘We scientists, philosophers, writers, artists and citizens of the world have a responsibility to denounce and resist the resurgence of fascism in all its forms.’ Photograph: Karl B DeBlaker/AP
As in 1925, when Mussolini was in power, we must openly defy the brutal imposition of the fascist ideology
On 1 May 1925, with Benito Mussolini already in power, a group of Italian intellectuals publicly denounced his fascist regime in an open letter. The signatories – scientists, philosophers, writers and artists – took a stand in support of the essential tenets of a free society: the rule of law, personal liberty and independent thinking, culture, art and science. Their open defiance against the brutal imposition of the fascist ideology – at great personal risk – proved that opposition was not only possible, but necessary. Today, 100 years later, the threat of fascism is back – and so we must summon that courage and defy it again.
Fascism emerged in Italy a century ago, marking the advent of modern dictatorship. Within a few years, it spread across Europe and the world, taking different names but maintaining similar forms. Wherever it seized power, it undermined the separation of powers in the service of autocracy, silenced opposition through violence, took control of the press, halted the advancement of women’s rights and crushed workers’ struggles for economic justice. Inevitably, it permeated and distorted all institutions devoted to scientific, academic and cultural activities. Its cult of death exalted imperial aggression and genocidal racism, triggering the second world war, the Holocaust, the death of tens of millions of people and crimes against humanity.
At the same time, the resistance to fascism and the many other fascist ideologies became a fertile ground for imagining alternative ways of organising societies and international relations. The world that emerged from the second world war – with the charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the theoretical foundations of the EU and the legal arguments against colonialism – remained marked by deep inequalities. Yet, it represented a decisive attempt to establish an international legal order: an aspiration toward global democracy and peace, grounded in the protection of universal human rights, including not only civil and political, but also economic, social and cultural rights.
Fascism never vanished, but for a time it was held at bay. However, in the past two decades, we have witnessed a renewed wave of far-right movements, often bearing unmistakably fascist traits: attacks on democratic norms and institutions, a reinvigorated nationalism laced with racist rhetoric, authoritarian impulses and systematic assaults on the rights of those who do not fit a manufactured traditional authority, rooted in religious, sexual and gender normativity. These movements have re-emerged across the globe, including in long-standing democracies, where widespread dissatisfaction with political failure to address mounting inequalities and social exclusion has once again been exploited by new authoritarian figures. True to the old fascist script, under the guise of an unlimited popular mandate, these figures undermine national and international rule of law, targeting the independence of the judiciary, the press, institutions of culture, higher education and science, even attempting to destroy essential data and scientific information. They fabricate “alternative facts” and invent “enemies within”; they weaponise security concerns to entrench their authority and that of the ultra-wealthy 1%, offering privileges in exchange for loyalty.
This process is now accelerating, as dissent is increasingly suppressed through arbitrary detentions, threats of violence, deportations and an unrelenting campaign of disinformation and propaganda, operated with the support of traditional and social media barons – some merely complacent, others openly techno-fascist enthusiasts.
Democracies are not flawless: they are vulnerable to misinformation and they are not yet sufficiently inclusive. However, democracies by their nature provide fertile ground for intellectual and cultural progress and therefore always have the potential to improve. In democratic societies, human rights and freedoms can expand, the arts flourish, scientific discoveries thrive and knowledge grow. They grant the freedom to challenge ideas and question power structures, propose new theories even when culturally uncomfortable, which is essential to human advancement. Democratic institutions offer the best framework for addressing social injustices, and the best hope to fulfil the post-war promises of the rights to work, education, health, social security, participation in cultural and scientific life, and the collective right of peoples to development, self-determination and peace. Without this, humanity faces stagnation, growing inequality, injustice and catastrophe, not least from the existential threat caused by the climate emergency that the new fascist wave negates.
In our hyper-connected world, democracy cannot exist in isolation. As national democracies require strong institutions, international cooperation relies on the effective implementation of democratic principles and multilateralism to regulate relations among nations, and on multistakeholder processes to engage a healthy society. The rule of law must extend beyond borders, ensuring that international treaties, human rights conventions and peace agreements are respected. While existing global governance and international institutions require improvement, their erosion in favor of a world governed by raw power, transactional logic and military might is a regression to an era of colonialism, suffering and destruction.
As in 1925, we scientists, philosophers, writers, artists and citizens of the world have a responsibility to denounce and resist the resurgence of fascism in all its forms. We call on all those who value democracy to act:
Defend democratic, cultural and educational institutions. Call out abuses of democratic principles and human rights. Refuse pre-emptive compliance.
Join collective actions, locally and internationally. Boycott and strike when possible. Make resistance impossible to ignore and costly to repress.
Uphold facts and evidence. Foster critical thinking and engage with your communities on these grounds.
This is an ongoing struggle. Let our voices, our work and our principles be a bulwark against authoritarianism. Let this message be a renewed declaration of defiance.
Nobel laureates: Eric Maskin, Roger B Myerson, Alvin E Roth, Lars Peter Hansen, Oliver Hart, Daron Acemoglu, Wolfgang Ketterle, John C Mather, Brian P Schmidt, Michel Mayor, Takaaki Kajita, Giorgio Parisi, Pierre Agostini, Joachim Frank, Richard J Roberts, Leland Hartwell, Paul Nurse, Jack W Szostak, Edvard I Moser, May-Britt Moser, Harvey James Alter, Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun, Barry James Marshall, Craig Mello, Charles Rice
Leading scholars on fascism and democracy: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley, Claudia Koonz, Mia Fuller, Giovanni De Luna and Andrea Mammone
The original Fascists Mussolini and HitlerElon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Image of Mussolini & Co hanging out. What happens to Fascists.
This isn’t just an attack on the environment. It’s an attack on every state.
The White House is once again defying the will of the people.
Donald Trump moved to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate Thursday, marking the second instance this week in which the president has stretched his authority to advance his political agenda in the state.
California mandated a phaseout of gas vehicles and diesel trucks by 2035, citing benefits to public health and the environment. Eleven other states and Washington, D.C., followed suit. The plan required at least 35 percent of 2026 model vehicles sold within state bounds to be emissions-free, with that percentage growing to 68 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035.
The Golden State passed the laws under the authority of the 1967 Clean Air Act, on the basis that the state needed more power to handle its highly polluted air and car-dependent cities. But each state requires a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency before the rules can actually take effect.
Trump’s signature on the congressional resolution revokes three of those waivers, issued during the Biden administration, effectively erasing the mandate.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
