Climate Arena 2024

The recent European Parliament elections marked a shift to the right, with right-wing populist parties gaining seats across the EU. This has sparked concerns that these parties are increasingly leveraging polarising debates over climate action, pressuring mainstream parties to scale back their environmental ambitions. In some countries where they are not in government, right-wing populists are positioning themselves as the most viable opposition, challenging the political landscape.

While much of the media coverage has focused on the rise and electoral success of these populist parties and their climate-skeptic views, there has been less attention on the concrete implications for climate action when such parties come to power.

This panel will have Clean Energy Wire and DeSmog talking about their work in tracking, collecting and reporting on misinformation. DeSmog will discuss how they developed tools to track climate-related misinformation before the EU elections and their lessons learned, as well as how they structured a cross-border investigation on the issue. Clean Energy Wire will explain practical strategies for reporting on these developments, offering insights on how to cover the intersection of climate policy and populism without legitimising or normalising far-right ideologies.