Philippe Lamberts and Ska Keller, co-leaders of Europe鈥檚 green bloc TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP/Getty
The European Parliament elections last weekend saw a collapse in support for traditional centrist parties, while that for populists and greens grew.
For the first time ever, the centre-right European People鈥檚 Party and centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats don鈥檛 control a majority of the seats, meaning they will now probably have to partner with the liberal and green alliances to pass measures.
As the world鈥檚 second largest democracy (India, the largest, just聽re-elected prime minister Narendra Modi), the European Union has a large role to play in tackling climate change. The EU鈥檚聽green bloc is now in a good position to force more drastic action, having increased its seats from 52 to 69, its highest-ever result. There are a total of 751 seats in the European Parliament.
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The European Commission aims to make the European Union carbon neutral by 2050. This plan will need to be approved by the European Parliament, and that now seems more likely to happen.
鈥淲e have begun to see that all of聽our competitors are beginning to speak about ecological policies and green policies and so things have changed,鈥 Philippe Lamberts, co-leader of the Greens-European Free Alliance in the European Parliament, said in聽a聽statement.
However, populist parties, which often vote against climate policies in the parliament, also saw success. In France, Marine Le聽Pen鈥檚 National Rally party narrowly beat president Emmanuel Macron鈥檚 centrist party into second place. Macron is聽still feeling the heat from the 鈥済ilets jaunes鈥 or 鈥測ellow vests鈥 protests, which began partly as a聽reaction to fuel taxes designed to聽tackle climate change.
Meanwhile in the UK, the Brexit聽Party surged to the top of聽the polls. The party has no official policies on climate change聽and didn鈥檛 publish an election manifesto, but聽its leader, Nigel Farage, has previously questioned the basis of聽climate science, as have many of聽its newly elected MEPs. These include the former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe, who was previously one of only five members of the UK House of Commons to vote against the UK鈥檚聽2008 Climate Change Act.
Were the UK to leave the EU, the country鈥檚 MEPs would have no say in the EU鈥檚 climate policies.
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