GIOR Analysis: Right-Turn Headwinds: How Global National-Conservative Parties Stall the Net-Zero Race

Where Culture-War Meets Carbon Policy

Across the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), the cli­mate has become a proxy bat­tle­field for sov­er­eign­ty, iden­ti­ty, and “elite” over­reach. Par­ties that owe their rise to back­lash pol­i­tics tend to treat the EU Green Deal, Paris tar­gets and net-zero pledges as out­side impo­si­tions rather than shared oblig­a­tions. Even with­in the EU, lead­ers warn that “polit­i­cal cow­ardice” is hin­der­ing decar­boniza­tion because gov­ern­ments fear the social costs of green laws. Yet most nation­al con­ser­v­a­tives stop short of out­right denial. Instead they:

• Re-frame cli­mate action as a threat to jobs, farm­ers and nation­al iden­ti­ty, promis­ing to rene­go­ti­ate or slow reg­u­la­tions judged “puni­tive”.
• Cher­ry-pick tech­nolo­gies—nuclear, car­bon cap­ture, domes­tic gas, biofuels—that square ener­gy secu­ri­ty with patri­ot­ic indus­tri­al policy.
• Deploy cul­tur­al griev­ance—from “cli­mate reli­gion” rhetoric in Spain’s Vox to America’s fights over ESG mandates—to unite dis­parate right-lean­ing constituencies.

The result is a patch­work of incre­men­tal mea­sures, fre­quent rever­sals, and, in some cas­es, strate­gic bets (e.g., small mod­u­lar nuclear reac­tors-SMRs in Italy) that com­pli­cate long-term invest­ment sig­nals for allies and adver­saries alike.

Party-by-Party Snapshot

Are National-Conservative Parties Blocking Urgent Climate Action?

Viewed togeth­er, nation­al-con­ser­v­a­tive par­ties form a drag coali­tion: they sel­dom tear up cli­mate goals, but they con­sis­tent­ly slow their exe­cu­tion. By refram­ing every emis­sions tar­get as a sov­er­eign­ty ques­tion, they reopen deals each time the bal­lot box swings, adding years of delay through rene­go­ti­a­tion and carve-outs ^2,6.

The effect is cumu­la­tive. A five-year coal reprieve in Poland, stalled auto-emis­sions rules in France, or expand­ed U.S. drilling leas­es all ratch­et glob­al CO₂ high­er for longer, squeez­ing the remain­ing car­bon bud­get. Mar­kets read that sig­nal: waver­ing time­lines raise financ­ing costs for renew­ables while fun­nelling sub­si­dies toward “secure” fos­sil sup­ply. In that sense, the alliance is a road­block to the speed—rather than the existence—of decarbonisation.

Counter-pres­sures tem­per but do not erase the risk. Clean-tech costs keep falling, and polls show even right-lean­ing vot­ers like cheap­er solar pow­er and clean­er air ¹⁰. Some par­ties court a “patri­ot­ic green-indus­tri­al” narrative—Hungary lur­ing bat­tery plants, Italy flirt­ing with small-mod­u­lar reactors—yet those moves advance cli­mate goals only when they align with indus­tri­al or secu­ri­ty inter­ests. Absent strong supra­na­tion­al enforce­ment or irre­sistible eco­nom­ic incen­tives, expect head­line net-zero promis­es to sur­vive while the mile­stones that actu­al­ly cut emis­sions slide to the right.

References

(1) The Guardian – “Polit­i­cal cow­ardice hin­der­ing Europe’s cli­mate efforts,” 2 Jul 2025

(2) E&E News – “Repub­li­can plat­form heavy on ener­gy, silent on cli­mate,” 13 Aug 2024

(3)  Trump exec­u­tive order seeks end to wind and solar ener­gy subsidies

(4) Clean Ener­gy Wire – “Fear of oust­ed pop­ulists could stall cli­mate pol­i­cy in Poland,” 6 Feb 2025

(5) Clean Ener­gy Wire – “Orbán’s oppor­tunis­tic record belies Hungary’s new pro-cli­mate rhetoric,” 19 Oct 2024

(6) The Guardian – “Far-right win in France could deal blow to cli­mate pol­i­cy,” 3 Jul 2024

(7) Euronews – “Ital­ian government’s cli­mate stance dif­fers at home or abroad,” 11 Aug 2023

(8) Finan­cial Times – “Mel­oni seeks to bring nuclear pow­er back to Italy,” 22 Sep 2024

(9) open­Democ­ra­cy – “Spain’s Vox and the threat of inter­na­tion­al envi­ron­men­tal pop­ulism,” 9 Aug 2021

(10) Euronews – “Is ‘green­lash’ behind the rise of the far-right in EU elec­tions?” 6 Jun 2024

(11) Le Monde – “Swe­den is mov­ing back­ward on cli­mate pol­i­cy,” 27 Jan 2024

(12) The Guardian – “Swe­den cuts tax on fly­ing despite admit­ting it would increase emis­sions,” 19 Sep 2024

(13) Yle News – “Finns Par­ty deputy chair: We won’t sup­port EU emis­sions tar­get,” 3 Jul 2025

(14) Reuters – “Despite extreme heat, cli­mate bare­ly rat­ed a men­tion in India’s elec­tions,” 6 Jun 2024

(15) Reuters – “India’s renew­able pow­er out­put grows at fastest pace in three years,” 1 Jul 2025

(16) Reuters – “Israel aims to boost Red Sea oil deliv­er­ies despite envi­ron­men­tal risks,” 31 May 2024

(17) Trump admin­is­tra­tion weighs new coal sales from pub­lic lands in Mon­tana and Wyoming

(18) Biden’s cli­mate law boost­ed red states. Their law­mak­ers are now gut­ting it

Dis­claimer: This analy­sis was pre­pared with the assis­tance of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Please ver­i­fy all infor­ma­tion and ref­er­ences before using this mate­r­i­al. Images are also AI-gen­er­at­ed and are pro­vid­ed for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es only—they are intend­ed to rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als con­cerned, but should not be under­stood as actu­al “real-world” photography.