Green News

Partout en Europe et au-delà, les droits des personnes transgenres font l’objet de réactions politiques négatives et d’une couverture médiatique défavorable. Parallèlement, les efforts déployés par les personnes transgenres pour revendiquer un discours d’autonomisation ont largement échoué. Comment pouvons-nous apprécier l’expérience de vie des personnes transgenres sous tous ses aspects positifs sans tomber dans les pièges de la pathologisation, de la victimisation ou de la mystification ?

Aria n’hésite pas quand on lui pose la question : pour elle, la transition de genre, c’est “la meilleure chose qui [lui] soit arrivée, contrairement à ce que certains peuvent penser”. La jeune Bruxelloise suit un parcours d’affirmation de genre depuis des années. Elle se dit heureuse de ce choix qui lui a permis de vivre plus librement son identité. “J’ai repris goût à la vie, en quelque sorte”, résume-t-elle. Aria vient d’avoir 27 ans ; voilà quatre ans, à peu près, qu’elle a annoncé sa transidentité à ses proches. Pour elle, c’est un peu une nouvelle existence qui commence.

Le terme parapluie “transgenre”, qui définit une personne dont l’identité de genre est différente de celle associée au genre qui lui a été attribué à la naissance, se retrouve désormais régulièrement sur les plateaux télévisés et dans les hémicycles. Mais les transidentités restent largement incomprises des personnes cisgenres – celles dont l’identité de genre correspond à celle associée au genre attribué à la naissance.

Marion (le nom a été changé) est assistant d’éducation en France et se considère comme non binaire. Pour Marion, “être trans signifie ne pas comprendre le concept de genre en premier lieu, et surtout ne pas vouloir s’y conformer”. Iel y voit également un moyen de se sentir plus en phase avec soi-même. “J’ai acquis un plus grand sentiment d’équilibre. Quand j’ai réalisé que j’étais non binaire, j’ai eu l’impression que tout devenait plus clair, et cela m’a beaucoup apaisé. Cela m’a permis de comprendre et d’expliquer beaucoup de situations de mon passé et de mon enfance, et d’arrêter de me dire que j’étais bizarre ou anormal.”

De la transidentité, les médias grands publics et les personnalités politiques ne nous font souvent qu’un récit stéréotypé, réduit à la transition médicale (qui elle-même ne concerne pas toutes les personnes transgenres) ou aux questions de discriminations et d’accès au droit. La réalité concrète de la transidentité, ou l’expérience intime que celle-ci représente sont rarement mises à l’honneur. Trop souvent, le droit à l’existence des personnes transgenres est remis en question par des figures médiatiques et politiques aux discours haineux et déconnectés.

Discrimination et victimisation

Ces dernières années, l’Europe a été le théâtre d’une campagne contre les droits des personnes transgenres. Le 16 avril, la Cour suprême britannique a statué que la définition juridique d’une femme était fondée sur le sexe biologique. Bien qu’il ait été avancé que les droits des personnes transgenres étaient toujours protégés par la loi sur l’égalité de 2010, certaines organisations ont souligné les implications profondes de cette décision, avertissant que l’accès des femmes transgenres aux services et aux espaces typiquement réservés à un seul genre pourrait être compromis.

La décision de la Cour suprême, saluée par le gouvernement travailliste du Premier ministre Keir Starmer pour avoir apporté de la “clarté” (même si certains la jugent encore extrêmement vague dans son application), est l’aboutissement d’une intense campagne de lobbying menée par l’organisation féministe trans-exclusive For Women Scotland.

Une telle décision est particulièrement significative dans le contexte actuel d’une guerre culturelle qui a donné lieu à des controverses très médiatisées, comme la publication du rapport Cass, qui critiquait l’aide médicale apportée par le Service national de santé aux jeunes transgenres, ou le scandale autour de la boxeuse Imane Khelif. Des personnalités de premier plan telles qu’Elon Musk et J. K. Rowling, qui utilisent leur fortune et leur influence pour attaquer les minorités de genre à travers le monde, se sont exprimées dans le “débat sur le genre”. Dans le même temps, les médias reprennent parfois sans discernement les arguments de l’extrême droite, jouant ainsi un rôle fondamental dans une réaction politique qui a des conséquences très réelles pour les personnes transgenres.

En Hongrie, une loi introduite en 2021 interdit aux organisations de partager des informations relatives aux personnes LGBT avec les mineurs dans les écoles et les médias. En 2024, le Sénat français a adopté un projet de loi interdisant les traitements hormonaux pour les moins de 18 ans et contrôlant strictement les bloqueurs de puberté. Le gouvernement a désapprouvé le texte, et on ne sait toujours pas si le Parlement l’examinera.

Et la situation n’est guère meilleure outre-Atlantique : les décrets signés par Donald Trump ont interdit aux personnes transgenres de servir dans l’armée et de pratiquer des sports féminins.

Dans toute l’Europe, les personnes transgenres sont confrontées à une insécurité croissante. En 2023, 14 % des personnes LGBTQIA+ interrogées par l’Agence des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne (FRA) ont déclaré avoir été victimes d’agressions physiques ou sexuelles en raison de leur identité de genre ou de leur orientation sexuelle au cours des cinq années précédant l’enquête, soit trois points de pourcentage de plus qu’en 2019. Si l’on ne considère que les statistiques relatives aux personnes transgenres, ce taux passe à 20 % (contre 17 % en 2019). 

Comme l’a résumé la FRA dans ses conclusions, “dans l’ensemble, les résultats de l’enquête montrent que les personnes LGBTIQ, et en particulier les groupes transgenres et intersexués, continuent d’être victimes de violences motivées par la haine, de discrimination directe et indirecte et de victimisation, malgré la protection offerte par le droit européen”. De plus, depuis plusieurs années, les droits des personnes LGBTQIA+ font l’objet d’attaques habituelles (et croissantes) de la part d’acteurs de droite et d’extrême droite, compromettant les progrès réalisés dans la lutte pour les droits des personnes transgenres. 

Dans son rapport annuel pour 2024, l’Association internationale des personnes lesbiennes, gays, bisexuelles, transgenres et intersexuées (ILGA) fait état d’une forte augmentation des discours haineux à l’encontre des personnes LGBTQIA+, en particulier de la part de personnalités publiques et d’institutions. Le rapport révèle un paradoxe : d’une part, l’acceptation publique des minorités sexuelles et de genre progresse lentement mais sûrement en Europe, et certains gouvernements facilitent les changements d’état civil. D’autre part, l’accès aux soins de santé, la reconnaissance familiale, la liberté d’association et le logement deviennent des questions plus complexes pour les personnes LGBTQIA+. L’ILGA note également une augmentation des “tactiques alarmistes autour de l’éducation sexuelle […] avec l’extrême droite et d’autres acteurs qui instrumentalisent les enfants dans des arguments anti-LGBTI et sèment la division entre les jeunes et les parents”.

Pour Aria, cette insécurité croissante est source d’inquiétude. Même si elle n’a pas été personnellement agressée en raison de son identité transgenre, Aria reconnaît qu’elle pourrait être victime de harcèlement ou d’abus à l’avenir. Dans le même temps, elle pense que la médiatisation croissante du débat sur les droits des personnes transgenres (et ce que certains décrivent à tort comme une “épidémie transgenre”) alimente les réactions négatives : “On dirait que pour les gens, parce que le sujet est plus médiatisé, l’identité transgenre soit nouvelle et que beaucoup de personnes soient transgenres, mais ce n’est pas vrai”, dit-elle. “C’est une petite minorité, que nous devons défendre. Une minorité qui a le droit d’exister.”

Marion avoue également avoir peur. “Pas pour moi […] mais pour mes proches ; et je pense que nous nous inquiétons toujours plus pour les autres que pour nous-mêmes. De la même manière, le recul des droits à l’avortement dans certains pays m’a beaucoup inquiété, mais cela me semble lointain car dans mon entourage immédiat, je ne côtoie que des personnes en sécurité, et le danger ne semble pas faire partie de mon quotidien”. Mais de percevoir une menace grandissante : “J’ai l’impression que les choses empirent”, s’inquiète Marion, qui dit craindre “un très mauvais backlash ; et je plains les personnes transgenres dans les pays où la situation devient vraiment horrible. Egoïstement, je croise les doigts pour que cela reste aussi loin que possible de [la France].”

Riposter

Bien qu’il faille évidemment parler de la violence, de l’accès au droit et de la percée du radicalisme d’extrême droite, la couverture médiatique des questions relatives à la transidentité entretient également ses propres angles morts : décrire uniquement les minorités sexuelles et de genre comme des victimes leur dénie leur capacité de contrôler leur existence. Comme la détermination de la communauté LGBTQIA+ après l’interdiction de la Marche des fiertés de Budapest en mars 2025 le prouve pourtant, la discrimination est un puissant moteur pour l’indignation et l’engagement citoyen.

Aria, pour sa part, aimerait manifester, mais un handicap physique l’en empêche. Vivre en affirmant son genre a profondément impacté les convictions personnelles de la jeune Bruxelloise. “Les gens pour qui je vote [n’ont] pas changé, mais je suis plus sensibilisée, sur le fait d’être queer, d’être femme”, précise-t-elle. “Etant moi même marginalisée, j’ai plus d’empathie pour les personnes marginalisées.” De son côté, Marion garde confiance. “Même si les politiciens essaient de nous isoler et de ruiner nos vies, je pense que nous pouvons riposter, et c’est aussi important : ne pas rester seul, ne pas laisser les gens seuls”. Marion tente de transmettre cette détermination dans son travail d’assistant d’éducation dans un lycée français, en veillant à ce que les jeunes personnes queer à sa charge “se sentent écoutées et sachent qu’elles ont le droit d’exister, et qu’il est beau et merveilleux d’être soi-même et d’être entouré de personnes qui tiennent à vous. Et qu’il est normal d’être différent de ce que la société veut que nous soyons.”

Pour Marion, la lutte pour les droits des minorités de genre a déjà conduit à des changements positifs : “J’ai le sentiment que même si ce qui est visible publiquement, comme les médias ou les décisions politiques, est transphobe, il y a une amélioration dans la perception des personnes non queer.”

Le chemin est encore long avant de voir les minorités sexuelles et de genre être pleinement acceptées en Europe, quand bien même certaines victoires ont été décrochées, souvent de haute lutte, par les milieux militants. Au-delà de la défense des droits, l’activisme pourrait également impacter la santé mentale des gens qui le pratiquent. Une étude de Travis R. Scheadler, Katherine R. Haus, Tanner A. Mobley et Kristen P. Mark, publiée en 2023 dans la revue Journal of Homosexuality, s’est penchée sur les conséquences psychologiques de l’activisme populaire des personnes LGBTQIA+. On peut y lire que “l’activisme […] pourrait faciliter le développement de la résilience chez les personnes LGBTQ+”. Le fait de se rassembler, d’être ou de côtoyer des rôles modèles et de défendre ses droits favoriserait “l’affirmation de l’identité ou la perception positive de son identité”, aidant donc au “développement de l’identité LGBTQ+ et [au] bien-être”, rapportent les chercheurs.

L’engagement citoyen n’est certes pas tout rose : les frustrations, inquiétudes et attaques directes sont monnaie courante. 

Pathologisation et autodétermination

Le premier pays européen à permettre aux personnes transgenres de changer leur état civil fut la Suède en 1972. À l’époque, cette modification ne pouvait se faire qu’à condition d’avoir entrepris une opération chirurgicale d’affirmation de genre.

Quand les Etats autorisent la modification de la mention du genre, celle-ci reste régulièrement liée à une vision psycho-médicale de la transidentité. Etre reconnue en tant que personne transgenre, au regard du droit, revient à cocher une succession de cases : avoir reçu un diagnostic psychologique, entamé un traitement hormonal, procédé à une intervention chirurgicale voire même subi une stérilisation forcée… 

Face au consensus scientifique – parfois vu par certaines personnes comme la seule chose à même de donner sa légitimité à une transidentité encore considérée comme un problème mental – le ressenti des personnes transgenres et le droit à l’autodétermination est souvent ignoré. Ce qui a poussé de plus en plus d’activistes à demander une dépathologisation de la transidentité. Seul huit pays européens permettent l’autodétermination du genre : la Belgique, le Danemark, la Finlande, l’Irlande, le Luxembourg, Malte, le Portugal et l’Espagne. À l’heure actuelle, deux pays européens interdisent tout changement d’état civil : la Bulgarie et la Hongrie. 

Mais ce qui est souvent absent des discussions sur la protection des droits des personnes transgenres, c’est le potentiel de changement positif pour la société dans son ensemble. “Je pense que la société a beaucoup à gagner à inclure et à comprendre les personnes transgenres”, affirme Marion. “Il y a tellement de dysfonctionnements et de souffrances associés à la binarité des genres. Cesser de considérer le genre comme deux cases distinctes pourrait aider à éviter que des personnes souffrent à cause de leur genre. Je parle ici principalement des femmes, qui sont confrontées quotidiennement au sexisme, mais plus généralement de toutes les personnes qui subissent le patriarcat.”

Pour Marion, comprendre l’identité transgenre signifie comprendre que le genre n’est pas binaire et que personne n’est obligé de rentrer dans “l’une des deux cases dans lesquelles la société nous enferme”.

“De plus, la société est toujours gagnante lorsqu’elle cesse de discriminer et devient plus ouverte et accueillante”, poursuit Marion. “En tout cas, un monde qui ne le serait pas ne m’intéresse pas.”

La transidentité est un récit fait par les autres

Les personnes transgenres peinent à véritablement s’approprier un grand récit qui prête peu attention aux expériences et aux individualités des concerné·e·s pour leur préférer des clichés bien connus et répétés. Un constat qui n’échappe pas à Arnaud Alessandrin, sociologue du genre à l’université de Bordeaux. “En 2015, plus de 96 % des personnes transgenres interrogées n’étaient plutôt pas satisfaites ou pas du tout satisfaites de la façon dont le sujet était couvert dans les médias”, explique-t-il. Si la transidentité est davantage visible dans les médias aujourd’hui, les personnes concernées gardent l’impression que le discours les concernant reste stigmatisant, discriminant – quant il ne confine pas à la haine, continue le chercheur. 

Quand la transidentité fait parler, c’est rarement sur un registre choisi par les personnes concernées. “On remarque que ce qui intéresse le plus, c’est la dimension politique de la transidentité”, précise Alessandrin, qui mentionne les questions relatives à l’accès au droit, au changement d’état civil, etc. Vient ensuite la “dimension ‘incarnée’ : le récit biographique d’une célébrité, son parcours de vie” ; autant d’histoires personnelles, de parcours souvent structurés autour d’un avant-après la transition. Les questions plus “sensationnelles”, selon le sociologue, structurent également un récit qui laisse peu de place aux questionnements plus intimes ou sensibles – le rapport au vieillissement, la scolarité des personnes trans, etc. Même si, tempère le chercheur, ces sujets apparaissent bien plus aujourd’hui qu’hier.

“La transidentité”, résume Alessandrin, “est un récit fait par les autres”. Et quand ce récit s’adresse au grand public, il n’échappe pas aux contraintes du storytelling, et donc à la subjectivité de celui ou celle qui le raconte. “D’ailleurs, ce storytelling est souvent accompagné d’éléments de langage qu’on rencontre souvent : ‘le mauvais corps’, ‘la souffrance’, l’idée de ‘faire le deuil’”, continue-t-il. Autant de mots et de concepts qu’on ne retrouve pas nécessairement chez les personnes transgenres interrogées, avance-t-il.

Si les récits ont gagné en subtilité depuis le début des années 2010, ils restent marqués par la pesanteur de la souffrance : la douleur psychologique, le poids médical, l’impact de la discrimination … Autant de considérations légitimes qui barrent pourtant la route à des interprétations plus positives de la transition. “On s’intéresse davantage à la question de la discrimination et de la souffrance qu’à l’expérimentation de la discrimination qui mènerait à de l’indignation puis à un militantisme, ce qui est peu exploré”, précise par exemple Alessandrin.

Cette dépossession du récit va de pair, argumente-t-il, avec une “polarisation” de la transidentité. “Les personnes transgenres sont [soit des victimes], soit des personnes héroïques, courageuses, belles, subversives”, récapitule-t-il. “On finit par accoler à des personnes qui ne le veulent pas une subversivité qu’elles n’ont pas souhaité.”

Dans son essai Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Manifeste d’une femme trans, 2020, éditions Cambourakis), l’autrice et militante Julia Serano critique déjà ce qu’elle appelle la “mystification des personnes trans”, un procédé consistant à “entériner si fortement l’idée d’une nature taboue attribuée au ‘changement de sexe’ que l’on perd de vue le fait que la transsexualité (ndlr: pour rester fidèle au texte original, nous employons le terme “transsexualité” tel qu’employé par Serano, dont l’usage est lui-même critiqué aujourd’hui) est tout à fait réelle, tangible et souvent banale pour celles et ceux d’entre nous qui en faisons l’expérience directe”. Pour la penseuse américaine, “la transsexualité n’a rien de fascinant. Pour beaucoup d’entre nous, il s’agit simplement d’une réalité”. Faire des transidentités un objet mystérieux contribue selon elle à mettre en avant son “artificialité” : le genre assigné à la naissance serait “naturel”. Celui dans lequel les personnes trans vivent au jour le jour serait, lui, une illusion. 

Pour Arnaud Alessandrin, le grand récit médiatique des personnes transgenres met de côté les questions et les réalités quotidiennes que ces dernières vivent. “On parle rarement de la dimension entremêlée des subjectivités”, regrette-t-il. Toutes les expériences ne rentrent pas dans un grand canon médiatique. “La meilleure façon de lutter contre ça est de donner la parole aux personnes trans au pluriel”, conclut-t-il. “Comprendre cette subjectivité, cette multiplicité.”

Comment comprendre la transidentité ? Une façon certaine de mieux la cerner est déjà de donner la parole aux personnes qui la vivent chaque jour. Un changement de perspective s’impose également : percevoir l’affirmation de la transidentité comme un acte de réappropriation de soi dans toute sa complexité, avec ses épreuves et ses moments de bonheur, et qui, de par son caractère déterminant, ne peut pas être discuté, mis en doute, ou récupéré. Mais tout en gardant à l’esprit qu’il est question d’existences bien réelles, de vies ordinaires qui vivent au plus près les conséquences des politiques décidées en haut lieu et des discours de haine diffusés au sein de la société civile. 

Translated by Voxeurop.

Despite being touted as an important element in the European green transition, night rail travel remains riddled with problems: passengers must contend with messy booking systems and last-minute cancellations, while providers struggle with low rail capacity, strained budgets, and a shortage of rolling stock. Can Europe find a way to address these issues and make night trains a reliable and accessible option for travellers?

From Basel to Berlin, Strasbourg to Stockholm, on the night of 12 December 2025, a dozen European train stations saw activists and travellers gathered on platforms in their pyjamas, toothbrushes in hand, to protest the slow death of European night trains. Organised by Back on Track EU, Stay Grounded Network, and Aterra, these sleep-in protests were a direct response to a string of high-profile cancellations – notably the Paris-Berlin line – and a growing frustration with a system that seems to be sabotaging its own green transition. These actions were also a public indictment of a political deadlock that has left the European night train map looking more like a series of disconnected islands than a unified continent.

Once a key element of the Green Deal’s sustainable mobility strategy, the night rail “renaissance” was also part of the post-Covid mobility dreamboard. But the reality is different: night rail is currently being strangled by three distinct bottlenecks that make international night travel a high-stakes gamble. This is despite 86 per cent of Europeans stating they’d like to see night trains developed further.

The first block is poor or nonexistent cooperation across borders: a fragmented booking landscape where national operators guard their data, making cross-border tickets nearly impossible to find on a single app, and a lack of cooperation between track managers from one country to the next. Second is a hardware vacuum: a scrap metal war where legacy rail operators are still using ageing stock, and night rail startups are left scavenging for 70-year-old carriages because newer stock is either too expensive or strategically scrapped by incumbents. Finally, a priority trap on the tracks ensures that when the rails become congested, the night train is the first to be sidelined for freight or maintenance.

Together, these forces create a sort of soft sabotage that pushes even the most climate-conscious travellers back toward the airport – I myself being one of them, after a disastrous Paris-Berlin cancellation two hours before departure, with no rebooking possible. So, is there hope for a functioning network of European night trains, or has that locomotive run out of track?

“Problem explainers, not problem solvers”

The first wall a traveller hits when travelling by night train is made of code. Victor Gérard, co-founder of the travel media outlet Voyager En Train, argues that current cross-border train travel, specifically night train travel, is defined by booking platforms and reservation management systems that protect national monopolies at the expense of the traveller.

The dysfunction can feel surreal, as Gérard found on a recent trip on the Paris-Vienna line. “We were receiving SMS alerts every hour saying our train was cancelled,” Gérard explains. “But the train was running perfectly – we were actually sitting inside it! There must be significant internal communication issues within the operators.” The tools used by operators like Nightjet and infrastructure managers like SNCF Réseau remain compartmentalised.

When asked why national platforms like SNCF Connect often fail to display or sell international sleeper routes, Gérard suggests that technical excuses often mask a deeper protectionism. While a new industry standard called OSDM (Open Sales and Distribution Model) is being rolled out to harmonise cross-border and multi-operator booking, technology alone won’t solve the problem.

“The main obstacle is political,” says Gérard. He is pointing to the stalled MDMS (Multimodal Digital Mobility Services) initiative, a proposal that would mandate data sharing across borders. “If the EU mandated that all companies must sell all available tickets, it would break this lock once and for all.”

This lack of cross-border coordination has a secondary consequence: the erosion of passenger rights. When systems don’t talk to each other, re-routing becomes a manual nightmare for the passenger. Gérard notes that while EU passenger protections exist on paper, they are rarely applied to international journeys because the systems are too complex for the average traveller to navigate alone.

In 2025, independent railway commentator Jon Worth released a detailed report about cross-border rail travel in Europe. To Worth, large public railways (SNCF, DB, and Renfe) simply lack the will to make international travel work.

“The big state-owned railways (…) do not want to make the effort. If they wanted to, they would find ways around all of the hurdles,” Worth says. “There is a general problem in the rail industry that they are problem explainers, not problem solvers.”

When systems don’t talk to each other, re-routing becomes a manual nightmare for the passenger.

While operators often blame “government funding,” Worth argues the failure is one of imagination: “For SNCF, that night train [Paris-Berlin] was too much bother, so they did not lobby to keep the subsidy. And the government wanted to ditch the subsidy. So, it was easy for SNCF to then blame the government. I think SNCF not having the imagination to think about anything that doesn’t run at 300km/h killed it.”

This institutional lack of interest manifests for the passenger as a ticketing nightmare. I recall my own “broken border” experience trying to book a sleeper from Switzerland to Prague – spending hours on the phone with Swiss, Austrian, and Czech operators who each blamed a different country. Finally, I gave up and booked a bus. When asked who has a real incentive to fix this digital and administrative void, Worth’s answer is blunt: “No one. These are cross-border problems, so you need the EU to help provide fixes, but even that is hard because the EU does what the rail industry lobbies it to do.”

The CER (Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies), which represents these incumbent operators, frames the issue differently. They argue that the failure isn’t one of will, but of a fundamentally broken competitive landscape. According to CER director Alberto Mazzola, the playing field is currently tilted against rail because of tax exemptions for aviation and a lack of internalised external costs. In economic terms, this means that while rail operators are directly charged for their infrastructure use and energy, the broader societal “bills” of air travel (carbon emissions, noise, and air pollution) are currently paid by the taxpayer rather than reflected in the ticket price. He maintains that for night trains to survive, European legislators must prioritise creating an “equitable framework for intermodal competition”.

Mazzola points to the EU’s upcoming Capacity Regulation as the solution to “optimise the use of existing rail infrastructure” and “improve coordination among infrastructure managers”.

For startups, the same lack of coordination is a hard barrier to entry; a challenge that Louis Lammertyn, co-founder of the Belgian startup Moonlight Express (now merged with European Sleeper), knows intimately. He is currently launching BookBetter, a platform that aims to make aviation more sustainable. In 2020, his team attempted to launch a route connecting the heart of Europe to the Mediterranean, but they were met with a wall of administrative silence that made coordination impossible.

“When we were planning a route – Brussels-Barcelona – after six months of trying to talk with the right people in Spain and France, we realised that it was going nowhere with Spain,” Lammertyn recalls. “They literally ignored us. There was no communication at all.”

This ghosting by national operators creates “grey zones” on the map that remain isolated because, as Lammertyn notes, startups are forced to “avoid France, which is known to be complicated, and Spain, which was just ghosting us.” He notes that the situation with France has changed over the past few years, as the country has opened itself to new carriers and shown a willingness to improve night train access.

Without an EU-level mandate, national operators have no incentive to cooperate, leaving passengers to navigate booking via multiple train operators for a single journey, a level of friction that practically gifts the market back to aviation.

Political will (or won’t)?

The European Union’s primary response to the capacity bottleneck strangling night trains is the Rail Capacity Regulation (2023/0271/COD). Voted by the European Parliament in early 2024 and having reached a pivotal political agreement in late 2025, the regulation aims to replace Europe’s fragmented, manual track allocation system with a harmonised digital framework designed to improve cross-border coordination.

To understand what the regulation does – and does not – change for night trains, the Green European Journal spoke with Tilly Metz, Green member of the European Parliament and a long-time advocate for sustainable transport. She underscored a central shortfall: the regulation acknowledges the systemic failures facing night trains but fails to guarantee their protection.

Crucially, the new law does not mandate priority access for night trains. As Metz explains, “There are no mandatory requirements with priority rules for certain train services. The ultimate decision will still be taken by the infrastructure manager.” In practice, this means an infrastructure manager can argue that a freight train carrying car parts has greater economic weight than a night train transporting 200 passengers, and when they both want access to the same track, it’s the passenger train that ends up on the cancellation board.

The regulation also establishes European frameworks for capacity and crisis management, yet enforcement remains weak. “These frameworks are to be seen as guidelines and rules for the infrastructure managers to do their utmost to follow; however, they are not legally binding,” Metz notes. The current compromise relies on a “wait-and-see” mechanism: only if the Commission can demonstrate that guidelines are being systematically ignored can it propose binding secondary legislation. Until then, compliance depends largely on goodwill.

The regulation does introduce penalties for last-minute cancellations, a measure designed to curb the routine sidelining of passenger trains. However, exemptions remain for “unavoidable emergencies” – a category that can be interpreted generously.

Asked what prevents routine maintenance from being reclassified as an emergency, Metz points to one of the Parliament’s hard-won concessions: infrastructure managers must now provide evidence that capacity restrictions are genuinely necessary to restore safe operations. If enforced, this requirement could finally limit last-minute disruptions. Still, whether it will be applied consistently across borders remains an open question.

Metz herself acknowledges that regulation alone will not rescue night trains from the current impasse. “The night trains need to be supported, regardless of the Rail Capacity Regulation,” she says. “We would also like to see an EU-funded pool of rolling stock [locomotives and wagons] for night trains which could be available for leasing.” In other words, legal harmonisation, even when ambitious, arrives too slowly for a sector already fighting for survival.

The CER is championing the Capacity Regulation, which it sees as a necessary step to optimise the use of existing rail infrastructure. It is currently working with the European Network of Infrastructure Managers (ENIM) to shape frameworks for traffic management that provide “predictability to the passenger operators” while maintaining flexibility for freight.

But the most consequential feature of the regulation is its timeline, with binding provisions only entering into force starting in 2030. This may appear to be a reasonable transition period for policymakers: for instance, the CER argues that this legal basis is required to create a Single European Rail Area that can actually deliver quality services.

For an entrepreneur, however, the 2030 implementation date is an eternity away. “Four years is definitely too long for a startup to navigate,” Lammertyn notes. “It’s a matter of being creative and doing things that can materialise within 1-2 years max.”

Staying on track

Lammertyn warns that the financial barrier to entry is nearly insurmountable for new players. “As a startup, you just don’t get tens or hundreds of millions of euros.”

To generate cash flow and credibility, European Sleeper opted to operate first and modernise later, a strategy Lammertyn describes as pragmatic: “You generate cash flow and start transporting passengers immediately. And if you have cash flow, you can show a leasing company that you can repay the cost of leasing newer coaches.” By adopting this model, European Sleeper has managed to transport more than 250,000 passengers.

Lammertyn even suggests a provocative technical rescue: China. While coaches from Siemens might cost up to 3 million euros, Chinese alternatives could cost significantly less. Still, “certification of Chinese coaches is slow, and it’s difficult for geopolitical reasons” for state operators to buy from China, though it remains an option for private entrepreneurs.

Thibault Constant, the founder of a Berlin-based night train startup called Nox, is pushing forward anyway. His vision deviates from the typical public transport role assigned to trains, and aims to adapt to the current system that does not protect night trains.

Until political ambition matches the reality of cross-border operations on booking platforms, rolling stock, and congested tracks, the situation will remain precarious for Europe’s struggling night trains.

“Rolling stock remains one of the most significant barriers,” Constant explained to the Green European Journal. He pointed out that European Sleeper, a pioneer in the sector, is forced to operate coaches nearly 70 years old. “The quality of the remaining assets is often incompatible with modern reliability and comfort expectations,” he noted.

According to Constant, this isn’t just a market shortage – it is a strategic blockade. While some companies sell off old stock, others have chosen to “block new entrants by scrapping second-hand rolling stock altogether.” This creates a hardware gap that is nearly impossible for startups to bridge, especially as major manufacturers have shifted away from traditional locomotive-hauled coaches to expensive, integrated “multiple-unit” platforms.

But Mazzola disputes the idea of deliberate obstruction. He states that CER members “do not scrap night trains’ rolling stock” unless forced by environmental or safety regulations – most notably, the presence of asbestos in older fleets. Furthermore, he points out that the financial barrier to entry is staggering for all rail operators, not just startups. The CER is currently lobbying the European Commission to modernise the Railway State Aid Guidelines. Its goal is to make it easier for EU member states to fund the purchase, renewal, and retrofitting of rolling stock through clearer and more flexible provisions.

Faced with regulatory delay and equipment scarcity, Constant has opted to pivot at Nox. Rather than chasing second-hand sleeper cars, the company is refurbishing high-speed daytime coaches capable of reaching 200 km/h. This is not only a response to availability but a tactical move to secure better track slots on saturated corridors. Nox follows the “Express” model, which connects large city centres without intermediate stops.

“We avoid intermediate stops during the night and concentrate arrivals on a limited number of key destinations. This approach reduces operational complexity and provides infrastructure managers with greater flexibility in capacity allocation,” Constant explains. The strategy minimises delay risk and aligns with the discretionary framework described by MEP Tilly Metz, whereby infrastructure managers have the legal leeway to decide which trains get priority. However, it also comes at a cost: smaller cities lose access in the name of operational survivability.

Constant agrees that while the 2030 Capacity Regulation will provide a “predictable, harmonised, and enforceable framework,” startups cannot wait four years for the law to catch up. For now, the strategy is “clear, early, and transparent coordination” with track managers.

Until political ambition matches the reality of cross-border operations on booking platforms, rolling stock, and congested tracks, the situation will remain precarious for Europe’s struggling night trains. Still, one thing is clear: the pyjama protests, the determination of new entrants, and the Capacity Regulation show that the night train renaissance may yet materialise.

Il cibo e gli agricoltori sono diventati gli emblemi di una guerra culturale condotta dalla destra populista nell’Unione Europea e negli Stati Uniti contro le politiche climatiche. Le proteine alternative, come gli insetti e la carne coltivata in laboratorio, in particolare, sono considerate una minaccia esistenziale per gli stili di vita tradizionali, la mascolinità e la civiltà. Per respingere efficacemente questi timori come ridicoli, dobbiamo prendere sul serio le insicurezze economiche ed ecologiche che li sottendono.

L’ampiezza delle proteste degli agricoltori che hanno attraversato l’Europa nella prima metà del 2024 ha portato molti commentatori a parlare di un diffuso risentimento nei confronti delle politiche dell’Unione europea (Ue) ideate per mitigare gli effetti del cambiamento climatico. La destra populista è stata tra le principali forze che hanno alimentato questo risentimento. Sfruttando il malcontento per le politiche sostenibili, spingendosi ben oltre le rivendicazioni specifiche avanzate dagli agricoltori in protesta, la destra ha portato avanti una serie di critiche pesanti nei confronti dell’agenda climatica dell’Ue. Uno studio pubblicato dallo European Council on Foreign Relations a maggio del 2024 – un mese prima delle elezioni del Parlamento europeo – ha evidenziato come la destra abbia saputo sfruttare l’aumento del costo della vita in tutta l’Ue in modo molto e,cace per rappresentare l’agenda climatica della Commissione come l’ultimo sopruso di un complotto internazionalista sui governi degli Stati membri. La destra ha indicato i cittadini e i loro stili di vita come bersagli di questo complotto; gli agricoltori, e in particolare il cibo, ne sono diventati gli emblemi.

Infatti, mentre la Commissione faceva marcia indietro sui piani per dimezzare l’uso dei pesticidi e per ridurre le emissioni legate all’agricoltura in risposta alle proteste, il fulcro della contesa politica si spostava dai sussidi all’agricoltura a campi di battaglia più simbolici: in gioco non c’era solo la minaccia della scomparsa delle attività agricole ma anche quella del “cibo normale”. Tra gli effetti dei piani malevoli del Green Deal, la destra populista paventava la scomparsa del cibo tradizionale assieme a quella degli allevatori e agricoltori.

Le elezioni europee del giugno 2024 sono così diventate una piattaforma della destra populista per lanciare l’allarme su un’imminente fne del “cibo normale”: un vero e proprio “incubo in cui la frittura di insetti aveva sostituito quella di pesce” e “la carne Frankenstein” (cioè, la carne coltivata in laboratorio) sarebbe stata imposta dalle multinazionali avide di proftti alle spalle degli ignari cittadini.

La battaglia contro la carne coltivata in laboratorio e la commercializzazione di insetti commestibili si è così inserita in una più ampia protesta contro le proposte della Commissione in materia di clima. Janusz Wojciechowski, commissario europeo all’Agricoltura dal 2019 al 2024, è intervenuto per rimuovere dagli obiettivi climatici dell’Unione europea il riferimento alla promozione di un “consumo diversificato di proteine”, cioè un consumo fatto anche di proteine alternative alla carne. L’Italia ha fatto da apripista nei dibattiti sulle proteine alternative, diventando il primo Paese a vietare nel 2023 la produzione e la vendita di carne coltivata. Francesco Lollobrigida, Ministro dell’Agricoltura e della Sovranità Alimentare del governo Meloni, ne ha parlato come una questione ben più grave di una semplice preoccupazione legata alla salute dei consumatori: le fonti proteiche alternative rappresentano, secondo il Ministro, una minaccia per la cultura e la civiltà italiane. Ettore Prandini, presidente della Coldiretti, il principale sindacato degli agricoltori italiani, ha sostenuto con forza una posizione analoga in diversi contesti istituzionali dell’Ue affermando che “le bugie della carne in provetta provano che dietro i ripetuti e infondati allarmismi sulla carne rossa c’è una precisa strategia delle multinazionali che con abili operazioni di marketing puntano a modificare stili alimentari naturali fondati sulla qualità e la tradizione”.

La carne “Frankenstein” – come l’ha chiamata la Coldiretti (ibidem) – e altre presunte mostruosità come gli insetti hanno occupato il centro della scena nei dibattiti politici in tutta l’Ue, spostando di fatto la discussione dalle proposte di politiche vere e proprie verso scenari immaginari e simbolici dal grande impatto emotivo. Emblematica in questo senso è stata l’iniziativa italiana di vietare la carne coltivata ben prima che iniziasse il processo di approvazione da parte dell’Autorità Europea per la Sicurezza Alimentare.

Icone di una guerra culturale

La carne “Frankenstein” e gli insetti sono stati trasformati in icone di una guerra culturale – non solo nell’Ue, ma anche oltreoceano – con le forze della destra populista europea e statunitense che, in questa battaglia, si sono ispirate a vicenda. Si tratta di un conflitto in cui l’antagonista è per lo più frutto dell’immaginazione, ma le cui conseguenze sono molto reali. Se si vuole portare avanti una politica climatica europea efficace, queste guerre culturali vanno prese molto sul serio.

“Non mangiamo più bacon”, ha dichiarato Donald Trump lanciando la sua campagna presidenziale la scorsa estate. Al contempo, diversi stati del Sud degli USA, guidati dal governatore della Florida Ron DeSantis, non solo vietavano, ma addirittura criminalizzavano la produzione e la vendita della carne coltivata in laboratorio. Firmando la legge, DeSantis ha annunciato: “la Florida sta rispondendo al piano delle élite globali per costringere il mondo a mangiare carne coltivata in provetta e insetti […] per raggiungere i loro obiettivi autoritari”. La carne coltivata è così diventata l’ultimo fronte della più ampia guerra culturale oggi in atto negli Stati Uniti.

Sarebbe troppo facile sminuire le narrazioni sulle élite globali che impongono “cibo mostruoso” agli ignari consumatori come se fossero dei semplici slogan “acchiappaclic” messi in circolo dai politici populisti di destra che hanno costruito le proprie carriere su dichiarazioni estreme. La paura del cibo “anormale” si inserisce in un più ampio quadro accusatorio usato spesso dai leader populisti; vale a dire, l’accusa per cui le élite vogliono imporre una serie di misure ingiuste e pratiche “innaturali” alla cosiddetta gente comune, tutto nel nome della “pazzia” rappresentata dal Green Deal.

Il richiamo ad opporsi ai complotti delle élite globali e ai loro referenti simbolici – come la carne coltivata appunto – si fondano su un più ampio insieme di ansie sentite dall’opinione pubblica statunitense ed europea, in modo molto simile a come il velo islamico è diventato un’icona di altrettante ansie. Come ha sostenuto l’antropologo francese Emmanuel Terray nel suo saggio del 2004 sulla “psicosi del velo”:

Quando una comunità non riesce a trovare in sé stessa i mezzi o l’energia per affrontare un problema che mette in discussione, se non la sua esistenza, quantomeno il suo modo di essere e la propria immagine di sé, questa comunità può essere tentata di adottare una singolare strategia difensiva. Sostituirà a un problema reale, che considera insormontabile, uno fittizio, che può essere affrontato unicamente attraverso parole e simboli. Affrontando quest’ultimo problema, la comunità può convincersi di aver affrontato con successo anche il primo.

Il saggio di Terray metteva in luce come il velo avesse incorporato una ben più ampia “politica della paura” in Francia. Lo spettro degli insetti che sostituiscono la carne “normale” sembra aver assunto una funzione di “feticcio” simile a quella del velo islamic, non più nel dibattito pubblico sulle migrazioni ma in quello sulle politiche climatiche. Questa volta, infatti, il problema non riguarda la presenza “aliena” dei migranti nelle società occidentali, ma la presunta sostituzione degli alimenti “normali” e “tradizionali” con cibo “alieno” come gli insetti.

Cibi da temere

Come possiamo, allora, dare un senso politico al “feticcio” degli insetti? In che modo possiamo dare un senso ai processi attraverso i quali, per citare Rachel Pain e Susan Smith “le insicurezze globali si infiltrano strisciando nella vita quotidiana”?

Le metafore dello strisciare e dell’intrinsecarsi – particolarmente appropriate qui visto che parliamo di insetti che, tutto d’un tratto, potrebbero comparire all’improvviso nei nostri piatti – ci permettono di iniziare a comprendere come le più ampie paure legate a un mondo in rapida trasformazione vengano interpretate dalle persone e vadano ad influenzarne la vita quotidiana. E soprattutto, ci aiutano a capire come queste paure vengano tradotte in corpi e oggetti da temere.

Come sottolineano recenti studi di geografa culturale e politica sulla geopolitica affettiva, oggetti specifici – proprio come corpi specifici – sono fondamentali per comprendere le dinamiche delle politiche del risentimento populista. Proprio come i corpi dei migranti, diventati simboli dell’alterità e percepiti come “fuori luogo” nei discorsi della destra populista, anche gli oggetti possono assumere una funzione simile, “agendo come esche per le emozioni”. Emozioni come la paura e la rabbia “aderiscono” agli oggetti così come “aderiscono” ai corpi; o, più precisamente, vengono “fatte aderire” come sostiene la studiosa femminista Sara Ahmed da oltre due decenni. Descrivendo le “economie affettive” che determinano a cosa e a chi – a quali oggetti, a quali corpi – certi sentimenti vengono associati, Ahmed spiega in modo convincente come “le emozioni si accumulino nel tempo, assumendo la forma di un valore affettivo”.

La carne coltivata in laboratorio e gli insetti sono contenitori ideali, al contempo simbolici e materiali, per le paure e le ansie alimentate dalla destra populista in Europa e negli Stati Uniti. Le paure legate a futuri incerti – riguardo l’economia e l’ambiente – vengono fatte aderire al cibo, la sostanza fondamentale di cui tutti abbiamo bisogno per sopravvivere. Il cibo è forse ciò di più intimo e quotidiano con cui interagiamo: entra a far parte dei nostri corpi non solo per darci energia e contribuire alla nostra salute, ma anche per nutrire la nostra identità, ancorandoci a comunità di appartenenza, a culture, a tradizioni locali e nazionali. La carne, in particolare, ha a lungo incorporato politiche tradizionali e maschili. Lo spettro della sostituzione della carne “normale” con gli insetti o con la carne “Frankenstein” – che, nella retorica della destra populista, rappresenta le ideologie ambientali woke8 delle élite urbane (i soy boys9 derisi dai sostenitori di Trump) – scatena pertanto una reazione letteralmente viscerale: la sostituzione della carne diventa il simbolo della sostituzione delle persone “normali”, cioè quelle che, ci ricorda Donald Trump, negli Stati Uniti “mangiano bacon”.

Il cibo è, infatti, profondamente viscerale: provoca reazioni affettive come il piacere e il disgusto che vanno ben oltre la razionalità. Gli insetti suscitano reazioni altrettanto viscerali: mentre una farfalla è splendida, un verme è ripugnante. Soprattutto in Occidente, gli insetti sono stati a lungo rappresentati come esseri pericolosi, contagiosi, disgustosi e “altri fuori luogo” che, “naturalmente”, non possono essere parte della “nostra” alimentazione – implicano i discorsi della destra populista.

Come ricorda Heidi Kosonen, “il disgusto potrebbe essere la più viscerale tra le emozioni umane di base, perché è stato associato ai meccanismi di difesa dell’essere umano. [Il disgusto] può proteggere gli organismi da minacce alla loro esistenza, come il cibo avariato, gli animali velenosi […] o le malattie infettive”. Kosonen aggiunge inoltre che “il disgusto è stato [anche] associato a diversi tipi di differenziazioni simboliche tra ‘sé’ e il ‘mondo’, tra ‘noi’ e ‘gli altri’” (ibidem).

L’insetto diventato cibo viene così facilmente evocato, sia in Europa che negli Stati Uniti, come il perfetto “altro indigesto”. In questo modo, la politica viscerale del disgusto si intreccia facilmente a teorie del complotto più ampie, proprio com’è accaduto con il presunto complotto per costringerci tutti a mangiare insetti.

Scrivendo sul potere dell’immaginazione complottista, l’antropologo francese Didier Fassin ha affermato: “le teorie del complotto non appartengono soltanto al regno delle visioni distorte della realtà. Sono anche indicatori delle relazioni sociali, delle tensioni politiche, delle inquietudini culturali e dei disagi morali”. In quanto tali, sono delle forme di discorso politico e vanno analizzate di conseguenza.

La strumentalizzazione delle difficoltà degli agricoltori

Esaminare in modo critico la paura degli insetti edibili significa, allora, prendere sul serio le più ampie paure legate all’impoverimento delle persone e alle crescenti incertezze in un mondo colpito da crisi molteplici, inclusa la crisi ambientale. Significa inoltre prendere sul serio anche il disagio che molti cittadini provano di fronte ai dettami ideati dalle “élite ambientaliste” per risolvere queste crisi. Significa anche considerare con attenzione non solo le ecologie politiche della transizione verde, ma anche le sue economie politiche e affettive. Alla destra populista che afferma che la sostituzione della carne con surrogati “mostruosi” è un complotto orchestrato dalle istituzioni delle élite della governance globale (come il World Economic Forum, la COP28 o la Commissione europea) per cancellare gli stili di vita e le tradizioni della “gente normale”, dobbiamo offrire risposte migliori, anziché limitarci a sminuire queste affermazioni deridendole come teorie del complotto.

Dovremmo, innanzitutto, riconoscere che le politiche economiche della transizione verde produrranno delle ingiustizie, andando ad incidere in modo molto diverso sulle attività delle aziende agricole e sugli stili di vita dei consumatori. Tuttavia, questo non basta. Come scrivono i ricercatori Edoardo Campanella e Robert Lawrence nella loro analisi del greenlash13 in Europa e negli Stati Uniti, anche gli incentivi economici da soli non basteranno per mitigare queste ingiustizie: “[P]iuttosto che presentare la transizione verde come un problema tecnico da risolvere con soluzioni tecnocratiche, coloro che promuovono le politiche climatiche devono costruire narrazioni più coinvolgenti, sottolineando come il riscaldamento globale metta a rischio gli stili di vita tradizionali, la salute delle persone e i luoghi in cui vivono”. Come possiamo allora creare narrazioni più e,caci e coinvolgenti e proporre alternative che parlino anch’esse al cuore e alla pancia delle persone?

Le disposizioni del Green Deal europeo sono tutt’altro che prive di problemi. Dopo decenni in cui la Politica Agricola Comune (PAC) ha sostenuto fnanziariamente sistemi agricoli intensivi, industriali e su larga scala, ora l’Unione europea sta cercando di attenuarne gli impatti ambientali. Eppure, ancora una volta, ci si dimentica dei piccoli agricoltori e del loro ruolo fondamentale nel sostenere un’agricoltura e un allevamento estensivi e rigenerativi. È infatti probabile che la strategia “Farm to Fork” avrà impatti economici negativi su molti agricoltori.

L’enfasi retorica della destra populista sulla “fine della carne” ha ben poco a che vedere con i veri problemi e gli interessi degli agricoltori europei (o statunitensi, del resto). Infatti, nella guerra culturale contro la carne coltivata e gli insetti, le vite e le proteste degli agricoltori (si veda Dansero, 2024) sono fondamentalmente strumentalizzate al servizio delle agende politiche della destra populista.

La risata come forma di intervento político

Il numero autunnale del 2024 della rivista statunitense Range, specializzata in allevamento, ha dedicato la sua storia di copertina a quello che viene presentato come un attacco globale contro agricoltori e l’alimentazione tradizionale, individuando un fronte comune di resistenza nelle esperienze condivise di agricoltori statunitensi, brasiliani e olandesi. Come si legge nella conclusione dell’articolo: “non si tratta solo di bistecche. In gioco ci sono letteralmente il futuro dell’umanità e della libertà”. Un’affermazione non priva di fondamento – ma non nel senso inteso dalla retorica populista.

Di nuovo, come possiamo creare un repertorio diverso di simboli e narrazioni in grado di motivare i cittadini in un momento di profonda sfiducia, non solo nella scienza, ma in tutte le istituzioni percepite come “élite”, in un contesto in cui molti si sentono impotenti di fronte al cambiamento climatico – o addirittura lo negano apertamente? Tra coloro che già fanno fatica a “portare a casa la pagnotta”, l’imposizione di ulteriori sacrifici – tramite misure legislative o richiami moralistici alla “responsabilità” – in nome di future e ipotetiche “ricompense ecologiche sostenibili”, è destinata a suscitare rabbia e resistenza.

Piuttosto che alimentare le paure profonde delle persone, forse dovremmo cercare di alimentare altre reazioni altrettanto viscerali ma positive come la risata, il piacere e la gioia. La risata, proprio come il disgusto, è una delle emozioni più viscerali che proviamo. Questa può essere anche una forma estremamente potente di “intervento politico non razionale”, come hanno sostenuto i geografici Ian Cook e Tara Woodyer. La risata

è un modo per prendere coscienza delle ambiguità etiche e dei paradossi con cui conviviamo, senza esserne paralizzati. [È anche un modo] per riconoscere e negoziare la nostra stessa complicità nei più ampi processi economici e politici e nelle relazioni di sfruttamento […] per esprimere allo stesso tempo fascinazione e inquietudine, piacere e disorientamento, e per essere critici, ma anche pieni di speranza (ibidem).

La strategia più efficace potrebbe allora essere, letteralmente, quella del riderci su – liquidare il feticcio degli insetti come qualcosa di ridicolo ma, al contempo, proporre altre narrative fondate sul riconoscimento della bellezza e del piacere che il cibo “vero” sa offrire, senza dimenticare il ruolo fondamentale di coloro che lo producono

Για δεκαετίες, το ΑΕΠ (Ακαθάριστο Εγχώριο Προϊόν) – και οι προσπάθειες για τη μεγιστοποίησή του – βρισκόταν στο επίκεντρο της παγκόσμιας οικονομικής ορθοδοξίας. Ωστόσο, καθώς τα μειονεκτήματά του γίνονται όλο και πιο εμφανή εν μέσω της παγκόσμιας κατάρρευσης και της αυξανόμενης ανισότητας, η ανάγκη για μια εναλλακτική λύση γίνεται όλο και πιο επιτακτική. Μπορεί η Ευρώπη να αναλάβει ηγετικό ρόλο στην καθιέρωση ενός καλύτερου, πιο βιώσιμου δείκτη ευημερίας;

Ο πρωταρχικός στόχος της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης είναι να «προάγει την ειρήνη, τις αξίες της και την ευημερία των πολιτών της». Ωστόσο, ο κύριος δείκτης που χρησιμοποιεί για τη μέτρηση της προόδου δεν ανταποκρίνεται σε κανέναν από αυτούς τους στόχους. Αντίθετα, το ακαθάριστο εγχώριο προϊόν (ΑΕΠ) εμποδίζει τη βιώσιμη και χωρίς αποκλεισμούς ευημερία.

Για πάνω από 80 χρόνια, το ΑΕΠ αποτελεί τον κυρίαρχο δείκτη για την καθοδήγηση της πολιτικής. Η Ευρώπη δεν αποτελεί εξαίρεση. Μάλιστα, ένας από τους λόγους για τους οποίους το ΑΕΠ υιοθετήθηκε ως το κύριο πρότυπο για τη σύγκριση του μεγέθους των εθνικών οικονομιών στη διάσκεψη του Bretton Woods το 1944 ήταν η μέτρηση του κόστους της ανοικοδόμησης της Ευρώπης μετά τον Β’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο.

Σήμερα, οι οικονομολόγοι, οι πολιτικοί και τα μέσα ενημέρωσης εξακολουθούν να αντιμετωπίζουν το ΑΕΠ ως δείκτη όχι μόνο της οικονομικής «παραγωγής», αλλά και της ευρύτερης κοινωνικής προόδου: όσο υψηλότερο είναι το ΑΕΠ μιας χώρας, τόσο καλύτερο πρέπει να είναι το βιοτικό της επίπεδο. Ωστόσο, ο δείκτης αυτός δεν προοριζόταν ποτέ να μετρήσει ό,τι εκτιμούν οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι, όπως η υγεία, η κοινότητα, το περιβάλλον, η ισότητα και η ποιότητα ζωής. Το ΑΕΠ απλώς ποσοτικοποιεί τη χρηματική αξία των εμπορευμάτων και των υπηρεσιών που παράγονται εντός των συνόρων μιας χώρας. Αυτό που παραλείπει ο δείκτης – η ευημερία των ανθρώπων και του πλανήτη – είναι πολύ πιο σημαντικό από αυτό που μετρά.

Αυτό το τυφλό σημείο έχει σημασία, διότι αυτό που μετράται διαμορφώνει αυτό που διαχειρίζεται. Εάν το ΑΕΠ είναι ο φακός μέσω του οποίου κρίνεται η πρόοδος, οι κυβερνήσεις θα δώσουν προτεραιότητα στην οικονομική παραγωγή πάνω από όλα, ακόμη και όταν αυτή η παραγωγή αγνοεί – και ενδεχομένως υπονομεύει – τα ίδια τα θεμέλια της ευημερίας.

Ας πάρουμε την παραδειγματική περίπτωση μιας πετρελαιοκηλίδας, η οποία σπαταλά μη ανανεώσιμους πόρους και προκαλεί τεράστια ζημιά στα γύρω οικοσυστήματα. Δεδομένου ότι τα οικοσυστήματα δεν έχουν τρέχουσα αγοραία αξία, η καταστροφή τους δεν καταγράφεται στους οικονομικούς λογαριασμούς. Αντίθετα, οι μισθοί για την ανθρώπινη εργασία που χρησιμοποιείται για τον καθαρισμό μιας διαρροής έχουν αγοραία αξία. Το αποτέλεσμα μιας πετρελαιοκηλίδας καταγράφεται επομένως ως καθαρά θετικό για την οικονομία. Αυτή είναι η συνέπεια της μεθοδολογίας του ΑΕΠ: ομογενοποιεί όλες τις ανταλλαγές χρημάτων ως θετικές, ανεξάρτητα από τις κοινωνικές και περιβαλλοντικές επιπτώσεις.

Καθώς η οικολογική κρίση βαθαίνει, ένας δείκτης «προόδου» που βασίζεται αποκλειστικά στην οικονομική παραγωγή είναι σαφώς ακατάλληλος.

Γιατί το ΑΕΠ παραμένει

Οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι μπορούν να αναγνωρίσουν διαισθητικά την αντίφαση μεταξύ της ατελείωτης οικονομικής μεγέθυνσης – με τη συνεχώς αυξανόμενη χρήση πόρων και τη ρύπανση που αυτή συνεπάγεται – και των περιορισμένων φυσικών πόρων που διατίθενται στο κλειστό οικοσύστημα που είναι ο πλανήτης μας. Το 1973, ο Αμερικανός οικονομολόγος Kenneth Boulding είπε τη διάσημη φράση: «Όποιος πιστεύει ότι η εκθετική μεγέθυνση μπορεί να συνεχιστεί για πάντα σε έναν πεπερασμένο κόσμο είναι είτε τρελός είτε οικονομολόγος». Ένα χρόνο νωρίτερα, ο Όμιλος της Ρώμης είχε δημοσιεύσει την επιρροή του έκθεση «Τα Όρια της Μεγέθυνσης».

Ωστόσο, οι περισσότερες εθνικές και ευρωπαϊκές οικονομικές πολιτικές εξακολουθούν να στοχεύουν στην αύξηση του ΑΕΠ. Υπάρχουν διάφοροι λόγοι για τους οποίους, παρά την ευρεία κριτική, το ΑΕΠ παραμένει ο κυρίαρχος δείκτης μέτρησης της οικονομικής προόδου.

Πρώτον, το ΑΕΠ είναι εξαιρετικά καθιερωμένο, τόσο για την ευκολία μέτρησης όσο και για τη συγκρισιμότητα. Λεπτομέρειες σχετικά με τον τρόπο συλλογής του ΑΕΠ δημοσιεύθηκαν το 1953 από το Σύστημα Εθνικών Λογαριασμών (SNA), το διεθνές πρότυπο σύνολο συστάσεων για τη σύνταξη μέτρων οικονομικής δραστηριότητας που εξασφαλίζει ότι όλες οι χώρες χρησιμοποιούν το ίδιο μέτρο. Επιπλέον, τα στοιχεία για το ΑΕΠ είναι διαθέσιμα για όλες τις χώρες και δημοσιεύονται κάθε τρίμηνο, με αρχεία που χρονολογούνται από το 1960 για τις περισσότερες χώρες. Μέσω του ΑΕΠ, οι χώρες μπορούν να παρακολουθούν την πρόοδό τους στο χρόνο και να βλέπουν πώς συγκρίνονται με άλλες χώρες. Η ύπαρξη ενός δείκτη που περιορίζεται σε μια νομισματική αξία διευκολύνει την κατανόηση από τους πολιτικούς, τα μέσα ενημέρωσης και το ευρύτερο κοινό. Αυτό είναι δύσκολο να αναπαραχθεί για πιο σύνθετους δείκτες ευημερίας.

Δεύτερον, το ΑΕΠ εξυπηρετεί τους ισχυρούς. Ορισμένα συμφέροντα μπορούν να αποκομίσουν βραχυπρόθεσμα οικονομικά οφέλη από το τρέχον οικονομικό σύστημα, παρόλο που αυτό έχει συχνά οδηγήσει σε αύξηση των ανισοτήτων και υποβάθμιση του περιβάλλοντος. Ας πάρουμε ως παράδειγμα τον ενεργειακό τομέα. Οι ανανεώσιμες τεχνολογίες είναι φθηνότερες στην εφαρμογή τους και απαιτούν μόνο συντήρηση για να συνεχίσουν να παράγουν ενέργεια. Ωστόσο, σε αντίθεση με τη βιομηχανία ορυκτών καυσίμων, όπου ανταλλάσσονται χρήματα για την εξόρυξη, τη διύλιση, την πώληση και την καύση καυσίμων, οι ανανεώσιμες πηγές ενέργειας δεν συμβάλλουν σημαντικά στις στατιστικές του εθνικού ΑΕΠ.

Η άσκηση πίεσης από εταιρείες δημοσίων σχέσεων σε πολιτικούς εκ μέρους των συμφερόντων των ορυκτών καυσίμων έχει οδηγήσει σε εντυπωσιακά αποτελέσματα: το 2023, οι επιδοτήσεις για τα ορυκτά καύσιμα στην ΕΕ έφτασαν τα 111 δισεκατομμύρια ευρώ. Αυτές οι επιδοτήσεις εξασφαλίζουν ότι οι εταιρείες του τομέα συνεχίζουν να αποκομίζουν μεγάλα κέρδη, τα οποία με τη σειρά τους τροφοδοτούν τις προσπάθειες άσκησης πίεσης. Όσο τα ορυκτά καύσιμα αποφέρουν εξαιρετικά μεγάλα κέρδη και ασκούν σημαντική πολιτική επιρροή, είναι δύσκολο να ξεπεραστούν τα συμφέροντα εκείνων που επωφελούνται από ένα οικονομικό μοντέλο επικεντρωμένο στο ΑΕΠ.

Τέλος, η αντίθεση στο ΑΕΠ φαίνεται κατακερματισμένη. Σχεδόν από την αρχή της ύπαρξης του ΑΕΠ, διάφοροι φορείς – συμπεριλαμβανομένων δεξαμενών σκέψης, εθνικών οργανισμών, ΜΚΟ, ακαδημαϊκών, ερευνητών και άλλων – έχουν επικρίνει τους περιορισμούς του και έχουν προτείνει εναλλακτικές λύσεις. Ωστόσο, η προώθηση ενός αντικαταστάτη και η απόδειξη ότι είναι όχι μόνο ανώτερος από το ΑΕΠ, αλλά και καλύτερος από εκατοντάδες διαθέσιμες εναλλακτικές λύσεις, είναι πολύ πιο δύσκολη.

Επίτευξη συναίνεσης

Σε μια πρόσφατη μελέτη, προτείναμε έναν τρόπο για να ξεπεραστεί η εδραιωμένη θέση του ΑΕΠ. Χαρτογραφώντας πάνω από 200 εναλλακτικούς δείκτες ευημερίας, διαπιστώσαμε ότι αυτοί οι εναλλακτικοί δείκτες δεν ανταγωνίζονται μεταξύ τους ούτε υποστηρίζουν εντελώς διαφορετικά κριτήρια. Αντίθετα, υπάρχει ισχυρή συμφωνία σχετικά με τα θεμελιώδη στοιχεία που πρέπει να περιλαμβάνονται σε οποιονδήποτε δείκτη αντικατάστασης του ΑΕΠ.

Αν και αυτοί οι δείκτες διαφέρουν ως προς το χρόνο, τη χώρα, τον πολιτισμό, την ορολογία και τη μεθοδολογική τους προέλευση, οι υποκείμενες ομοιότητες συνεχίζουν να εμφανίζονται. Η εξεύρεση του «ιδανικού σημείου» μεταξύ πολυπλοκότητας και σκοπιμότητας είναι απαραίτητη για την επιτυχία ενός εναλλακτικού δείκτη του ΑΕΠ. Αν συμπεριλάβετε πάρα πολλά στοιχεία, δημιουργείτε έναν δείκτη που είναι δαπανηρός να μετρηθεί (αποξενώνοντας ενδεχομένως τις αναπτυσσόμενες χώρες με μικρότερα στατιστικά όργανα) και δύσκολος να κατανοηθεί από τους υπεύθυνους χάραξης πολιτικής και το κοινό. Κατά τη διάρκεια της έρευνάς μας, εντοπίσαμε 19 στοιχεία που αποτυπώνουν τις θεμελιώδεις ομοιότητες μεταξύ των πολλών διαθέσιμων δεικτών. Αυτά περιλαμβάνουν την ικανοποίηση από τη ζωή, την υγεία, το προσδόκιμο ζωής, τη στέγαση, τις υποδομές, την ανισότητα, την οικονομική ασφάλεια, την ποιότητα του νερού και του αέρα, τις εκπομπές αερίων του θερμοκηπίου, την εγκληματικότητα, το κατά κεφαλήν ΑΕΠ και άλλα.

Ενώ η μέτρηση της παραγωγικότητας μπορεί να είναι χρήσιμη για την παρακολούθηση της ανάπτυξης μιας χώρας στο χρόνο, το ΑΕΠ πρέπει να τοποθετείται στο πλαίσιο άλλων δεικτών και να μην επιδιώκεται ως αυτοσκοπός.

Ο αντίκτυπος μιας τέτοιας αλλαγής θα ήταν τεράστιος. Οι υπεύθυνοι χάραξης πολιτικής θα ενθαρρύνονταν να εξετάζουν τις πολιτικές από την άποψη των οφελών που αποφέρουν στο σύνολο της κοινωνίας και όχι αποκλειστικά με βάση τον αντίκτυπό τους στην οικονομική παραγωγή. Για παράδειγμα, το νέο μέτρο θα προσδιόριζε σαφώς μια πετρελαιοκηλίδα ως αρνητικό γεγονός, το οποίο αυξάνει το ΑΕΠ αλλά βλάπτει άλλους παράγοντες, όπως την ικανοποίηση από τη ζωή, την υγεία, τις υποδομές και την ποιότητα του νερού.

Φυσικά, θα πρέπει να αναπτυχθεί ένα πλαίσιο για την κατάλληλη μέτρηση καθενός από αυτούς τους παράγοντες. Για παράδειγμα, η μέτρηση της συνιστώσας «υγεία» θα μπορούσε να περιλαμβάνει κριτήρια όπως τα έτη ζωής προσαρμοσμένα στην ποιότητα, τον αριθμό των γιατρών ανά 100.000 άτομα, την παιδική θνησιμότητα, την επικράτηση των ψυχικών ασθενειών, την προσβασιμότητα στα νοσοκομεία και τον μέσο χρόνο αναμονής. Εμπειρογνώμονες σε κάθε τομέα θα αναλάμβαναν την ανάπτυξη ουσιαστικών κριτηρίων για κάθε συνιστώσα της ευημερίας, ενώ οι πολιτικοί θα αναλάμβαναν το καθήκον της επικοινωνίας με το κοινό και της παροχής βοήθειας στους πολίτες για την ερμηνεία των νέων δεικτών.

Επαναπροσδιορισμός της ανταγωνιστικότητας

Η υπέρβαση του ΑΕΠ θα απαιτήσει κάτι περισσότερο από μια ισχυρή εναλλακτική λύση, και η επίτευξη συναίνεσης σχετικά με έναν τέτοιο δείκτη αποτελεί προϋπόθεση για την απόκτηση πολιτικής επιρροής. Ένα βασικό βήμα προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση είναι ο συντονισμός και η ενίσχυση των υφιστάμενων θεσμικών πρωτοβουλιών.

Στην Ευρώπη, διάφορα ερευνητικά προγράμματα που βρίσκονται σε εξέλιξη διερευνούν τρόπους για να ξεπεραστεί το ΑΕΠ. Για παράδειγμα, το Horizon Europe (το πρόγραμμα έρευνας και καινοτομίας της ΕΕ) χρηματοδοτεί πρωτοβουλίες όπως το Sustainability Performance, Evidence and Scenarios (SPES), το ToBe, το Models, Assessments, Policies for Sustainability (MAPS), το Wellbeing, Inclusion, Sustainability & the Economy (WISE) και το πρόγραμμα MERGE (το οποίο υποστήριξε επίσης την έρευνά μας σχετικά με τη σημασιολογική ομοιότητα μεταξύ των εναλλακτικών λύσεων του ΑΕΠ). 

Σε διεθνές επίπεδο, υπάρχουν δύο σημαντικές εξελίξεις. Η ομάδα εμπειρογνωμόνων υψηλού επιπέδου των Ηνωμένων Εθνών για το Beyond-GDP (Πέρα από το ΑΕΠ) συστάθηκε από τον γενικό γραμματέα των Ηνωμένων Εθνών Αντόνιο Γκουτέρες το 2025 και οι συστάσεις της αναμένεται να δημοσιευθούν φέτος. Αν και είναι δύσκολο να προβλεφθεί ο αντίκτυπος αυτής της πρωτοβουλίας, δεν υπάρχει αμφιβολία ότι το ενδιαφέρον των Ηνωμένων Εθνών για το θέμα προσδίδει ένα βαθμό νομιμότητας στο κίνημα «Πέρα από το ΑΕΠ».

Τον Μάρτιο του 2025, δημοσιεύθηκε το τελευταίο Σύστημα Εθνικών Λογαριασμών, το οποίο επικαιροποίησε (για πρώτη φορά από το 2008) τα δεδομένα που σχετίζονται με τις μεταβαλλόμενες ανάγκες της χάραξης οικονομικής πολιτικής. Η νεότερη έκδοση περιλαμβάνει, για πρώτη φορά, κεφάλαια αφιερωμένα στη συλλογή δεδομένων σχετικά με την ευημερία και τη βιωσιμότητα. Δεν υπάρχει εγγύηση ότι αυτό θα οδηγήσει σε αλλαγή της πολιτικής εστίασης, και οι χώρες χρειάζονται χρόνο για να προσαρμόσουν τις στατιστικές τους υπηρεσίες στις κατευθυντήριες γραμμές του Συστήματος Εθνικών Λογαριασμών (και αυτό αν οι εθνικές στατιστικές υπηρεσίες τους διαθέτουν επαρκή χρηματοδότηση για να το πράξουν). Ωστόσο, αποτελεί μια επιπλέον απόδειξη της στροφής προς την ενσωμάτωση παραμέτρων εκτός της «παραδοσιακής» οικονομικής λογιστικής.

Η Ευρώπη πρέπει να αναλάβει ηγετικό ρόλο σε αυτή την προσπάθεια. Σε μια εποχή που αγωνίζεται να καθορίσει την ταυτότητά της στην παγκόσμια πολιτική, η προώθηση της ευημερίας, της βιωσιμότητας και της συμπερίληψης προσφέρει στην ΕΕ την ευκαιρία να αναδειχθεί σε παγκόσμιο ηγέτη. Η διεθνής ανταγωνιστικότητα βρίσκεται στο επίκεντρο των ευρωπαϊκών συζητήσεων, αλλά αν η ανταγωνιστικότητα ορίζεται με τους ίδιους παλιούς στενούς όρους της αύξησης του ΑΕΠ και των πολιτικών που την υποστηρίζουν (μείωση των περιβαλλοντικών και εργασιακών κανονισμών, αύξηση της χρήσης των φυσικών πόρων, μείωση των κοινωνικών δαπανών), τότε θα υποφέρουμε στο βωμό της κακώς εννοούμενης «προόδου». Αν, ωστόσο, αλλάξουμε τον ορισμό της ανταγωνιστικότητας ώστε να επικεντρωθούμε στη μεγιστοποίηση της βιώσιμης και χωρίς αποκλεισμούς ευημερίας, μπορούμε να αποτελέσουμε παράδειγμα για τον κόσμο σχετικά με το τι σημαίνει να ζούμε σύμφωνα με τις αξίες που έχουν σημασία για εμάς.

EU je dugo tvrdio da promiče suživot između vuka te drugih velikih zvijeri i ruralnih zajednica. Međutim, u praksi su napori EU-a u velikoj mjeri bili usmjereni na nadoknađivanje štete poljoprivrednicima, a ne na ulaganje u dugotrajna rješenja. Ovaj reaktivan pristup nije bio uspješan i sada se njime opravdava urušavanje jednog od rijetkih primjera uspješnog očuvanja prirode u Europi.

Kada je 2022. godine Švicarska zatražila da se snizi stupanj zaštićenosti vuka u sklopu Konvencije iz Berna, EU se tome izravno suprotstavio. Navodeći znanstveno mišljenje Inicijative velikih zvijeri za Europu, Bruxelles je tvrdio da taj potez nije utemeljen i da će ugroziti ionako krhke uspjehe na polju očuvanja prirode.

Međutim, dvije godine kasnije ti su isti argumenti odbačeni. Do kraja 2023. godine Europska je komisija pokrenula reviziju, a u 2024. i sama je predložila značajno smanjenje stupnja zaštite koje je prije toga odbacila kao „znanstveno neutemeljeno”.  Nije se promijenila znanost, već politika: depopulaciju sela, nedovoljno financiranje i nezadovoljstvo poljoprivrednika konzervativne su stranke napuhale u širu kritiku zelenih politika. Suočivši se pod pritiskom, EU je prestao zagovarati strogu zaštitu i suživot te je ustupio pred političkim problemima.

Cijena uspjeha

Proteklih desetljeća vukovi su se rasprostranili većim dijelom Europe, šireći se od svojih uporišta u Karpatima, Dinarskim Alpama i na Iberijskom poluotoku prema zapadnoj Europi i stvarajući zasebne populacije koje često prelaze okvire nacionalnih granica. Izvanredan oporavak omogućila je stroga razina zaštite u sklopu Smjernice o staništima i Konvencije iz Berna, koje su dovele do povećanja populacije vuka s 12 000 u 2012. na današnjih približno 21 500 jedinki. Riječ je o jednom od najzapaženijih uspjeha na području očuvanja prirode u Europi.

Međutim, EU je prije tri godine promijenio smjer. U studenome 2022. Europska pučka stranka, kojoj pripada predsjednica komisije Ursula von der Leyen, uz podršku Renew Europe, Europskih konzervativaca i reformista te zastupnika krajnje desnice, upozororila je da „rastuće populacije velikih zvijeri ugrožavaju tradicionalno stočarstvo”. Sljedećeg dana Europski je parlament usvojio rezoluciju kojom nalaže Komisiji da razmotri ublažavanje zaštite vukova i medvjeda.

Naknadna dubinska analiza pružila je u prosincu 2023. osnovu Komisiji za donošenje odluke o smanjenju predloženog stupnja zaštite vuka. Kulminacija je bila donošenje odluke Europskog parlamenta da za ovu vrstu podrži spuštanje razine zaštite sa „strogo zaštićena” na „zaštićena” u okviru Konvencije iz Berna i Direktive EU-a o staništima, što je provedeno u prosincu 2024., odnosno na proljeće 2025.

Nastojanja da se oslabi zaštita vukova proturječe ekološkim dokazima. Baš poput medvjeda, vukovi su vršni predatori i ključna vrsta koja pod kontrolom drži broj jelena i divljih svinja, čime se sprječava prekomjerna ispaša i omogućava se regeneracija šume. Njihova prisutnost pokreće trofičke kaskade koje jačaju bioraznolikost i neizravno održavaju biljke, kukce i male mesojede u europskim ekosustavima.

Značajan primjer političkog prekrajanja dokaza dogodio se početkom godine u Švedskoj, državi koja nedvojbeno krši Direktivu EU-a o staništima već duže od desetljeća. Švedska je odobrila godišnji odstrel populacije vukova, dok političari svom snagom lobiraju da se snizi zakonski status ove vrste.

Ovog ljeta prvi put u šest godina Švedska je vlada smanjila nacionalnu referentnu vrijednost vukova s 300 na 170 jedinki. Taj su potez osudili međunarodni znanstvenici koje je vlada angažirala da procijene posljedice. Oni su optužili političare za pogrešno prezentiranje njihovih rezultata i izričito odbacivanje odluke Švedske. Također su upozorili na to da populacija od samo 170 vukova ne zadovoljava zahtjeve propisane Direktivom o staništima za održavanje pozitivnog statusa očuvanja.

Slična su upozorenja izrečena na razini EU-a. Prije Konvencije iz Berna iz prosinca 2024., Europska inicijativa za velike zvijeri (LCIE) upozorila je da bi smanjenje razine zaštite vuka u Direktivi o staništima predstavljalo opasan presedan. Iako se broj jedinki vuka oporavio, šest od sedam biogeografskih regija EU-a i dalje je klasificirano kao „nezadovoljavajuće”. Isto tako, od devet prekograničnih populacija koje su pod pratnjom Međunarodnog saveza za očuvanje prirode i prirodnih bogatstava (IUCN), šest ih se smatra ugroženima ili gotovo ugroženima.

LCIE je sa zabrinutošću primijetio da se njegovo izvješće iz 2022. – koje se u početku navodilo s ciljem suprotstavljanja smanjenju razine zaštite – kasnije koristilo u svrhu opravdanja smanjenja zaštite. Pa ipak, nije došlo do značajnije promjene što se tiče brojeva jedinki ili ugroženosti te je procjena iz 2023. izvijestilo samo o neznatnom povećanju. Kao odgovor na ovo, LCIE je upozorio da politizacija ovih odluka u opasnost dovodi znanstveno utemeljeno očuvanje prirode, pri čemu je predloženo smanjenje razine okarakterizirano zaštite kao „preuranjeno i pogrešno”.

Cijena vučjih napada

Premda vukovi više vole osjetljive divlje kopitare i papkare, nezaštićena stoka predstavlja lagan plijen, što potiče sliku o vukovima kao velikoj prijetnji. Dubinskom analizom zabilježeno je 65 499 ubijenih grla stoke diljem država članica EU-a, uz 18,7 milijuna eura isplaćene odštete. Agrarne i desničarske stranke iskoristile su ove brojke kako bi zatražile ublažavanje zaštite, oslanjajući se pritom na nezadovoljstvo seoskog stanovništva. Flamanski ministar za dobrobit životinja Ben Weyts sažeo je ovo raspoloženje nakon što je u svega nekoliko dana ubijeno više ponija. „U određenom trenutku potrebno je iz perspektive dobrobiti životinja usuditi se reći da je cijena zaštite pojedine vrste previsoka”.

Pa ipak, Flamanci pokazuju da je suživot s vukovima moguć. Šteta od vukova u belgijskoj regiji u kojoj se govori nizozemski dosegla je 2021. godine rekordnih 189 jedinki, ali je 2024. pala na 99, što je smanjenje za gotovo 50 % u svega tri godine. Diemer Vercayie iz Wolf Fencing Team Belgium (WFTB), smatra da je ovaj pad usko povezan s preventivnim mjerama, pri čemu je na glavnom teritoriju čopora u Limburgu otprilike polovica ograda osigurana protiv vučjih napada. Otkako se životinja 2018. godine vratila u Flandriju, WFTB je obradio 1400 zahtjeva i više od 700 ograda osigurao protiv vučjih napada. Profesionalnim poljoprivrednicima troškovi se nadoknađuju do visine od 100 % putem Flamanskog fonda za ulaganja u poljoprivredi (VLIF), dok se amaterskim uzgajivačima troškovi nadoknađuju do visine od 90 % putem Agencije za prirodu i šume, uz stanovitu potporu za održavanje.

Inicijativa Wolf Fencing Team Belgium na djelu. Izvor: ©Hans Moyson

S druge strane, Nizozemska je godinama odgađala poduzimanje mjera. Rascjepkana vlada i sporo donošenje politika doveli su do nedosljednih mjera, dezinformacija i polarizacije, pri čemu je nacionalni plan po pitanju vukova usvojen tek 2025. Poljoprivrednici koji ulažu u zaštitnu ogradu često su izloženi riziku stigmatizacije jer su se „pomirili” s vukovima. Unatoč desetljećima provođenja EU-ove retorike i napretka regionalno neujednačenog napretka, brojne države članice i dalje ostaju zarobljene u polarizirajućim raspravama koje su ih spriječile u usvajanju koordiniranih praktičnih rješenja.

Kritičan nedostatak ljudskog faktora

Diljem EU-a vukove ne dovode u opasnost samo političke odluke. Na njihove populacije utječu rascjepkanost staništa, sukobi s pastirima i turističkim sektorom, kao i visoke stope smrtnosti zbog zakonitog i nezakonitog usmrćivanja te prometnih nesreća. Procjenjuje se da vukovi u usmrte u prosjeku 56 000 domaćih životinja svake godine – od ukupno 279 milijuna grla stoke  – što je otprilike tri životinje po vuku godišnje. Gubici stoke na razini zemlje možda su podnošljivi, ali lokalne žarišne točke mogu biti suočene s velikim pritiskom. Napadi vukova predstavljaju neizravne troškove koje je teško brojčano procijeniti, kao i duševnu bol, a ponovljena šteta može dovesti u opasnost stočarstvo, kulturnu baštinu i egzistenciju u ruralnim sredinama.

Napadi vukova predstavljaju neizravne troškove koje je teško brojčano procijeniti, kao i duševnu bol, a ponovljena šteta može dovesti u opasnost stočarstvo, kulturnu baštinu i egzistenciju u ruralnim sredinama.

Potpora suživota s vukom provodi se u Poljskoj putem nedovoljno financiranih i preopterećenih Regionalnih uprava za zaštitu okoliša (RDOŚ) koje se unatoč dostupnosti EU sredstava oslanjaju samo na nacionalna sredstva. Tijekom proteklih pet godina RDOŚ-u nisu dodijeljena nikakva sredstva iz Nacionalnog fonda za zaštitu okoliša i upravljanje vodama u ime mjera povezanih sa suživotom čovjeka i vuka.  WWF Poljska naglašava potrebu za snažnijom potporom poljoprivrednicima, uključujući financiranje sredstvima EU-a. Velik dio informiranja javnosti i edukacije provode nevladine organizacije i čuvari prirode poput Piotra Chmielewskog iz udruge Z Szarym za Płotem („Staviti vuka iza ograde”), koji provodi školske i društvene programe usmjerene na promjenu percepcije javnosti. On napominje da su „riječi snažno oružje; vukovi se ne mogu braniti [protiv njih].”

Pokazalo se da promijeniti kulturna stajališta nije uopće lagano. Nakon što su 1970-ih godina gotovo nestali, vukovi su se u Poljskoj oporavili nakon dobivanja pravne zaštite 1998. Međutim, nezakonito se ubijanje nastavlja. Prema istraživanjima Poljskog istraživačkog instituta, godišnje u krivolovu strada barem 140 vukova, iako je stvarna šteta vjerojatno puno veća. Kazneni su progoni rijetki jer se brojni prijestupnici izvuku zbog preopterećenosti sudova i slabog provođenja zakona.

Istaknuti je primjer Lego. Ovog vuka, koji je nedugo prije toga postao otac, u kolovozu 2024. ustrijelio je lovac. Lovac je tvrdio da je zamijenio Lega za crvenu lisicu, čiji je lov dopušten zakonom u Poljskoj. Ovaj slučaj, međutim, i dalje čeka na sudu. Kao što Chmielewski primjećuje: „Poznat nam je samo vrh ledene sante. Ove slučajeve jako je teško kazneno progoniti. Kaznena djela povezana s divljim životinjama i dalje predstavljaju relativno novo područje prava.”

Nezakonito usmrćivanje vukova sve je uobičajenije i u susjednoj Češkoj. U svibnju ove godine pronađena su četiri mrtva vuka u regiji Jesenicko, najvjerojatnije kao posljedica trovanja. Scenarij je u ovakvim slučajevima uvijek isti: policijska istraga ne vodi nikamo i slučaj se odbacuje. To ne vrijedi samo za krivolov, nego i za širok spektar kaznenih djela protiv okoliša. Često nedostaje volje, tehnologije i osoblja kako bi se slučajevi temeljito istražili i kako bi se počinitelji ulovili.

Često nedostaje volje, tehnologije i osoblja kako bi se slučajevi temeljito istražili i kako bi se počinitelji ulovili.

Problem koji ne poznaje granice i manjkava rješenja

Unatoč raznolikom krajobrazu, kulturi i brojnosti vukova, politički javni narativi povezani s vukovima nevjerojatno su slični diljem država članica EU-a. Protivnici često prikazuju vuka kao prijetnju javnoj sigurnosti, pri čemu potpiruju strah od napada na djecu i od nesigurnosti u ruralnim područjima – iako u 21. stoljeću u Europi nije bilo napada vukova na ljude sa smrtnim ishodom. Kritičari upozoravaju da se ovakvom retorikom šire dezinformacije i dovode u opasnost napori usmjereni na zaštitu prirode. Tvrdnje o „suvišnom usmrćivanju” – odnosno da vukovi usmrte više no što pojedu – koriste se kako bi ih se prikazalo kao krvoločne predatore. Budući da mobilni signal sada pokriva i najudaljenije pašnjake, poljoprivrednici i pastiri sve su više izloženi ovim narativima putem društvenih mreža, što postaje sve veći problem za NVO-eve koji se bore protiv dezinformacija.

Pojedini kritičari zaštite vukova često tvrde da je broj životinja umjetno povećan putem tajnih programa reintrodukcije, a ne putem prirodne rekolonizacije. Drugi idu još dalje, tvrdeći da se sam život na selu pogoršao otkako se vratio vuk. Argumenti poput ovih koriste se za lobiranje za strožu kontrolu čovjeka nad vučjom populacijom, koja se predstavlja kao neophodna za ponovno uspostavljanje ravnoteže i za očuvanje egzistencije.

Stado Monice Fedel pase u Brentskim Dolomitima u blizini Trenta. ©Federico Ambrosini

Ove tvrdnje često privlače pažnju u medijima, a naglašavaju ih neprovjerene prijave o napadima vukova. Uznemirena ovim trendom, skupina poljskih znanstvenika specijaliziranih za istraživanje vukova i zaštitu prirode izdala je u svibnju 2025. zajednički prigovor kojim upozoravaju: „Zabrinjava nas što su informacije o vukovima koje se objavljuju u medijima često neistinite, zavaravajuće i dovode čitatelja u zabludu”.

Jednako je zavaravajuća pretpostavka da izlučivanje vukova predstavlja jednostavno rješenje. Kao što je jedan talijanski čuvar parka primijetio, stariji vukovi obično one mlađe drže pod kontrolom, stoga ubijanje pogrešne životinje može destabilizirati krdo i potaknuti napade na stoku ili nepredvidiva lutanja vukova. Štoviše, vučje populacije sklone su brzom obnavljanju pa su učinci izlučivanja jedinki kratkoročni.

Unatoč tome, pojedinci to stavljaju u još složeniju perspektivu. Paola Aragno iz Talijanskog instituta za zaštitu okoliša i istraživanje (ISPRA) naglašava da je učinak izlučivanja u velikoj mjeri psihološke prirode: Aragno smatra istovremeno da „zabrana izlučivanja neće pridonijeti suživotu”. Ona smatra da povremeno ubijanje vukova može pomoći seoskim zajednicama da se osjećaju manje bespomoćno i potaknuti ih da prihvate mjere suživota, budući da time „ne samo što se brane, nego i uzvraćaju udarac”. U Italiji je ISPRA postavila godišnju granicu zakonskog odstrela vukova na 160 jedinki, iako bi stvarni broj mogao biti niži kad se uračunaju pregažene i otrovane životinje te one stradale u krivolovu. Ovakvi pritisci već sada značajno ograničavaju opstanak vukova, a dok u društvenim medijima prevladavaju marginalni stavovi protiv vukova, brojni pastiri priznaju da odstrel ima i nedostatke.

Dok u društvenim medijima prevladavaju marginalni stavovi protiv vukova, brojni pastiri priznaju da odstrel ima i nedostatke.

Pozitivni primjeri postoje

Iako Europska unija sve više podržava odstrel, unutar EU-a  postoje pozitivne inicijative. Od 1992. godine u sklopu projekata LIFE koji su financirani sredstvima EU-a, ispitani su alati za suživot koji uključuju električne ograde, pse čuvare i uključenost dionika. Pregled 135 projekata iz zemalja Sredozemlja i Rumunjske pokazuje da uz ispravnu provedbu takve mjere mogu biti djelotvorne. Utvrđeno je da su električne ograde – poput onih koje je ugradio Wolf Fencing Team Belgium – najučinkovitija nesmrtonosna mjera, dok su druge mjere ostvarile tek djelomičan uspjeh. Švedsko istraživanje potvrđuje da bilo kakva ograda pomaže smanjiti napade vukova, pri čemu dvije vrste nude najbolju zaštitu: električni pastir s pet žica i mreža za ovce pojačana dvjema električkim žicama, poznata kao „ograda protiv grabežljivaca”. Unatoč tim obećavajućim rezultatima, znanstvenici naglašavaju da su potrebna dodatna istraživanja kako bi se utvrdile metode čija je učinkovitost najdosljednija. Neadekvatni standardi evaluacije i izvještavanja i dalje otežavaju donošenje pouzdanih zaključaka.

Psi čuvari stoke (LGD-ovi) u Italiji su se pokazali posebno učinkovitima u odvraćanju predatora. Njihovu uporabu podupire većina regija, iako su u nekim slučajevima programi financiranja doveli do porasta cijene štenaca. U područjima poput središnje Italije, u kojima vukovi nikada nisu nestali te su kasnije ponovno nastanili veći dio zemlje, postoji snažna tradicija uzgoja pasa pasmina marema i samojed. Iako LGD-ovi mogu biti jako djelotvorni, njihov uspjeh ovisi o propisnoj dresuri, upravljanju i predanim trenerima. U Poljskoj su pokušaji rasprostranjivanja pasmine tatranskog ovčara (owczarki podhalańskie) dali proturječne rezultate. Pojedini su psi uzgojeni više kao domaći ljubimci nego radne životinje, što je utjecalo na njihovu učinkovitost.

Napori su i dalje raspršeni

Određena državna tijela u zemljama poput Francuske, Italije i Njemačke pružaju podatke, smjernice i obrazovne resurse kako bi promicao suživot s vukom. Unatoč tome, ovi napori često su fragmentirani, nedovoljno financirani i slabo integrirani u šire politike ruralnog razvoja. Europska platforma za suživot i njezini regionalni ekvivalenti olakšali su dijalog i promiču dobre prakse, ali sudjelovanje je dobrovoljno i često ga ometaju politička opiranja ili nepovjerenje među interesnim grupama.

Pašnjak Matthiasa Prietha s pogledom na dolinu Puster u Južnom Tirolu. Izvor: ©Federico Ambrosini

U sjevernotalijanskoj alpskoj pokrajini Trento šumski rendžeri pružaju pastirima aktivnu podršku time što ih opskrbljuju informacijama, ogradama, pa čak i psima čuvarima stada, što je neobičan, ali učinkovit pristup. Na samo pola sata udaljenosti od Južnog Tirola, autonomna pokrajina Bolzano odabrala je sasvim drukčiji pristup. 2023. godine proglasila je suživot s vukom „nerazboritim” na 1458 od 1500 alpskih pašnjaka. Uz tek nekolicinu preostalih aktivnih pastira i stada koja su često bez nadzora – što su prakse koje potječu iz razdoblja kad su vukovi i medvjedi bili istrijebljeni – sukobi su s predatorima intenzivni.

Do prvog izlučivanja vuka u Italiji došlo je 11. kolovoza 2025. Herbert Dorfmann, zastupnik Europske pučke stranke u Europskom parlamentu porijeklom je iz Južnog Tirola i već se dugo suprotstavlja vukovima te je imao ključnu ulogu u preokretu EU-ove politike zaštite. S druge strane, kao jedan od malobrojnih lokalnih pastira koji koriste preventivne mjere, Matthias Prieth rekao je da stvarni problem leži u dugoročnom nestajanju alpskih pašnjaka: „Alpski pašnjaci počeli su izumirati puno prije pojave vuka”. Iako priznaje da bi pucao u vuka koji napada njegovo stado, raširenu praksu odstrjela smatra nepotrebnom. Umjesto toga predlaže sustav u kojem se za potpore u okviru Zajedničke poljoprivredne politike EU-a (ZPP) uzima u obzir niska stopa predacije, s ciljem nagrađivanja odgovornog stočarstva.

Matthias Prieth kako čuva svoje stado.Izvor: ©Federico Ambrosini

Slučaj smeđeg medvjeda 

Osim vuka, smeđi medvjed također se našao na meti Europske pučke stranke. Broj medvjeđih jedinki značajno je porastao posljednjih godina, pri čemu se procjenjuje da u Europi trenutačno ima 20 500 jedinki – porast od 17 % u odnosu na 2016. U svom manifestu iz 2024. godine, EPP je – kao najveća europska politička obitelj – bio vrlo jasan što se tiče smeđeg medvjeda: „Potrebna su nova pravila za gospodarenje populacijama velikih mesojeda, pogotovo vuka i smeđeg medvjeda, uključujući odstrel kada njihova gustoća dosegne neodrživu razinu”.

Većina europskih smeđih medvjeda rasprostranjena je u planinama Karpata, koje se rasprostiru Rumunjskom, Slovačkom, Poljskom i Ukrajinom. Uporišta uključuju sjeveroistočnu Europu – posebice Finsku, Švedsku, Norvešku i baltičke zemlje – te zapadni Balkan, u kojem se populacije vuka protežu preko Hrvatske, Bosne i Hercegovine te Sjeverne Makedonije. Manje i izoliranije skupine i dalje postoje u Alpama, u Apeninima u središnjoj Italiji te na dijelovima Iberijskog poluotoka.

Kao i vukove, i medvjede se sve više prikazuje kao „izmakle kontroli” u središnjoj i istočnoj Europi, što potkrepljuje strah javnosti i politički pritisak u korist odstrela – čak i tamo gdje postoje dokazane strategije suživota. Učinkoviti instrumenti poput sigurnog upravljanja otpadom, električnih pastira, edukacije i novih tehnologija poput „Radara za praćenje sukoba između medvjeda i ljudi” – odnosno instrumenta za predviđanje koji se pokusno koristi u Bugarskoj – nude alternative koje nisu smrtonosne. Unatoč tome, prevencija se često zanemaruje. Tek su nedavno talijanske alpske regije, pogotovo regija Trento, poboljšale svoje zaštićene spremnike za otpad i sustav javnog informiranja planinara.

U srpnju 2025., službenici u Poljskoj odobrili su izlučivanje tri medvjeda (strogo zaštićena vrsta velike zvijeri prema zakonu te zemlje) u blizini kuća u Csini u Potkarpatskom vojvodstvu, u kojem obitava najveća populacija medvjeda u zemlji. Kritika javnosti i znanstvene zajednice dovela je do poništenja ove odluke, ali slučaj pokazuje da je zaštita medvjeda i dalje krhka.

Kakav učinak ima turizam?

U 2024. godini medvjedi i vukovi prouzročili su ukupnu štetu od 145 000, odnosno 93 000 eura u Trentu. Monica Fedel iz okolice Trenta nedavno je prijavila da je medvjed napao jednog od njezinih konja na alpskom pašnjaku u Dolomitima Brente. Medvjed je uplašio konja te je ovaj probio zaštitnu ogradu. Monica za incident djelomično krivi turiste, budući da je svoja četiri psa čuvara u sumrak morala zatvoriti zbog straha da će napasti agresivnog psa planinara koji je bio u prolazu. Međutim, ona se ne ljuti na medvjeda. Promišljajući o ovoj situaciji govori nam da „se on ponaša poput medvjeda, dok se vuk ponaša poput vuka, a pastir poput pastira.”

Pas čuvar Monice Fedel. Izvor: ©Federico Ambrosini

Izvješće EU-a LIFEstockProtect o zaštiti stoke potvrđuje da turisti za alpske pastire predstavljaju veći problem nego vukovi, budući da turizam često ometa zaštitu stoke. Pa ipak, pastiri ovise o posjetiteljima, jer je sam uzgoj stoke neodrživ zbog niskih cijena i pretjerane birokracije. Poticaji zajedničke poljoprivredne politike u velikoj mjeri podržavaju „održavanje krajobraza” putem pašnje, a ne proizvodnjom, čime se katkada potiču i prevare.

U blizini, na planinskom pašnjaku Borce Basse, pastir Ivan Zanoni nedavno je zbog medvjeda izgubio tri magarca. U suzama je rekao da svaki slučaj predacije smatra „osobnim neuspjehom”, pogotovo ako jedna od ubijenih životinja pripada prijatelju koji ga je zamolio da se brine za nju. Uz samo jednog pomoćnika i sve veće troškove, ovaj pastir sustav ne smatra održivim.

Jedan od magaraca Ivana Zanonija. Izvor: ©Federico Ambrosini

Iako su pastiri zaslužni za održavanje slikovitih pašnjaka zahvaljujući kojima su Alpe isplativa turistička atrakcija, oni i dalje moraju plaćati zakup za njihovo korištenje. Ovo predstavlja dodatan značajan trošak povrh svih drugih izdataka, uključujući mjere za osiguranje zemljišta od vukova. „Ne želim da me plaćaju za čuvanje pašnjaka,” kaže Zanoni. „Međutim, ne mislim da bih trebao platiti ako sam taj koji se bine i osigurava ih”.

Budućnost vukova i medvjeda nije u rukama predatora, nego ovisi o tome hoće li se Europa uhvatiti ukoštac s ovim ozbiljnijim izazovima i izabrati prevenciju i podršku umjesto straha i politike.

Istraživanje je provedeno uz podršku Journalismfund Europe.

Autrefois largement considérés comme une force politique marginale, les partis verts ont contribué à mettre les préoccupations environnementales au centre des débats. Cependant, alors que l’urgence de la transition s’accentue et que les sociétés sont confrontées à l’insécurité économique, à la méfiance et à la polarisation politique, leur culture marginale et leur mentalité minoritaire pourraient désormais les freiner. L’écologie politique peut-elle dépasser son « syndrome de pionnier » pour construire des alliances plus larges, regagner la confiance du public et devenir une force gouvernante pour un changement systémique ?

Florent Marcellesi : En tant que membre des Verts, tu as été conseiller régional dans le Nord-Pas de Calais et maire de Loos-en-Gohelle, les deux pendant plus de 20 ans et sur une période qui s’étale sur plus de 30 ans. Sur cette vision de long terme que tu as des Verts et de l’écologie politique dans les institutions, quels sont à ton avis leurs principaux succès sur cette période ?

Jean-François Caron : Dans les facteurs positifs, il y a tout d’abord le constat qui a amené à l’émergence de l’écologie politique des Verts dans différents pays et qui débute, en gros, avec le rapport du club de Rome [1972]. La prise de conscience que la planète a des limites et que nos modes de développement, à un moment donné, vont devenir incompatibles avec les limites de la planète. C’est au début un propos scientifique qui ensuite est repris par les premières associations que j’ai connues comme les Amis de la Terre. Ça a cristallisé et ça a commencé à prendre une forme politique. On est passé d’un espace d’influence à un espace d’engagement et d’action. Même s’il reste du déni dans la société, il y a une évidence qu’on est arrivé à la fin d’un système. Ça, c’est quand même un succès et, même si elle est nuancée, c’est aussi une reconnaissance des écologistes comme ayant une capacité à se mettre en mode projet, à générer des résultats.

à côté de ces victoires, qu’il est important de garder en mémoire pour savoir d’où l’on vient et ce que l’on a collectivement atteint, quels ont été en même temps les principaux écueils ou difficultés ?

Même si les questions du diagnostic sont souvent acquises, on est toujours perçus comme des Cassandre annonciateurs de mauvaises nouvelles, et c’est une de nos difficultés. D’autre part, il y a la question de jusqu’où on va en terme d’écologie politique : très environnementale ou avec une dimension sociétale très forte ? Que cela soit la question des migrants ou des droits humains par exemple, et là ce n’est pas homogène. Je pense de mon côté que prendre en compte la question écologique, c’est forcément aller sur une question systémique, c’est à dire globale.

Parce que si par exemple pour le réchauffement climatique ou la biodiversité, on veut changer les choses, on voit bien que la question des modèles économiques ou de l’agriculture, on doit en tenir compte. Et si on veut parler de la mobilité ou de l’énergie dans l’habitat, on voit bien que la justice sociale, il faut en tenir compte. Sinon, il y a les riches qui arriveront à avoir des énergies renouvelables et de l’isolation, et les pauvres qui seront dans des HLM avec des factures de chauffage électrique monstrueuses. D’ailleurs, au-delà du vote raciste qui bien sûr existe, le vote d’extrême droite dans le Nord-Pas de Calais est en partie un vote de gens qui se sentent déclassés et qui se sentent méprisés suite à la fin du modèle industriel d’antan.

Donc à la fois il y a cette idée qu’on doit aller vers une approche plus globale, sociétale et systémique, et cette tendance parallèle à nous cantonner sur les questions environnementales. C’est cette contradiction que j’ai éprouvé en tant que maire. Je dirais qu’on est au milieu du gué entre deux différentes visions et attentes.

Comment penses-tu qu’il est possible de surmonter cette contradiction pour finir de traverser le gué ?

Pour la vision globale, on a pour l’instant des esquisses car évidemment cela semble compliqué d’avoir une transformation nationale et internationale, de part la complexité systémique et parce qu’on n’a pas accès aux manettes de contrôle. Par contre, à l’échelle territoriale, il y a des choses qui peuvent se déclencher. Il y a ce qu’on appelle des écosystèmes d’acteurs qui peuvent se mettre en mouvement à une échelle locale et montrer qu’on peut apporter une réponse systémique à des enjeux économiques, sociaux et environnementaux. C’est fécondant.

D’ailleurs, c’est un peu le sens de mon action d’aujourd’hui après toutes ces années, c’est de dire : aidons les territoires à devenir des cellules souches d’un nouveau modèle de développement et à fructifier ensemble pour réorienter des politiques de rang national qui aujourd’hui sont bloquées. Partir du territoire, du terroir, et remonter grâce à une pratique ascendante.

Donc dans ta vision et pratique politique, le territoire est le point de départ d’un changement systémique et global. Mais par où, par quelles politiques commencer, encore plus dans un bassin minier historique gravement touché par la crise et le déclin social et économique de la fin du XXème siècle ?

Dans mon action à la Région et dans ma commune, assez bizarrement, je n’ai pas priorisé comme telles des thématiques environnementales, économiques ou sociales. J’ai priorisé le fait de lutter contre la défiance, c’est-à-dire retrouver la confiance avec la population, ce qui va à son tour passer par la reconnaissance. Au travers d’une multiplication des dispositifs d’écoute, c’est ce qu’on appelle la capacitation ou l’empowerment. Retrouver du pouvoir d’agir, c’est mettre les gens dans une situation où ils ne sont plus les consommateurs de l’action publique. Ils entrent dans l’élaboration des politiques et même la mise en œuvre. À Loos-en-Gohelle, ça s’est développé par exemple dans le champ de la gouvernance et de la participation avec de ce qu’on appelle le “fifty fifty”, c’est-à-dire droits à l’initiative des habitants et programmes où on passe un contrat dans lequel on dit “voilà ce que les habitants vont faire, voilà ce que la ville va faire”.

D’autre part, il faut montrer que la participation et l’implication des habitants donnent des résultats concrets, que ce n’est pas de la parlotte et de la réunionite. Il y a énormément de défiance à venir dans une réunion publique, hormis pour clamer sa colère, donc il faut montrer que ces processus participatifs produisent des résultats et que ces résultats, il faut les célébrer, les fêter. Car la question des affects compte et elle est de nature à permettre d’enclencher des processus de transformation plus profonds et de retrouver un terreau de construction collective.

Lutter contre la défiance c’est aussi la question de l’exemplarité et de l’incarnation par les élus. S’il n’y a pas de cohérence entre ce que je dis et ce que je fais, et qu’en tant qu’écolo je me balade en 4×4 et que je me gare sur les trottoirs, l’histoire s’arrête immédiatement. Mais le principal c’est que les gens, qu’ils soient écolos ou pas, se disent “lui, il est cohérent”, et ça, c’est un élément de retour de la confiance.

Oui, la confiance et les affects positifs retrouvés ont été en quelque sorte l’antichambre du changement qui vous ont permis des transformations plus profondes. Mais alors, quelles ont été ces transformations ?

On a travaillé la transformation des imaginaires. Dans cette région, nous étions les purs produits du charbon. Mais le charbon, c’était fini et il fallait en sortir. En même temps, c’est notre histoire. Et notre histoire, on l’assume. Dans ce sens, j’ai porté l’inscription du bassin minier au patrimoine mondial de l’humanité de l’UNESCO, ce qui était une façon de dire “on ne s’excuse pas d’exister”. Notre histoire est digne d’intérêt et l’histoire des mineurs vaut l’histoire des rois. Une aventure comme celle-là, cela embarque une population qui devient active, qui devient militante Concrètement on a transformé les terrils en lieux de sports et nature de toutes sortes, comme le parapente, de concerts de musique en allant chercher des gens différents à chaque fois. Dans l’ancien grand centre minier, on a aujourd’hui des structures de recherche et un pôle de compétitivité sur l’économie circulaire. Tout cela, en plus de ramener des emplois, transforme les imaginaires sur le développement. On met les gens et la ville en mouvement et on met en récit notre propre histoire, avec ses tensions, contradictions et symboliques. On prend en compte notre passé pour nous projeter ensemble dans l’avenir.

Quand on parle d’assumer son histoire, on parle au fond de la question de l’identité. Les Verts ont souvent eû du mal à aborder cette question, surtout face à la montée du patriotisme nationaliste si présent dans le fief du Rassemblement National à Hénin Beaumont à, à peine, 12 kilomètres de Loos-En-Gohelle. Alors dans ce contexte, comment utiliser l’identité à bon escient, de façon positive, non pas sur l’exclusion, mais sur l’inclusion et sur la construction du vivre ensemble dont tu parlais ?

Il ne faut pas laisser l’identité aux identitaires. La construction de chacun d’entre nous, toi, moi, notre identité personnelle, elle est stratégique. Nier cela, c’est une erreur magistrale. On doit savoir qui on est, où on habite, au sens propre comme au sens figuré. Et la question de nos valeurs et de nos racines est fondamentale. Mon arrière-grand-père était délégué mineur au fond de la mine, il était meneur de grève et se faisait tirer dessus par la police. Il a appelé ses enfants Juvénal, Danton, Rose, Églantine, Louise, Michel, Ferrer et Voltaire. Juvénal et Danton ont été gardes du corps de Léon Blum. Et bien cela participe de mon identité et je ne vais pas la rejeter.

Ce qui est intéressant quand on sait qui on est, c’est que ça permet de regarder l’autre dans les yeux. On est dans un véritable échange de deux adultes épanouis. Pour coopérer, il faut exister. Donc exister et savoir qui on est, à quoi on tient, ce n’est pas aller vers un processus égoïste, c’est aller vers un processus de s’assumer, de se connaître et c’est ce qui permet de rentrer en dialogue en construction avec les autres. Vu comme cela, la question de l’identité n’est pas une posture du renfermement, ni de repli. Pour moi, c’est au contraire une capacité à oser s’ouvrir aux autres et à construire ensemble. C’est une entité de l’ouverture.

Il y a un deuxième gros intérêt à la question d’identité. Pour qu’il y ait transition et donc un processus de transformation individuel et collectif, le premier domaine, c’est qu’il faut qu’il y ait de l’engagement. Et un des moteurs de l’engagement, c’est la question de l’identité. C’est-à-dire que cette appartenance commune, cette fierté et la symbolique associée, ça compte, ça fait bouger les gens. C’est d’ailleurs pour cela qu’après avoir porté l’inscription du bassin minier au patrimoine mondial, je me suis retrouvé Président de l’Association des Biens français du patrimoine mondial. La connaissance, la reconnaissance et le respect des différentes cultures et de leurs histoires nous permet de nous rendre acteurs.

En plus de se connaître soi-même et de reconnaître les autres, quels conseils donnerais-tu à un jeune militant-e qui rentre dans le mouvement écologiste, encore plus dans ce deuxième quart de XXIᵉ siècle et ce contexte de bataille culturelle et de backlash écologique ?

Je dirais d’abord “rentre par le concret”. Au travers du concret, du local, d’un endroit, on a prise sur quelque chose. Parce qu’une des difficultés qu’on a dans la période actuelle, c’est un sentiment qu’on n’a plus prise sur rien et ça, ça crée de la désespérance et de la défiance. Le local, l’action, ce sont des espaces d’investissement, de réalisation, de production, de résultat, de développement, de confiance en soi.

Et je pense aussi que c’est important de ne pas paniquer dans la période actuelle. Le backlash écologique est une manifestation du fait qu’on a commencé à bouger des lignes. C’est la réaction à nos succès et avancées. Donc c’est aussi un bon signe de mon point de vue. Tant qu’on te traite gentiment, ça veut dire que tu ne comptes pas. Et aujourd’hui c’est tout le contraire. Alors moi, j’ai envie de dire il faut le prendre tranquillement et ne pas alimenter cette machine là de l’affrontement direct. Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu’il faut tout accepter. Je ne suis pas pour un consensus mou. Il faut assumer les désaccords et les traiter. Il y a des méthodes pour traiter les controverses, les accueillir et trouver les chemins de convergences, comme nous le faisons à la Fabrique des Transitions. Et tout cela, puisque multifactoriel, cela prend du temps et se construit sur la longue durée. Ou alors c’est le totalitarisme vert, c’est-à-dire qu’au nom de l’urgence on impose des mesures de sauvegarde. C’est un risque d’éco-fascisme.

Moi, j’aimerais que le mouvement vert au contraire soit porteur de cette ardente obligation de transformer les choses, mais en même temps de sérénité et de capacité à mettre en réseau et en convergences toutes ces pousses qui germent de partout, à les porter politiquement dans une logique qui est de ne pas perdre son âme mais aussi de ne pas avoir raison tout seul. De mon côté, j’ai passé ma vie à faire des alliances que certains pouvaient peut être juger contre nature…

En Espagne, on appelle cela “des alliances dérangeantes” [alianzas incómodas], des alliances qui vont au-delà de tes lignes préétablies et des tabous.

Je t’en donne deux exemples. Moi, le maire écolo, je fais alliance avec des agriculteurs FNSEA : ils font une proposition d’engagement dans un processus vers le bio et la commune apporte les hectares. Mais de leur côté, ils ont des difficultés à dire je travaille avec un maire écolo et moi j’ai des difficultés à dire je travaille avec des gens de la FNSEA. Mais en pratique, on est monté jusqu’à 40% de la surface agricole en bio avec de la production locale alors qu’on est vraiment dans un modèle hyper industriel. Donc les résultats sont là. Et eux-mêmes, ils disent on arrête de l’agribashing, on ne reçoit plus d’attaques et notre relation avec la population s’est améliorée, en plus d’être sollicités par les médias.

Autre exemple, les patrons du BTP régis par des modèles capitalistes et très conservateurs. Le point de départ est clair : ce sont des méchants pollueurs qui font du béton. Et moi, je suis un barjo d’écolos qui vit dans les nuages. Cependant, ils viennent me voir et me disent “votre ville est un étendard des procédés de l’éco-construction” et on voudrait s’installer chez vous. Je leur réponds : évidemment. A l’arrivée, ils développent des structures de recherche, ils forment leurs entreprises à l’éco-construction et ça crée des emplois dans ma commune sur des métiers de demain. Cette nouvelle alliance, c’est gagnant-gagnant. Ça ne veut pas dire qu’on est mariés, mais ça veut dire qu’on est capable de construire des espaces, de progresser ensemble, à condition de ne pas perdre le cap. La vision globale est qu’on doit être dans un processus de transformation de ce modèle capitaliste, on est d’accord. Je n’ai pas oublié mes idées, mais mon quotidien, ce n’est pas le Grand Soir ou rien.

L’écologie politique doit-elle alors accepter le capitalisme ?

Non, je suis bien sûr anticapitaliste.On ne peut pas accepter les règles du jeu capitaliste. Mais si je passe mon temps à tourner dans la ville avec des affiches en disant “je suis anticapitaliste”, je crée un espace de confrontations idéologiques, qui même s’il peut être intéressant dans des débats ou des colloques, dans mon rapport à la population, ça ne marche pas. Par contre, montrer qu’on peut faire un système d’économie sociale et solidaire de l’énergie locale renouvelable avec les habitants, c’est une réponse à la question anticapitaliste. Donc à titre personnel, j’évite depuis toujours de rentrer dans des postures, de crier très fort et de donner des leçons. Quand j’observe les postures au niveau national, ça me désespère. On est extrêmement loin des logiques de dialogue territorial et de construction de désaccords, mais aussi de consensus.

Le consensus peut sembler a priori éloigné de l’exercice du pouvoir tel que compris dans une majorité de la classe politique et de la population. En tenant compte en plus du fait que les Verts, dû entre autres à leur défiance originelle face à l’État, ont un rapport ambigu face au concept de pouvoir, à quoi ressemble selon toi l’exercice du pouvoir en tant qu’élu écolo ?

Il y a deux façons de comprendre le pouvoir : c’est le “pouvoir sur” ou le “pouvoir de”. En politique, le pouvoir c’est en général de dominer les autres. Cela peut être utile pour faire les choses, mais cela amène à des logiques de combat permanent, de contrôle, de blocage, d’autoritarisme, et donc, à un moment donné, cela tourne en rond sur comment je garde le pouvoir. Le pouvoir devient une aliénation.

Si on raisonne en disant le “pouvoir de”, c’est-à-dire celui de faire et de gagner en puissance d’action, à ce moment, la question est complètement retournée. Par exemple, si je veux passer ma ville intégralement aux énergies renouvelables, comment je vais générer le pouvoir de faire ça ? Je vais regarder les acteurs; il va falloir travailler avec les énergéticiens, avec ceux qui ont du foncier, avec la population que les éoliennes irritent, écouter leur point de vue. Donc le “pouvoir de” est un pouvoir d’accueil. C’est un pouvoir de recombinaison de ce que chacun peut faire et donc ça amène l’élu dans une position d’animateur, non pas de vérité, en mode “je vais vous expliquer ce qui est bon pour vous”. Et après la phase d’animateur, il y a aussi une phase de décideur parce qu’on a une légitimité en tant qu’élu. On explique aux gens qu’à un moment donné, il va y avoir des arbitrages et que dans la situation actuelle, la légitime est, dans mon cas, dans le conseil municipal ou régional.

La question du pouvoir, c’est aussi de dire comment je suis capable de générer de la puissance. On n’est pas là pour jouer petit bras, on est face à des problèmes mondiaux majeurs, donc on doit avoir de l’ambition. Et la question de l’ambition, ça peut se traduire par une ambition d’un ego, comme cela peut se traduire par l’ambition du projet. Moi, je pense qu’il faut des projets ambitieux et il faut développer de la puissance pour cela. Par exemple, le fait qu’on ait été réélu à 82,1% des voix lors des élections municipales de 2008 à Loos-en-Gohelle montre qu’il est possible un vrai effet d’embarquement sur un projet radicalement écolo, qui plus est dans une région minière. Et dans ce sens là je pense qu’il y a aussi un énorme enjeu à évaluer ce qui a été produit dans les territoires et villes gérés par des écologistes comme Grenoble, Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Tours ou Poitiers. C’est-à-dire comprendre les processus de construction collective à vocation majoritaire.

Donc tu prônes un passage du vert minoritaire au vert majoritaire ?

C’est exactement cela. Depuis les années 1970, on vient d’une culture de posture minoritaire, d’émergence où l’objectif est de créer le buzz, bref de happening. Cela est nécessaire pour émerger et pour bousculer le système. Mais on arrive à un moment où on est bloqués par cette culture minoritaire. On est bloqués notamment par le fait qu’une personne comme moi, par exemple, quand j’étais maire, j’en étais presque suspect. Comment est-il possible que des gens votent pour lui ? Et même chez les nôtres, s’il est devenu maire, est-ce qu’il est vraiment écolo ? Nous avons cette culture du rebelle et de la marge. Et donc ce n’est pas par hasard que nous avons une sociologie de militant attirée par cette culture minoritaire, ce qui renforce à son tour notre position minoritaire et perception d’écolos fouettards, et ainsi de suite.

C’est ce que j’appelle le “syndrome du pionnier”. C’est extrêmement difficile et passionnant d’être un pionnier. Tu défriches et reçois plein de coups mais en même temps tu as plein d’aventures. Il y a une forme de jouissance du pionnier qui explore des voies. Et tous les écolos, en tout cas de mon époque, moi inclus, sont des pionniers. On est les pionniers dans nos formes parce qu’on est sortis du moule. Les pionniers sont très solidaires entre eux autour de très petits noyaux, ce qui donne une aventure humaine extrêmement puissante mais avec un risque d’être fermée sur elle-même. Le problème des pionniers, c’est qu’ils courent aussi le risque de ne pas supporter que la civilisation les rattrape. Et dans ce cas là, il faut qu’ils repartent dans un autre truc de pionniers. Et les Verts ont en partie ce syndrome. Mais maintenant on va avoir besoin de passeurs. Les passeurs, c’est autre chose. Ce sont ceux et celles qui accueillent ce que produisent les pionniers et qui les passent au reste de la société.

À Loos-En-Gohelle, vous avez été au fond à la fois pionnier et passeur ?

Souvent on m’a dit cela, oui, que j’étais sur les deux registres de pionnier et passeur, qui parle en même temps à l’ouvrier et au mineur comme à l’énarque ou au ministre; qui recherche l’exploration mais qui a vu que coopérer cela veut dire aussi comprendre les contraintes des autres, ses intérêts et être prêt à négocier. Nous avons eu du succès car, en plus d’avoir créé les conditions de durée sur le temps long pour amener des transformations profondes, nous avons misé sur une culture de pivot majoritaire.

Et là se trouve une des clés du futur. Je pense qu’après 50 ans d’existence, il est temps que l’écologie politique bascule dans cette culture majoritaire.

Note : Merci à Ambroise Cousin pour l’appui technique

Once a fringe political force, Green parties have helped bring environmental concerns into the mainstream. Yet as the urgency of the transition grows and societies grapple with economic insecurity, distrust, and political polarisation, their outsider culture and minority mindset may now be holding them back. Can political ecology move beyond its “pioneer syndrome” to build broader alliances, regain public trust, and become a governing force for systemic change?

Florent Marcellesi: As a Green Party member, across a period spanning three decades, you’ve served over 20 years in office both as a regional councillor for Nord-Pas-de-Calais and mayor of Loos-en-Gohelle. Looking back at the Greens and political ecology in the institutions over this period, what do you think have been their greatest successes?

Jean-François Caron: On the positive side, first there’s the analysis that began with the Club of Rome’s report [The Limits to Growth, 1972] and led to the emergence of the Greens’ political ecology around the world  – the realisation that the planet has limits and that our growth models will, at some point, become incompatible with these limits. It started out as a scientific argument that was then taken up by the first campaign groups I joined, like Friends of the Earth. Then it crystallised and began to take political form. We moved from the realm of influence to the realm of activism and action. Though there’s still denial in society, it’s clear that we’ve reached the end of a system. So that’s a success. It’s also an acknowledgement, albeit a qualified one, that Greens can mobilise around a project and get results.

Aside from these wins, which remind Greens where they’ve come from and what they’ve achieved together, what have been the biggest obstacles or challenges along the way?

While our diagnosis is often broadly accepted, we’re always seen as Cassandras bearing bad news, and that’s one of our problems. Then there’s the question of how far we proceed with political ecology: do we go all in on the environment? Or do we include a strong social dimension as well? Whether it’s on migrants or human rights, for example, it’s never consistent. I think that to address the environment, we have to take a systemic, wider view.

If we want change on, say, global heating or biodiversity, we have to address economic and farming models. And if we want to talk about transport or energy in the home, we have to address social justice. Otherwise, the rich will get renewable energy and insulation, and the poor will get enormous electricity bills for heating their social housing. What’s more, besides the racist vote, which of course exists, the vote for the far right in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais is partly the vote of people who feel left behind and looked down upon since the end of the old industrial model.

So there’s both this idea that we should take a wider, more societal and systemic approach, and at the same time, this tendency to stick to environmental issues. And I’ve felt this contradiction as a mayor. We’re caught in a no man’s land between different visions and expectations.

If we want change on global heating or biodiversity, we have to address economic and farming models. And if we want to talk about transport or energy in the home, we have to address social justice.

How can we overcome this contradiction and escape no man’s land?

For the wider vision, we’ve just got a rough outline for now: enacting national and international transformation is tough because of systemic complexity and because we don’t hold the levers of power. But at a lower level, things can happen. There are stakeholder ecosystems that we can mobilise locally to show we can bring a systemic response to economic, social and environmental issues. It’s fertile ground.

After all these years, it’s sort of what I’m doing today: helping communities to become the stem cells for a new growth model, to thrive together and shift national policies that are currently stuck. Starting local and moving upwards.

So, in the way you see and do politics, the local is the starting point for systemic and wider change. But where do you start, and with which policies, especially in a former mining region that’s been hit hard by crisis and the economic and social decline of the late 20th century?

Somewhat strangely, in my work in the region and my municipality, I haven’t prioritised environmental, economic, or social policies per se. I’ve prioritised fighting distrust – in other words, winning back people’s trust – and that means giving them recognition. I’ve done this through multiple listening exercises, or what we call empowerment. By putting people in a situation where they’re no longer just consumers of public policy, they are empowered. They get involved in shaping and even implementing policies. In Loos-en-Gohelle, we’ve done it with governance and participation through what we call “50-50”: residents’ initiatives and programmes where we sign a contract saying, “this is what residents will do, and this is what the council will do”.

But you have to show that residents’ participation and involvement bring tangible results; that it’s not just a talking shop and meetings for meetings’ sake. There’s a huge reluctance to turn up to public meetings – unless it’s to voice anger. So, we have to show that participatory processes produce results and that these results should be lauded and celebrated, because affect matters. It can trigger deeper transformation and reveal a bedrock on which to build things together.

Fighting distrust also means elected officials leading by example. If there’s inconsistency between what I say and do, and as a Green, I drive around in an SUV and park on the pavement, it’s over. But the main thing is that, whether they’re Green or not, people say to themselves, “he’s consistent”, and that’s part of rebuilding trust.

Regaining trust and positive affect have been catalysts for deeper transformations. What are these transformations?

We worked on transforming imaginations. In this region, we were the pure products of coal. But coal went, and we had to move on. Yet coal is also our history. And we’re not ashamed of it. That’s why I championed making the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining basin a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a way of saying, “We won’t apologise for existing.” Our history is worthy of interest, and the history of miners is just as important as the history of kings. A project like this brings the whole community onboard, getting them involved, turning them into activists. In practical terms, we have transformed slag heaps into venues for all sorts of sports and outdoor activities, like paragliding and concerts, drawing in different partners and crowds each time. On what used to be the main mining site, we now have research facilities and an innovation cluster for the circular economy. All this not only brings jobs, but it also transforms how people imagine growth. We get people and the town moving, and we tell our own history, with all its tensions, contradictions and symbolism. We draw on our past to look ahead to the future together.

When we talk about leaning into our history, we’re really talking about identity. The Greens have often struggled to tackle this question, all the more so with surging nationalist patriotism, which is on full display in the National Rally (RN) stronghold of Hénin Beaumont, just 12 kilometres away from Loos-En-Gohelle. In this context, how can identity be used for good, in a positive way, not to exclude, but to include and build the sense of community you were talking about?

We must not leave identity to the identitarians. Personal identity – yours, mine, everyone’s – is built strategically. To deny this is a huge mistake. We need to know who we are and where we live, both literally and figuratively. And our values and roots are fundamental in this. My great-grandfather was a safety rep in the pit. As a strike leader, he was fired on by the police. He named his children Juvénal, Danton, Rose, Églantine, Louise, Michel, Ferrer, and Voltaire.1 Juvénal and Danton served as bodyguards for [socialist prime Minister] Léon Blum. So, this is part of my identity, and I’m not going to cast it aside.

What’s interesting is that when you know who you are, you can look other people in the eyes. It’s a conversation between two adults who are comfortable with themselves. To work with others, you first have to exist. So, existing and knowing who you are and what you stand for isn’t being selfish; it’s about self-acceptance and self-knowledge. And it’s what enables constructive dialogue with others. When you look at it like this, identity isn’t about shutting yourself off or looking inwards. For me, it’s actually about daring to be open to others and building things together. It’s about openness.

There’s a second reason why identity matters. For change to happen and an individual and collective process of transformation to begin, you first need civic engagement. And a driver of engagement is identity. In other words, this collective belonging, this pride and associated symbolism, it matters, it moves people. That’s also why, after campaigning to get the mining basin listed by UNESCO, I ended up as President of the Association of French World Heritage Sites. Knowing, recognising and respecting different cultures and their histories empowers us to act.

We must not leave identity to the identitarians. Personal identity – yours, mine, everyone’s – is built strategically. To deny this is a huge mistake.

As well as knowing yourself and recognising others, what advice would you give a young activist joining the green movement in the second quarter of the 21st century, amid culture wars and environmental backlash?

I’d say first, “start with the tangible”. Through the tangible, the local, a place, you have a grip on something. Because one of the problems we have at the moment is the feeling that we no longer have a grip on anything, and that creates despair and distrust. Local action creates spaces for investment, flourishing, production, results, growth, and self-confidence.

I also think it’s important not to panic in times like these. The environmental backlash is a sign that we’ve started to change things. It’s a reaction to our victories and breakthroughs, and it’s also a good sign in my eyes. When they’re nice to you, it means you don’t matter. And today it’s quite the opposite. So, we’ve got to keep our cool and not feed that machine of head-on confrontation, though that doesn’t mean we should accept everything. I’m not for wishy-washy consensus. You have to own disagreements and work through them. There are ways to handle controversies, to accept them, and to find common ground, as we did with the Fabrique des Transitions. But because it’s complex, it takes time and is built over the long term. Otherwise, it’s green totalitarianism: we impose emergency measures in the name of urgency – and there lies the risk of eco-fascism.

I’d like the green movement to channel this burning obligation to transform things, while at the same time bringing calm and a capacity to connect and unite the initiatives springing up everywhere, championing them politically without losing its soul or being right but alone. I myself have spent years making alliances that some may see as unnatural…

In Spain, they call them “uncomfortable alliances” [alianzas incómodas], alliances that cross lines in the sand and break taboos.

I’ll give you two examples. As a Green mayor, I work with farmers from the FNSEA [France’s largest farmers’ union]: they commit to going organic, and the municipality provides land. They find it hard to say they work with a Green mayor, and I find it hard to say I work with people from the FNSEA. But in practice, we’ve switched 40 per cent of local farmland to organic production despite the hyper-industrial model used in the area. We’re getting results, and the farmers themselves say that “agribashing” has stopped, they’re no longer being attacked, and their relationship with the community has improved to the point where the media are taking an interest.

Another example is building industry executives, with very conservative, capitalist business models. The starting positions are clear: they’re evil polluters who make concrete, and I’m a loony environmentalist with my head in the clouds. Yet they came to see me and said: “Your town is a standard bearer for sustainable building practices, and we’d like to set up shop there,” to which I replied: of course. When they got here, they set up new research facilities and trained their companies in sustainable building, which created jobs for the town in tomorrow’s professions. So, this new alliance is a win-win. It doesn’t mean we’re married, but it does mean that we can find common ground and move forward together, so long as we don’t lose sight of the final destination. The wider vision is undoubtedly to transform this capitalist model. I haven’t abandoned my ideals, but I don’t go to work every day saying it’s revolution or bust.

Should political ecology accept capitalism?

No. I’m anticapitalist, of course.We can’t accept the rules of the capitalist game. But if I spend my time running around town with signs saying, “I’m anticapitalist,” I’ll create a space for ideological confrontation, which is all well and good in debates and discussions, but doesn’t work in my relations with the community. On the other hand, showing that we can create a social solidarity economy for local renewable energy with residents, that’s an anticapitalist answer. Personally, I’ve always tried not to posture, shout, or lecture. When I see the posturing in national politics, it drives me to despair. It’s a far cry from seeking local dialogue, working through disagreements, and building consensus.

Building consensus can seem far removed from wielding power as understood by most of the political class and the electorate. With their original distrust of the state, Greens have an ambiguous relationship with the concept of power. So, what does the exercise of power look like to you as a Green in office?

There are two ways to understand power: there’s the “power over”, and then there’s the “power to”. In politics, power is usually about dominating others. This can be useful for getting things done, but it also leads to patterns of permanent conflict, control, obstruction, and authoritarianism. And then it gets to a point where it’s just about holding on to power. Power becomes alienating.

If we think about it as the “power to” – in other words, the power to do things and increase our capacity to act – the question is turned on its head. For example, if I want to switch my town to 100 per cent renewable energy, how am I going to build up the power to do that? I’m going to look to stakeholders: that means working with energy companies, with landowners, with people bothered by wind turbines, and listening to their viewpoints.

The “power to” is the power to bring people in. It’s the power to assemble everyone’s talents, putting the elected official in the role of organiser, not truth holder, in an “I’m going to tell you what’s good for you” kind of way. After the organiser phase comes the decision-maker phase, because we have legitimacy as elected officials. We explain to people that, at some point, tough choices will have to be made and that, in my case, legitimacy lies in the town or regional council.

Power is also about asking: “How can I build strength?” We’re not there to play it safe; we’re facing major global problems, so we have to be ambitious. And ambition can be ego-driven, or it can be project-driven. I believe we need ambitious projects, and we need to build strength for this. For instance, the fact that we were re-elected with 82.1 per cent of the vote in the 2008 local elections in Loos-en-Gohelle shows that it really is possible to get people onboard with a radical environmentalist project, and in a mining area, no less. And that’s why I think it’s so important to assess what’s been achieved in the places run by Greens, like Grenoble, Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Tours, and Poitiers. In other words, to understand the processes by which political and cultural majorities are collectively built.

So you advocate that Greens switch from a minority to a majority culture?

Exactly. Since the 1970s, we’ve had an opposition, outsider culture where the goal is to create buzz, pull stunts. You need that to break through and shake up the system. But there comes a point where this opposition culture holds us back. We’re held back by the fact that people like me are viewed with suspicion: “How can people vote for him?” There were doubts even among like-minded individuals: “If he’s a mayor, is he really a Green?” We’ve got this rebel, outsider culture. So, it’s no accident that we’ve got an activist base drawn to this opposition culture, which then reinforces our oppositional status and our image as killjoy Greens, and so forth.

The Greens partly suffer from this syndrome, but now we need bridge builders.

It’s what I call “pioneer syndrome”. Being a pioneer is incredibly hard yet exhilarating. You blaze a trail and take a lot of stick, but you have lots of adventures along the way. There’s a thrill that pioneers get from exploring new paths. And all Greens, from my era at least, are pioneers, me included. We’re pioneers because we broke the mould in our approach. Pioneers form small, tight-knit groups that create extremely intense personal experiences, but at the risk of becoming insular. There’s also the danger that pioneers can’t handle society catching up with them. And when that happens, they have to go off and find something else to pioneer.

The Greens partly suffer from this syndrome, but now we need bridge builders. Bridge builders are different. They’re the people who take what pioneers create and bring it to the rest of society.

In Loos-En-Gohelle, were you both pioneer and bridge builder?

People often told me that I was someone who wore two hats; someone who could talk to workers and miners as well as civil servants and ministers; someone who sought to explore new ground but who also saw that cooperating means understanding the constraints and interests of others, and being willing to negotiate. We were successful because, in addition to creating long-term conditions for bringing about profound transformation, we adopted a governing mindset.

And this holds a key for the future. I think that 50 years on, it’s time for political ecology to shift to a governing mindset.

Note: Thanks to Ambroise Cousin for the technical support.

1. All names of revolutionaries and prominent historical personalities. ︎

At 26, Isaiah Taylor had accomplished more than most people do by the time they’re twice his age. The founder of Valar Atomics, a Southern California-based company that aims to make small-scale nuclear reactors, Taylor, a father of four, has government contracts, invitations to Mar-a-Lago, and investments from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley venture capital. His goal is nothing less than to usher the United States into an era of nuclear power domination — becoming the next Elon Musk while he’s at it. “We do not appreciate SpaceX enough,” he tweeted last year. “If it were not for a single highly motivated American startup, China would be preparing to simply own outer space. Now they’re playing catch-up. I plan to make Valar Atomics the equivalent for energy.”

The political winds appear to be at his back. “Unleashing nuclear energy is how we will power American artificial intelligence,” posted U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on X last year. “Nuclear energy provides the constant energy needed to power data centers and release the full potential of American innovation.” Last September, the DOE named Valar as one of four companies to participate in a pilot program to build nuclear fuel lines; two months later, the company became the first-ever venture-backed startup to reach the nuclear milestone of splitting atoms using its own reactor. “This moment marks the dawn of a new era in American nuclear engineering — one defined by speed, scale, and private-sector execution with closer federal partnership,” Taylor said of the achievement in a press release. Max Ukropina, Valar Atomics’ Head of Projects, added, “America should be thrilled but wanting more.”

Taylor’s trajectory has been as unconventional as it is meteoric. The high-school dropout’s path to success included a controversial Christian nationalist church and an assist from a Russian-American power broker with ties to both the Kremlin and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — but practically no experience with nuclear energy. Nuclear experts have raised red flags about both the feasibility of Valar’s goals and its safety claims — but those concerns do not appear to faze Taylor, who went on the offense last year, entering Valar into a lawsuit against the U.S. government over what it considers a prohibitively restrictive interpretation of U.S. nuclear safety rules. As Taylor put it in a tweet last November, “Civilization is an inconceivably precious thing. But the way to keep it alive is by continually treating it as a frontier, not covering everything in bubble wrap.”

But those rules have not stopped the Trump administration from working with Valar — earlier this month, the U.S. government announced a partnership with the company to test its reactor for government use. “President Trump promised the American people that he would unleash American energy dominance,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright enthused about the partnership with Valar on X. “This is the next chapter for U.S. energy.”

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Since the advent of nuclear energy in 1942, the field has been controversial, largely because of high-profile accidents such as the disasters at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. Tight safety regulations make large-scale reactors expensive and cumbersome to build, and people don’t exactly jump at the chance to host one in their neighborhood.

Taylor founded Valar to address these barriers — smaller, more nimble reactors, he reasoned, would be both safer and more convenient. While the larger, traditional reactors typically produce enough power to fuel up to a million homes continuously, Taylor’s units are much more modest, big enough to power only about 5,000 homes.

Small-scale nuclear reactors like the ones that Taylor aims to build are not new — in fact, during the Cold War, both the United States and Russia used them to power satellites. Building them on land, however, has always proved prohibitively expensive; it’s much more cost-efficient to build one big reactor than a series of small ones, explains Nick Touran, a nuclear engineer who runs the informational site whatisnuclear.com. But that thinking is beginning to change: Small reactors could come in handy for AI data centers and also on remote military bases, where shipping fuel is both expensive and dangerous. In theory, small, portable reactors could act like batteries, powering a data center or a base for years without the need for more fuel.

The handful of nuclear experts I spoke with all acknowledged that small reactors would be desirable, but they weren’t sure Valar could manage to make them both cost-effective and scalable. “It’s not a new technology, but nobody’s been able to make it successful in electricity markets,” said Allison Macfarlane, a former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission who currently heads the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. She referred to Taylor and other nuclear startup founders as “nuke bros” who “don’t know what they don’t know.” Touran said he thought it was possible for Valar to make good progress on small reactors, but he had his doubts that they would succeed in making them profitable. “I think high risk, high reward,” he said. “It’s unlikely to be economically competitive, in my opinion.”

The long odds don’t seem to bother Taylor, who sees himself as fitting in the grand tradition of an old-fashioned rags-to-riches American story. In a 2024 post on X, Taylor described growing up poor in Kentucky and teaching himself to code on the family computer before he was even in high school. When he was 12, he wrote, his father promised to buy him a laptop if he would agree to pay his own way through college. Taylor took him up on the offer and proceeded to drop out of high school. By 16, he claimed that he was “making six figures.” By 17, he had moved with his family to Moscow, Idaho, where he started an auto-repair shop while living on his friend’s couch. “The business was deep in the red and barely hanging on,” he recalled in the post on X. But he persevered, and eventually the shop succeeded. “My software career did well too,” he wrote. “Life is more comfortable now, monetarily. I still work like a dog, but I don’t think about the next rent payment as much as I did.”

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Small-town Idaho may seem like a strange place for an ambitious young coder, but he stayed there for a compelling reason. As Taylor explained on X in 2023, he lived in Moscow “in order to be part of a medium-sized church community.” That community was the fiefdom founded by Doug Wilson, the self-proclaimed Christian nationalist pastor of Moscow’s Christ Church. In a 2023 tweet, Taylor described Wilson as “a huge influence on me regarding wealth.” In an email to Mother Jones, Wilson said he first met a teenage Taylor when his family relocated to Moscow; Wilson described Taylor as “a go-getter.” Taylor didn’t respond to our request for comment on his relationship with Wilson and other details of this story.

Wilson has attracted widespread media attention for his controversial statements, including his remark to CNN last year that “women are the kind of people that people come out of.” As I wrote in 2024:

He has argued that the master-slave dynamic was “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence,” called the trope of the dominant man and a submissive woman “an erotic necessity,” and opined that women never should have been given the right to vote. When I asked him about his most provocative statements, he compared himself to a chef who cooks with jalapeño peppers: “Some of my enemies online have combed through my writings, have gathered up all the jalapeños, and put them on one Ritz cracker,” he told me.

While running the auto repair shop, coding, attending Wilson’s church, and starting a family, Taylor spent the next six years on “nights and weekends of research,” he told the tech publication Infinite Frontiers in 2024, he decided to tackle the problem of making nuclear power profitable — large reactors often scare off investors because they can cost billions to build and can take more than a decade to come online. Taylor says his interest in nuclear power runs in the family; his great-grandfather, Ward Schaap, worked on the Manhattan Project as a nuclear physicist. In 2023, Taylor founded Valar Atomics in the Southern California defense tech hub of El Segundo. Although Taylor hasn’t explained publicly why he chose the name, in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, the Valar are angelic guardians who helped create the world and control nature.

In El Segundo’s macho scene of young, conservative Christian founders, Taylor fit right in. With his friend Augustus Doricko, founder of another buzzy El Segundo startup, the cloud-seeding company Rainmaker, he began attending a nearby church in the denomination Wilson founded. On social media, Taylor sometimes posts scripture — for Christmas last year, a bible verse about the birth of Jesus appeared on the Valar house account, accompanied by a photo of its nuclear reactor prototypes wearing Santa hats.

In El Segundo, Taylor quickly scored connections to an exclusive network of high-powered tech investors. He secured a pre-seed round of $1.5 million from the firm Riot Ventures, and just over a year later, in 2025, he announced a seed round of $19 million, with funding from Silicon Valley power players such as investor and author Balaji Srinivasan. Later that year, he obtained a $130 million funding round.

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And here is where the story departs from the more familiar tech entrepreneur-scores-a-big-win narrative, with an unusual Venn diagram of Taylor’s professional, religious, and personal interests converging on an unexpected protagonist. A co-leader of that round was Day One Ventures, a firm that says it aims to “back early-stage companies with customer obsession in their DNA.” Day One’s founder, visionary leader, and sole general partner is Masha Bucher, a one-time pro-Putin Russian political activist-turned Jeffery Epstein publicist-turned Silicon Valley kingmaker.

Before Bucher came to the United States in 2014, she still lived in Russia and was an enthusiastic supporter of Putin. There is a well-circulated 2009 photo of her as a teenager kissing Putin on the cheek; it became the subject of the 2011 documentary Putin’s Kiss. It’s unclear how she landed a gig doing publicity for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2017, but her name comes up several times in the recently released batch of files of Epstein’s communications. On one occasion in 2017, when she still had her original last name, Drokova, she asked Epstein to connect her with “adequate Russian oligarchs.” In 2018 Epstein wrote in an email to Bucher that her friend had “told me about the project she is doing researching a really bad guy that gets children for sex sent to his island … she almost fainted when I told her that person is me.” He asked her for nude photos of herself 11 days before he was arrested for the second time in 2019. Bucher, who did not respond to our request for comment, has claimed that she was never paid by Epstein for the work she did.

Bucher apparently already had some of those connections to wealthy Russians that she had asked Epstein to arrange — and in fact, she introduced Epstein to one of them. Her first boss in the world of tech venture capitalism was Serguei Beloussov, who later changed his name to Serg Bell. “Connecting you here,” she wrote to Epstein and Bell in 2018. “You both are one [sic] of the most intelligent and fun people I met in my life. Super smart and special.”

Bucher worked for Bell at two firms Bell had cofounded: Runa Capital and Acronis. In 2022, Bell was one of a handful of Russian expats living in the U.S. who were tracked by the U.S. government for allegedly attempting to export U.S. tech developments to Russia. The government did not find evidence of a security breach, but it did bar Acronis from sensitive government contracts last year. (Bell recently told the Washington Post that he never worked for Epstein, and that he advised others against doing business with him; he has also disavowed his Russian connections.)

According to reporting by the Washington Post, early fundraising materials for Day One Ventures show Bucher boasting of her connections to Russian billionaires Alexander Mamut and Vladimir Yevtushenkov, though she later denied writing the fundraising materials and has said she never took money from Russian oligarchs. She has said she left the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi in 2010, and she recently posted on X that was branded a traitor by Russian state media in 2017. “I gave up my Russian passport years ago, can’t return without risking my freedom, and have publicly opposed the Putin regime,” she wrote. Yet sleuths on X have found evidence that those statements may not be true. Reporting by Russian-British investigative journalist Maria Pevchikh shows Bucher speaking at a pro-Putin event in 2019, years after she claimed to have disavowed him. According to records obtained by Pevchikh, she still holds a valid Russian passport, though she told the Washington Post in 2022, “I deeply regret ever joining Nashi and supporting Putin and his government.”

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Bucher, who has also invested in Taylor’s friend Doricko’s company, seems to be more than just a funder for the companies she supports. A Day One pitch deck boasts that the firm is “actively involved in its portfolio companies and play a real, tangible role in helping them grow.” In an interview last year with TechCrunch, Bucher said her goal in founding the firm was to provide not only funding but also PR help to the companies she invested in. She also appears to enjoy a close relationship with Valar executives, posting photos of herself on social media attending parties with them. While Doricko cut ties with Bucher after the most recent Epstein disclosures, Taylor has done no such thing.

Bucher said that Taylor himself drew her to Valar. “I can’t think of a better founder,” she told TechCrunch. The decisions she would trust him with, she added, are “literally life-and-death.”

Not everyone is as bullish as Bucher about Valar’s prospects—nuclear experts have raised serious questions about the safety of the company’s technology and the qualifications of its leadership. In April 2025, Taylor boasted in a post on the Valar website that the company’s spent fuel was so safe that holding it in one’s bare hands for five minutes would result in a dose equivalent only to that of a CT scan. On X, Tuoran, the nuclear engineer, challenged the claim. “This statement cannot possibly be true,” he wrote. “Any nuclear reactor of the power you’re referring to makes spent fuel [that] would give a person a fatal dose within a few seconds if they were to hold a handful of spent fuel.” Another nuclear engineer, Gavin Ridley, chimed in with his own calculation: He found that Valar’s spent fuel would deliver a lethal dose in 85 milliseconds of direct contact. Taylor posted in response, “I will follow up with a detailed writeup tonight or tomorrow, back to back today. Should be fun …” He never did.

Although there are now some seasoned nuclear engineers in the company’s leadership, some of the top brass appear to have as little nuclear experience as Taylor. Kip Mock, a fellow member of Wilson’s Idaho church and a co-founder of Taylor’s auto repair shop, is now Valar’s head of operations. Another church member, Elijah Froh, serves as Valar’s director of business operations. (A story last year by the Utah Investigative Journalism Project revealed that Mock accidentally set Froh on fire in 2021 when he poured old diesel into a wood-burning stove and caused an explosion.)

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Questions about safety apparently have not deterred Taylor, who appears to be as determined as ever to forge ahead. Last April, Valar announced it was joining several other companies and a handful of states in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission over what they claim is an overly broad interpretation of safety regulations around testing nuclear reactors. In a post about the lawsuit, Taylor argued that the rules should allow Valar to test its reactor prototype, the Ward One. “Operating Ward One in a remote testing area within the United States would not pose a threat to the health and safety of the public or impact national security based on any reasonable accident scenario,” wrote Taylor. “However, because the NRC has failed to implement rules which would exempt this small test reactor from full NRC regulations, we are building and testing this reactor in the Philippines instead.” Mock, Taylor’s employee who accidentally set his buddy on fire in Idaho is heading the Philippines project. Taylor told Business Insider that the company planned to move “really fast” on it. Separately, last May, the state of Utah, a fellow plaintiff in the lawsuit, announced that it had won a “tight race” — through its Operation Gigawatt program aimed at attracting nuclear companies — with other states to host Valar’s first test reactor for the DOE.

The Trump administration is on board with nuclear, too. In an executive order last May, Trump vowed to have three test reactors up and running by July 4th of this year. In a recent interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan, Taylor called that goal “unbelievably exciting.” Last fall, the Trump administration quietly pushed through a suite of major changes to the laws that govern U.S. nuclear facilities. The new rules, which weren’t made public but were only shared with companies with government contracts, dramatically loosened requirements around safety, accidents, and environmental protections, according to reporting by NPR.

In his interview with Ryan, Taylor lavished praise on Trump and his administration. “You have to give President Trump credit for that in bringing this unbelievably talented, motivated group of people together,” he said. “Listen, I think this Trump administration is going to usher in the nuclear golden age.”

His enthusiasm turned out to be warranted. Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it had chosen Valar’s reactor for a contract with the Department of War and the Department of Energy. On February 15, the reactor was transported on a special flight from March Air Reserve in Riverside County, California, to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. “The successful delivery and installation of this reactor will unlock significant possibilities for the future of energy resilience and strategic independence for our nation’s defense,” a DOW press release stated. “This event is a testament to the ingenuity of the American spirit and a critical advancement in securing our nation’s freedom and strength for generations to come.”

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Trump administration’s favorite nuclear startup has ties to Russia and Epstein on Feb 28, 2026.

As humpback whale populations recover, researchers are gaining a richer understanding of these wondrous creatures. A new study suggests it may take years for humpbacks to learn how to successfully serenade a mate.

Read more on E360 →

Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.

The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.

In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.

“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.

The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.

US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’

The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.

Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.

The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.

This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.

The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.

• Jan 23, 2026 Politics IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it Read more
• Oct 17, 2025 Politics US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned Read more

The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.

“It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.

Patchwork of levies

While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.

After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.

If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.

This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.

Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.

“With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.

“It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”

The post Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen appeared first on Climate Home News.

Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.

Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.

Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.

He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements. 

What is Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)?

The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.

Another case of diluted green rules?

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”. 

The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.

“You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.

While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.

EU and UK stand by SAF targets

But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.

UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.

“We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.

UK aviation minister Keir Mather speaks at the SAF Investor conference in London on February 24, 2026. (Photo: SAF Investor)

SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel. 

Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.

David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.

“That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.

Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.

A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters

In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.

David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.

The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.

Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?

SAF and energy security

SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.

Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.

Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.

Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.

He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.

The post Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn appeared first on Climate Home News.

Relations between states are becoming so strained over their different approaches to fossil fuels and renewables, some politicians are calling for a “divorce.”

Utah Republicans celebrated last week when PacifiCorp, one of the largest utilities in the West, announced it would stop serving customers in Washington state. PacifiCorp mainly operates in Utah, but also in Wyoming and Idaho — and, to the chagrin of some Utah legislators, blue states like California and Oregon. Utah legislators had previously pressured to break their utility’s ties with states with more aggressive climate policies. Now, PacifiCorp is handing over its 140,000 customers in Washington — along with two wind farms, a natural gas plant, and other energy infrastructure — to Portland General Electric for $1.9 billion. 

“We want a divorce from the three states that don’t look like Utah,” said Mike Schultz, Utah’s Republican House Speaker. “This is the first step forward.”

In announcing the sale, PacifiCorp noted that navigating “diverging policies” among the six states it serves had “created extraordinary pressure,” a challenge that had affected its financial stability. Utah is still heavily reliant on coal, while California, Oregon, and Washington have been moving forward with policies to shift away from fossil fuels. Washington, for example, aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by 2030, using 1990 levels as a baseline. As of January, Washington required PacifiCorp to stop charging Washington customers for coal generation, reducing costs for ratepayers by $68 million compared to the status quo — and potentially shifting coal-related costs back onto states like Utah.

It’s not just money driving the wedge, but also identity. “Absolutely, this seems like a culture war thing,” said Matthew Burgess, an environmental economist at the University of Wyoming who studies political polarization. He sees Republican politicians playing up cultural tensions to appeal to their base, particularly in places where coal’s long-term decline has fueled economic anxiety and resentment. “Some of this rhetoric that blames maybe what’s happening in the industry on coastal progressives and their climate histrionics — you can see how that sort of message might be resonant or cathartic with those communities that are having real problems,” Burgess said.

As the divide grows between blue states demanding clean energy and red states seeking to protect coal, oil, and natural gas, the economic realities of sharing the grid have become a point of contention. This is all unfolding at a time when concerns about rising costs have gripped the country. Electricity prices have climbed, with the average U.S. home’s energy bill 30 percent higher in 2025 than it was 2021 — a steep rise, but still in line with overall inflation. While Republicans often blame environmental regulations for rising electricity prices, Democrats typically blame Trump’s attacks on clean energy or the rise of energy-hungry data centers.

Protesters gather during a Monopoly-themed rally to protest utility-driven rate hikes and obstacles to renewable energy at the corporate headquarters for Rocky Mountain Power in Salt Lake City in April 2025.
Bethany Baker / The Salt Lake Tribune

The tension over sharing energy costs with blue states rose in Utah in 2024, when Rocky Mountain Power, Utah’s largest electricity provider and part of PacifiCorp, proposed a 30 percent rate increase for most of the state’s customers. The utility said the increase was needed to cover the costs of building new infrastructure and complying with regulations in different states. Utah Republicans grilled Rocky Mountain Power and suggested it could break up with PacifiCorp, its parent company, because of the progressive climate policies it had to comply with in California, Oregon, and Washington. Last year, Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, signed a resolution encouraging an “interstate compact for regional energy collaboration” with Wyoming and Idaho. 

“Sadly, we know Utahns are paying more for power because of decisions being made in coastal states, places like Oregon and Washington,” Cox said at the time. “But this is so much more than that.”

This theme has popped up in other parts of the country. Last September, five Republican-led states — Montana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — asked federal regulators to stop a $22 billion transmission expansion designed to connect cities in the Upper Midwest to the Great Plains. They argued that sharing the cost of the project would effectively force their ratepayers to subsidize wind and solar for the benefit of Democratic states’ clean energy goals. 

Yet as Republicans complain about the costs of building clean energy, Democrats are blaming the costs of keeping fossil fuels alive, noting that the Trump administration is forcing expensive coal plants to stay open past their retirement dates in Washington, Colorado, Indiana, and Michigan. The Michigan coal plant cost ratepayers $80 million in the first four months of running it beyond its planned retirement date, according to the chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission.

“Clean energy is just the way we’re moving,” said Meredith Connolly, director of policy and strategy at Climate Solutions, a clean energy nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest. “It’s really a question of just how fast we get there, and do you create these headwinds that slow down the transition or try to give an unfair leg up to fossil fuels? Those are the silly things we’re seeing that actually drive up electricity costs.”

Read Next What’s behind your eye-popping power bill? We broke it down, region by region. Naveena Sadasivam & Clayton Aldern

There are plenty of pressures affecting utilities — market forces, the scramble to procure more electricity to power data centers, and even climate-driven risks. In many states, particularly in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, replacing outdated equipment, protecting power lines, and other measures to withstand more extreme weather conditions is the main driver of rising costs. In California, infrastructure upgrades to reduce wildfire risk (and thus liability costs) are a key factor behind the soaring electricity bills. PacifiCorp, for instance, has faced a slew of lawsuits accusing it of sparking fires in Oregon and California with poorly maintained equipment and has agreed to pay $2.2 billion in settlements.

Some climate advocates worry about what would happen if splitting up the energy market along partisan boundaries became a trend. “Our fates are tied across the energy market,” Connolly said. “And so these would be pretty artificial lines.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The culture war is coming for your electricity on Feb 27, 2026.

The Colorado River currently supports 40 million people and $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity in seven U.S. states and Mexico — but it was never intended to be stretched so thin.

A century-old legal framework promises those users more water than there is to go around. The river’s flow has shrunk by about 20 percent over the last century as climate change has made the West more arid. As water has vanished, states have clashed over how to divide up what remains. The core dispute is between the sparsely inhabited mountainous states of the “Upper Basin,” where hay farmers and a few major cities like Denver draw water from the river and its tributaries, and the far more populous “Lower Basin,” which diverts water to support most of the nation’s winter vegetable farmers as well as megacities like Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Now, as the region weathers its driest winter in recent history, a reckoning has arrived. By the end of September, the seven states need to agree on a new set of rules that will determine how to divvy up the river’s flow during dry years.

Since the river’s reservoirs almost collapsed in 2022, however, the state’s lead negotiators have been arguing in boardrooms and on Zoom calls with little to show for it. They missed a negotiation deadline in November and another one in February, with each state publishing catty press releases blaming the other side for a breakdown in talks: Colorado’s representative said that the Upper Basin was “being asked to solve a problem we didn’t create with water we don’t have,” while Arizona’s said that the Lower Basin had “offered numerous, good-faith compromises” and that “virtually all of them have been rejected.”

Meanwhile, a nearly snow-free winter is pushing reservoirs toward record lows. The river could grow so dry this year that its massive Lake Powell reservoir will stop producing hydropower.

Without a deal, the Trump administration will need to get involved. So far, Trump’s Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has shown little willingness to impose the river’s first-ever unilateral water delivery cuts, which could bring the river into balance. But time is running out. The administration has said that, in the absence of a seven-state deal, it will distribute water on a strict “priority” basis, meaning those who have earlier historical claims to the river would be spared cuts. That would mean cutting off almost all water to the junior rightsholders in the Phoenix metro area — with staggering consequences for the region’s massive economy. That said, any federal intervention would almost certainly only be the first salvo in a legal war that would likely reach the Supreme Court. 

What happens after that is a mystery to all involved.

The Biden administration confronted an earlier version of this crisis in 2022, when water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the Lower Basin’s other major reservoir, dropped to historic lows. The feds tried to broker an emergency deal between the Lower Basin states to keep the reservoirs from bottoming out. The combatants were California, the river’s largest user, and Arizona, which had junior rights to the river and stood to bear the brunt of the pain.

Biden’s Interior Department escaped a total collapse of the system in part thanks to a deus ex machina: Snowpack in early 2023 was sufficient to refill Lake Mead and Lake Powell to decent levels, and then-Senator Kyrsten Sinema secured billions of dollars in drought relief money that compensated California farmers for forgoing their water and leaving some fields unplanted.

The terms of debate are very different this time. Now, the seven states need to cut their way through the present drought and agree on rules for sharing the river over the next two decades, when no one knows how much water will be available. Arizona and California are united in arguing that the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico need to commit to permanent reductions in their entitlement. The latter have rejected that argument at every opportunity, leading to a bitter breakdown in the talks.

Brad Udall, a senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center, said the disagreement boils down to what counts as a cut in water delivery.

“The disagreement really centers around whether the Upper Basin is willing to contribute to reductions in use,” he said, “and the Upper Basin says, ‘Hey, we already contribute,’ through what are known as ‘hydrologic shortages.’”

These “hydrologic shortages” have become the third rail of the debate. The argument goes like this: The Upper Basin’s water comes from the natural flow of rain and snowmelt, which travel down the river’s tributaries on the way to Lake Powell. The farmers and cities who use this water siphon it out of the tributaries before it ever makes it to a major reservoir. When less snow arrives, there’s less water in the rivers, so the farmers and cities end up using less by default. 

That’s very different from the Lower Basin, where the three states and Mexico take water from the central “bank” in Lake Mead. These states reduce their withdrawals during dry years according to a strict schedule of cuts — which they’re able to do because they can easily measure their exact usage. The negotiators for these states have strenuously argued that a long-term solution to the river’s problems must involve the Upper Basin agreeing to mandatory usage reductions during dry years, rather than operating on the long-held assumption that they’re already automatically taking cuts just because less snowmelt happens to come their way. 

“We have offered to do more,” said Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s top water official, in a statement following the collapse of the seven-state talks. “But we simply cannot take on the task of saving this precious river system on our own.”

An irrigation canal carries water from the Colorado River to irrigate a farm growing leaf lettuce and broccoli near Yuma, Arizona. Jon G. Fuller / VWPics / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Upper Basin states insist that they already contribute by taking involuntary cuts during dry years. They want the Lower Basin to increase its projected cuts in order to resolve the river’s perennial deficit. Most experts believe this argument is disingenuous, or, as Udall says, “a little deceitful.” Studies show that the Upper Basin is using around 4.5 million acre-feet of water annually, a number that doesn’t change all that much from year to year even during dry spells. (An acre-foot of water is around 326,000 gallons, or enough to supply about three households for a year.)

But Upper Basin representatives don’t see it that way. Steve Pope, the manager of the irrigation district that serves the Uncompahgre Valley in Colorado, says farmers in the valley have already struggled with water scarcity over the past few decades. He says growers take a huge financial hit when they get less water than they expect.

“We don’t know what we’re going to get,” said Pope. “These [farmers], it’s tough for them. They’ve got a lot of money invested in certain types of crops, so they just have to fallow ground.” Given that uncertainty, Pope says the idea of the district taking mandatory cuts is “ridiculous.”

Trump’s Interior Department suggested in January that it can only regulate the operations of the two main reservoirs, and that it has no authority to order Upper Basin farmers like Pope not to farm.

“[The federal government] is very timid about going out on a limb at all for things that might set a precedent,” said Ted Cooke, the former manager of the Central Arizona Project, the canal that brings Colorado River water to the state’s population centers. “This timidity really limits their effectiveness.” (Cooke was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Bureau of Reclamation last year, but his nomination was withdrawn over what he believes were politically-motivated concerns that he might be biased against the Upper Basin in adjudicating the river.)

If Secretary Burgum sticks to his position that he can’t resolve the debate between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin, his only option for avoiding a collapse at Lake Powell will be to roll out unilateral cuts on the Lower Basin. This would likely trigger litigation between Arizona and the federal government. But if Burgum changed course and imposed unilateral cuts on the Upper Basin, a state such as Colorado would likely sue the feds instead. And even if Burgum did nothing at all, it’s likely that the Lower Basin would sue the Upper Basin. Inflows to Lake Powell may fall so low by the end of the year that the Upper Basin will be in default of its obligations under the 1922 river compact, which requires that the river’s flow be split half and half between the basins. This would allow Arizona to demand makeup water from its northern neighbors. 

Though litigation seems inevitable without a seven-state deal, no water user actually wants to go to court. Once water divisions are in the hands of a judge, no state can be sure that its interests will be protected.

“The idea that your state is going to come out a winner — and you’re confident of that — makes no sense,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager at the nonprofit Western Resource Advocates.

“What it does is it puts your water users at extreme risk.”

Even if Burgum plays it safe and only imposes cuts on the Lower Basin, these cuts will force him to choose between California’s priority rights and Arizona’s arguably greater need. The Interior Department has already suggested it would feel bound to direct most of the pain to Arizona. The department said in January that “absent new agreements” it would distribute cuts according to legal priority, which would take away more than 1 million acre-feet of water from Phoenix and its suburbs. That would likely lead developers to abandon potential subdivisions, force farmers to rip up their fields, and could cause a resumption in the depletion of Phoenix’s fragile groundwater aquifer. 

Arizona state leaders have already threatened litigation over this possibility, and a political advocacy group has begun airing local television ads that criticize the Interior Department’s priority plan. Plus, even this draconian cut wouldn’t necessarily prevent a collapse of the river, because it would cap the total amount of cuts at around 1.5 million acre-feet spread across Arizona, California, and Nevada. The federal government’s own modeling found that this plan would only have a 25 percent chance of avoiding a hydropower shutdown at Lake Powell, and around a 58 percent chance of avoiding a similar “minimum power pool” at Lake Mead. 

A bleached “bathtub ring” on the banks of Lake Mead near Echo Bay, Nevada. The Colorado River’s two main reservoirs are emptying out again after a dry winter.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Not everyone thinks the seven-state deal is a dead letter. John Entsminger, the lead negotiator for Nevada, expressed optimism about at least a short-term deal as recently as the end of January. Last summer, the states rallied around the idea of measuring the river based on its “natural flow,” dividing up the three-year average of the river’s recent water volume as opposed to a static estimate of its theoretical contents. This plan has the benefit of being responsive to climate change, which has already contributed to a 20 percent decline in the Colorado River’s annual flow over the past century. 

“We would not be over-promising water, which has led us in past years to draw down our reservoir storage,” explained Elizabeth Koebele, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies the river. “People get promises and they hold on to them very strongly, even if the water is not there.” 

Despite Trump’s declarations that climate change is a “hoax,” his Interior Department has given strong consideration to this climate-informed “maximum operational flexibility” plan. It modeled a version of the plan in January, but said it didn’t have the authority to implement it without agreement from all seven states. The plan would see all states reduce water usage even during average years, as opposed to only in dry years under the current system. It would parcel out cuts more evenly between Arizona and California. It would also include some contributions from the Upper Basin — in one potential breakdown, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming would reduce their usage by around 250,000 acre-feet when the Lower Basin had cut usage by more than 2 million. 

Although the coming year is likely to be chaotic, many of the basin’s biggest water users have been preparing for this era of permanent cuts for some time. Arizona has already announced its intention to start investing in coastal desalination plants in coordination with California and Mexico, which would free up more river water. The state has also stepped up its spending on water reuse projects. Las Vegas has paid residents to rip out their grass lawns. Utah has established a voluntary conservation program that pays farmers not to farm.

But the long-term solution will likely involve a bigger reshuffling of water in order to forestall an economic crisis in the Phoenix metroplex. Arizona may look to California for salvation: The large urban water district that serves Los Angeles, the farming district in the Imperial Valley, and the winter vegetable farming district around Yuma all hold rights to more water than they need, and they might be willing to deal some of their water to central Arizona, albeit at a high price. There are also two tribes in Arizona, the Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Gila River Indian Community, who each hold about half a million acre-feet of water.

Even with all this rejiggering, cities like Phoenix will end up having to pay much more for water, said Cooke. The rush on water supplies will force difficult cuts in water usage for farms, lawns, swimming pools, and unbuilt homes.

“We’re going to have less water and what we do have is going to be a lot more expensive, and that happens right now, in the next twelve months,” he said. “Even with all of these political and contractual disagreements, the surface water is just not there anymore.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Colorado River is nearing collapse. It’s Trump’s problem now. on Feb 27, 2026.

Venice’s landmarks teem with tourists — so many, in fact, that the city has had to implement restrictions, like banning guides from using loudspeakers. But just outside the famous canals and resplendent architecture sits an ecosystem that teems with less obnoxious forms of life: the Venetian lagoon. For millennia, its marshes have hosted a bevy of flora and fauna, and for centuries have protected the city from invasion by its enemies.

Now, protecting this habitat, and others like it, can help protect people and the planet. Traipsing through the wetland and sampling plants, researchers identified a carbon-capturing powerhouse, known as sea lavender, of the genus Limonium. By restoring these biomes, conservationists would not only boost local biodiversity, but also ensure its ability to trap that planet-warming gas. “Salt marshes are not only sites of carbon sequestration,” said Tegan Blount, a geoscientist at Italy’s University of Padova, lead author of a new paper describing the research. “Their conservation also protects many other ecosystem services, which are vitally important from a local to global scale.”

Aboveground, sea lavender is a stunner. True to its name — though technically it isn’t lavender — it produces lovely purple flowers that attract pollinators, thus supporting biodiversity. Unlike terrestrial lavender, though, Limonium tolerates salty, water-logged conditions, allowing it to thrive in the wetlands of the Venice lagoon. “During summer, the salt marsh meadows are tinted purple by an undulating mass of sea lavender flowers, rife with bees and other insects,” Blount said.

Sea lavender’s root system holds a surprising amount of carbon. Photo courtesy of Tegan Blount

While Limonium is great to look at and all, these researchers were more interested in what’s belowground. Instead of a network of fine filaments, sea lavender’s mature rhizome system grows like a hand reaching up from the soil, with foliage sprouting from the fingertips at the surface. (That’s them in the photo.)

This impacts the Venetian marshes in several ways. With its sturdy root system and foliage, sea lavender anchors the waterlogged soil, generates organic material, and traps sediment, which reduces erosion and habitat loss in the face of pressures like sea level rise. It also can create a more stable and amenable environment for other salt-tolerant species, further boosting biodiversity. “So it can also be a stepping stone,” Blount said.

Even after it dies, this marvelous plant’s root system can persist for long periods, continuing to engineer the mud. The study found that compared to other marshy species in the area, like those in the genera Sarcocornia and Juncus, Limonium creates much more biomass below the ground than above it, and markedly enhances the organic carbon content of the sediment. In fact, sea lavender can retain 12 times as much biomass underground as you see growing topside. 

By protecting these ecosystems, sea lavender can prosper alongside other species, so conservationists wouldn’t need to constantly tend to them, Blount said. Species of Limonium grow all over the world, too, from the coasts of North America to Africa to Asia. Restoring those habitats, then, would benefit biodiversity while enhancing carbon sequestration and storage. Additionally, healthy wetlands help absorb the force of hurricane storm surges, mitigating the inundation of coastal cities.

Properly restored, coastal ecosystems can be self-sustaining. Infrastructure like sea walls, on the other hand, is expensive to construct and maintain, especially as ocean levels rise. Given enough space to creep inland, wetlands can adapt. “These systems can keep up pace with sea level rise, as long as they can migrate backwards,” said Emily Landis, global climate adaptation and resilience director at The Nature Conservancy, who wasn’t involved in the study. “That means they can still provide that essential adaptation, flood reduction benefit.”

They bring economic benefits too, when conservationists work with Indigenous communities to determine how they use these ecosystems. Subsistence fishing, for instance, can be done in a measured way that ensures piscine populations don’t crash, which would be terrible both for the ecosystem and the humans that rely on it. “They know how to take care of their coastline,” Landis said. “They know what is sustainable.”

In the Venetian lagoon, fishers have long used valli da pesca, essentially ponds that function as artificial ecosystems. This provides shelter for baby fish to grow big enough to harvest. Taking animals out of these habitats may sound counterproductive, but in a way it incentivizes protecting these areas. “So conservation is not just a matter of preserving the environment, but also to have something back,” said Alice Stocco, an ecologist at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, who studies the valli da pesca but wasn’t involved in the new paper.

The value of sea lavender, then, isn’t just how much carbon it captures in the Venetian lagoon, but the habitats — and therefore economic and ecological benefits — it provides. “An ecosystem — nature in general — has its own value, which is intrinsic and sometimes cannot be measured,” Stocco said. “Healthy ecosystems allow for healthy people.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The beautiful Venetian plant with a secret climate superpower on Feb 26, 2026.

Gabrielle Dreyfus is chief scientist at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, Thomas Röckmann is a professor of atmospheric physics and chemistry at Utrecht University, and Lena Höglund-Isaksson is a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

This March scientists and policy makers will gather near the site in Italy where methane was first identified 250 years ago to share the latest science on methane and the policy and technology steps needed to rapidly cut methane emissions. The timing is apt.

As new tools transform our understanding of methane emissions and their sources, the evidence they reveal points to a single conclusion: Human-caused methane emissions are still rising, and global action remains far too slow.

This is the central finding of the latest Global Methane Status Report. Four years into the Global Methane Pledge, which aims for a 30% cut in global emissions by 2030, the good news is that the pledge has increased mitigation ambition under national plans, which, if fully implemented, could result in the largest and most sustained decline in methane emissions since the Industrial Revolution.

The bad news is this is still short of the 30% target. The decisive question is whether governments will move quickly enough to turn that bend into the steep decline required to pump the brake on global warming.

What the data really show

Assessing progress requires comparing three benchmarks: the level of emissions today relative to 2020, the trajectory projected in 2021 before methane received significant policy focus, and the level required by 2030 to meet the pledge.

The latest data show that global methane emissions in 2025 are higher than in 2020 but not as high as previously expected. In 2021, emissions were projected to rise by about 9% between 2020 and 2030. Updated analysis places that increase closer to 5%. This change is driven by factors such as slower than expected growth in unconventional gas production between 2020 and 2024 and lower than expected waste emissions in several regions.

Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities  

This updated trajectory still does not deliver the reductions required, but it does indicate that the curve is beginning to bend. More importantly, the commitments already outlined in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions and Methane Action Plans would, if fully implemented, produce an 8% reduction in global methane emissions between 2020 and 2030. This would turn the current increase into a sustained decline. While still insufficient to reach the Global Methane Pledge target of a 30% cut, it would represent historical progress.

Solutions are known and ready

Scientific assessments consistently show that the technical potential to meet the pledge exists. The gap lies not in technology, but in implementation.

The energy sector accounts for approximately 70% of total technical methane reduction potential between 2020 and 2030. Proven measures include extended recovery of associated petroleum gas in oil production, regular leak detection and repair across oil and gas supply chains, and installing ventilation air oxidation technologies in underground coal mines. Many of these options are low cost or profitable. Yet current commitments would achieve only one third of the maximum technically feasible reductions in this sector.

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

Agriculture and waste also provide opportunities. Rice emissions can be reduced through improved water management, low-emission hybrids and soil amendments. While innovations in technology and practices hold promise in the longer term, near-term potential in livestock is more constrained and trends in global diets may counteract gains.

Waste sector emissions had been expected to increase more rapidly, but improvements in waste management in several regions over the past two decades have moderated this rise. Long-term mitigation in this sector requires immediate investment in improved landfills and circular waste systems, as emissions from waste already deposited will persist in the short term.

New measurement tools

Methane monitoring capacity has expanded significantly. Satellite-based systems can now identify methane super-emitters. Ground-based sensors are becoming more accessible and can provide real-time data. These developments improve national inventories and can strengthen accountability.

However, policy action does not need to wait for perfect measurement. Current scientific understanding of source magnitudes and mitigation effectiveness is sufficient to achieve a 30% reduction between 2020 and 2030. Many of the largest reductions in oil, gas and coal can be delivered through binding technology standards that do not require high precision quantification of emissions.

The decisive years ahead

The next 2 years will be critical for determining whether existing commitments translate into emissions reductions consistent with the Global Methane Pledge.

Governments should prioritise adoption of an effective international methane performance standard for oil and gas, including through the EU Methane Regulation, and expand the reach of such standards through voluntary buyers’ clubs. National and regional authorities should introduce binding technology standards for oil, gas and coal to ensure that voluntary agreements are backed by legal requirements.

One approach to promoting better progress on methane is to develop a binding methane agreement, starting with the oil and gas sector, as suggested by Barbados’ PM Mia Mottley and other leaders. Countries must also address the deeper challenge of political and economic dependence on fossil fuels, which continues to slow progress. Without a dual strategy of reducing methane and deep decarbonisation, it will not be possible to meet the Paris Agreement objectives.

Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible

The next four years will determine whether available technologies, scientific evidence and political leadership align to deliver a rapid transition toward near-zero methane energy systems, holistic and equity-based lower emission agricultural systems and circular waste management strategies that eliminate methane release. These years will also determine whether the world captures the near-term climate benefits of methane abatement or locks in higher long-term costs and risks.

The Global Methane Status Report shows that the world is beginning to change course. Delivering the sharper downward trajectory now required is a test of political will. As scientists, we have laid out the evidence. Leaders must now act on it.

The post Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace appeared first on Climate Home News.

The leaders and climate ministers of governments around the world will be invited to meetings on the Pacific islands of Fiji, Palau and Tuvalu in the months leading up to the COP31 climate summit in November.

Under a deal struck between Pacific nations, Fiji will host the official annual pre-COP meeting, at which climate ministers and negotiators discuss contentious issues with the COP Presidency to help make the climate summit smoother.

This pre-COP, expected to be held in early October, will include a “special leaders’ component” hosted in neighbouring Tuvalu – a 2.5-hour flight north – according to a statement issued by the Australian COP31 President of Negotiations Chris Bowen on LinkedIn on Thursday.

Bowen said this “will bring a global focus to the most pressing challenges facing our region and support investment in solutions which are fit for purpose for our region.” Australia will provide operational and logistical support for the event, he said.

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Like many Pacific island nations, Tuvalu, which is home to around 10,000 people, is threatened by rising sea levels, as salt water and waves damage homes, water supplies, farms and infrastructure.

Dozens of heads of state and government usually attend COP summits, but only a handful take part in pre-COP meetings. COP31 will be held in the Turkish city of Antalya in November, after an unusual compromise deal struck between Australia and Türkiye.

In addition, Pacific country Palau will host a climate event as part of the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – which convenes 18 Pacific nations – in August.

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that this meeting would be a “launching board” to build momentum for COP31 and would draw new commitments from other countries to help Pacific nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

“At the PIF our priorities are going to be 100 per cent renewables, the ocean-climate nexus and … accelerating investments that build resilience from climate change,” he told ABC.

The post World leaders invited to see Pacific climate destruction before COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Alejandro Álvarez Iragorry is a Venezuelan ecologist and coordinator of Clima 21, an environmental NGO. Cat Rainsford is a transition minerals investigator for Global Witness and former Venezuela analyst for a Latin American think tank.

In 1975, former Venezuelan oil minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo gave a now infamous warning. 

“Oil will bring us ruin,” he declared. “It is the devil’s excrement. We are drowning in the devil’s excrement.”  

At the time, his words seemed excessively gloomy to many Venezuelans. The country was in a period of rapid modernisation, fuelled by its booming oil economy. Caracas was a thriving cultural hotspot. Everything seemed good. But history proved Pérez right.  

Over the following decades, Venezuela’s oil dependence came to seem like a curse. After the 1980s oil price crash, political turmoil paved the way for the election of populist Hugo Chávez, who built a socialist state on oil money, only for falling prices and corruption to drive it into ruin. 

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By 2025, poverty and growing repression under Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro had forced nearly 8 million Venezuelans to leave the country. 

Venezuela is now at a crossroads. Since the US abducted Maduro on January 3 and seized control of the country’s oil revenues in a nakedly imperial act, all attention has been on getting the country’s dilapidated oil infrastructure pumping again.  

But Venezuelans deserve more than plunder and fighting over a planet-wrecking resource that has fostered chronic instability and dispossession. Right now, 80% of Venezuelans live below the poverty line. Venezuelans are desperate for jobs, income and change. 

Real change, though, won’t come through more oil dependency or profiteering by foreign elites. Instead, it is renewable energy that offers a pathway forward, towards sovereignty, stability and peace. 

Guri Dam and Venezuela’s hydropower decline

Venezuela boasts some of the strongest potential for renewable energy generation in the region. Two-thirds of the country’s own electricity comes from hydropower, mostly from the massive Guri Dam in the southern state of Bolívar. This is one of the largest dams in Latin America with a capacity of over 10 gigawatts, even providing power to parts of Colombia and Brazil. 

Guri has become another symbol of Venezuela’s mismanagement. Lack of diversification caused over-reliance on Guri for domestic power, making the system vulnerable to droughts. Poor maintenance reduced Guri’s capacity and planned supporting projects such as the Tocoma Dam were bled dry by corruption. The country was left plagued by blackouts and increasingly turned to dirty thermoelectric plants and petrol generators for power. 

Today, industry analysis suggests that Venezuela is producing at about 30% of its hydropower capacity. Rehabilitating this neglected infrastructure could re-establish clean power as the backbone of domestic industry, while the country’s abundant river system offers numerous opportunities for smaller, sustainable hydro projects that promote rural electrification. 

A fisherman walks down the coast from the Paraguana Refining Center (CRP) following a crude spill in September from a pipeline that connects production areas with the state-run PDVSA’s largest refinery, in Punta Cardon, Venezuela October 2, 2021. Picture taken October 2, 2021. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria A fisherman walks down the coast from the Paraguana Refining Center (CRP) following a crude spill in September from a pipeline that connects production areas with the state-run PDVSA’s largest refinery, in Punta Cardon, Venezuela October 2, 2021. Picture taken October 2, 2021. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria

Venezuela also has huge, untapped promise in wind power that could provide vital diversification from hydropower. The coastal states of Zulia and Falcón boast wind speeds in the ideal range for electricity generation, with potential to add up to 12 gigawatts to the grid. Yet planned projects in both states have stalled, leaving abandoned turbines rusting in fields and millions of dollars unaccounted for. 

Solar power is more neglected. One announced solar plant on the island of Los Roques remains non-functional a decade later, and a Chávez-era programme to supply solar panels to rural households ground to a halt when oil prices fell. Yet nearly a fifth of the country receives levels of solar radiation that rival leading regions such as northern Chile.

Developing Venezuela’s renewables potential would be a massive undertaking. Investment would be needed, local concerns around a just and equitable transition would have to be navigated and infrastructure development carefully managed.

Rebuilding Venezuela with a climate-driven energy transition 

A shift in political vision would be needed to ensure that Venezuela’s renewable energy was not used to simply free up more oil for export, as in the past, but to power a diversified domestic economy free from oil-driven cycles of boom and bust.

Ultimately, these decisions must be taken by democratically elected leaders. But to date, no timeline for elections has been set, and Venezuela’s future hangs in the balance. Supporting the country to make this shift is in all of our interests.

What’s clear is that Venezuela’s energy future should not lie in oil. Fossil fuel majors have not leapt to commit the estimated $100 billion needed to revitalise the sector, with ExxonMobil declaring Venezuela “uninvestable”. The issues are not only political. Venezuela’s heavy, sour crude is expensive to refine, making it dubious whether many projects would reach break-even margins.

Behind it all looms the spectre of climate change. The world must urgently move away from fossil fuels. Beyond environmental concerns, it’s simply good economics.  

People line up as others charge their phones with a solar panel at a public square in Caracas, Venezuela March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins People line up as others charge their phones with a solar panel at a public square in Caracas, Venezuela March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Recent analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency finds that 91% of new renewable energy projects are now cheaper than their fossil fuel alternatives. China, the world’s leading oil buyer, is among the most rapid adopters.  

Tethering Venezuela’s future to an outdated commodity leaves the country in a lose-lose situation. Either oil demand drops and Venezuela is left with nothing. Or climate change runs rampant, devastating vulnerable communities with coastal loss, flooding, fires and heatwaves. Meanwhile, Venezuela remains locked in the same destructive economic swings that once led to dictatorship and mass emigration. There is another way.  

Venezuelans rightfully demand a political transition, with their own chosen leaders. But to ensure this transition is lasting and stable, Venezuela needs more – it needs an energy transition. 

The post There is hope for Venezuela’s future – and it isn’t based on oil appeared first on Climate Home News.

This winter’s snow cover is the lowest on record in the Western United States. While that could cause a torrent of trouble come spring — more wildfires, less water for farms and fish — at the moment, there’s one thing on many Westerners’ minds: skiing.

In Colorado, less than a third of Arapahoe Basin’s runs are open. In Washington, Mt. Baker Ski Area canceled an annual snowboard race “due to an unworkable snowpack.” In Oregon, Hoodoo Ski Area and Mt. Ashland Ski Area temporarily closed for weeks due to lack of snowfall, while college ski championships were moved from Montana to Utah. 

What’s a ski resort to do? Make snow, presumably, though details about resorts’ snowmaking are scant. Alterra and POWDR, two major ski resort conglomerates, didn’t respond to questions. Vail Resorts, which owns and operates 42 ski areas across the globe, said that while the company doesn’t share specific snowmaking data, “weather conditions, particularly temperature, influence how much and how long we make snow.”

Despite the dismal conditions, Steven Fassnacht, a professor of snow hydrology at Colorado State University, said that it would be difficult for Western resorts to ramp up snowmaking in a major way. Doing so would require resorts to purchase additional water rights, an expensive and complex legal process.

Historically, ski resorts in the West have relied on snowmaking much less than those in other parts of the country. Fewer than 10 percent of the region’s skiable acres, on average, are covered by man-made snow, compared to more than 50 percent in the Northeast and around 80 percent in the Southeast and Midwest.  

But as climate change makes winters increasingly warm and unpredictable, snowmaking is likely to become more important in the region, bringing with it environmental consequences and other challenges.

Snowmaking’s origins can be traced back to 1949, when the owner of a Connecticut ski resort spread 700 pounds of ice on a single run. It only lasted about two weeks, but it gave a group of engineers — and failed ski entrepreneurs — an idea. “Outside their defunct ski factory, they connected a 10-horsepower compressor by garden hose to a spray-gun nozzle that they’d been using to paint skis,” wrote John Fry, a ski historian.

Today, snowmaking’s core technology remains the same: spraying highly pressurized water into the air, where it freezes. Energy and water use are the main environmental concerns, although the potential impacts range from soil degradation to chemical exposure. There’s also Indigenous opposition that generally focuses on the desecration of sacred places by wastewater.

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Lots of energy is necessary to push water uphill and pressurize air. One study of 10 ski areas across the country estimated that snowmaking accounts for 18 percent of a resort’s energy use on average.

Then there’s the water that’s used to make the snow. Palisades Tahoe, for example, uses “50 to 70 million gallons of water for snowmaking annually, enough to cover about 60 acres of terrain in 1.5 feet of snow,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Although 70 million gallons is nothing to sneeze at — it’s what 50 American families might use in a year — Fassnacht emphasized that an estimated 80 percent of the water used for snowmaking returns to streams and rivers. The remainder is lost to evaporation.

While that water comes from the same supply used by cities and farms, the demand is at a different time of year, Fassnacht said. Ski resorts typically make snow in the late fall and early winter, and agricultural and municipal needs don’t ratchet up until the late spring and summer. And if there ever weren’t enough water available, ski resorts are junior rights holders, meaning they would have to get in line behind those with senior water rights. In Colorado, snowmaking accounts for an estimated .05 percent of the state’s annual water consumption, whereas agriculture accounts for about 85 percent.

Still, machine-made snow differs from natural snow in an important way: It does not contribute to the regions’ water supply at scale. According to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, 75 percent of the water Westerners depend on comes from mountain snowpack, so even if snowmaking helps snow-hungry skiers, it doesn’t make up for dry winters where the water’s really needed. 

People ski and snowboard at Bear Mountain Ski Resort in December in Big Bear, California. Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

“Snowmaking should be considered a temporary storage on the mountain, instead of in a reservoir,” Fassnacht said. “The water is not really taken out of the system, just stored somewhere else. It does not replace snow that falls from the sky.”

Fassnacht’s biggest concern about snowmaking is its timing — when the resorts decide to take water from streams. If the water is taken at times of low flow, he said, it could have a detrimental impact on aquatic life.

To reduce their consumption of fresh water, some resorts, including Big Sky in Montana, have begun making snow from treated wastewater. While one conservation group called the practice “a win-win for the health of our rivers and the resort economy,” it can be controversial.

Flagstaff’s ski area, for example, began using wastewater to create machine-made snow in 2013, spraying sewage on a mountain that is sacred to local Indigenous people and members of 13 Native American tribes. The practice — and the protests — continue to this day.

Overall, snowmaking can be seen as an adaptation to climate change, but researchers wonder if it is actually a maladaptation — one that contributes to worsening climate change.

The authors of a 2022 paper in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism concluded that snowmaking’s environmental impacts depend greatly upon a resort’s location. In areas with relatively clean electric grids and high water security, such as Washington, snowmaking has much less of an impact than in states like New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming, where electric grids are more carbon-intensive and water stresses are higher. Although most of those states have plans to decarbonize their grids in the next few decades, water scarcity is projected to increase over that period, too.

The researchers also said that snowmaking’s impact on travel can’t be ignored. On average, they found that skiers have to drive just 36 miles before they emit more carbon dioxide in transit than they do at a ski area. So if snowmaking encourages skiers to stick to nearby mountains rather than fly across the country, they said that could actually be a net-positive for the planet.

In any case, the prognosis for skiing, especially in coastal states and at low elevations, is grim.

“There’s a level to which, to put it bluntly, the ski industry is screwed,” said Jesse Ritner, an assistant professor of history at Georgia College & State University, who is writing a book on snowmaking. “That said, snowmaking is only going to become more and more important.”

The industry sees the writing on the wall. In 2019, Vail Ski Resort bought 421 new snow guns for its mountain in Colorado, a move the resort called the “largest snowmaking expansion in North American history.” Other resorts, like Bogus Basin in Idaho, are turning to snowfarming, the practice of collecting and storing snow for the following winter.

But even efforts like these can’t completely shield companies from bad winters: Earlier this year, Vail Resorts told investors that dismal snowfall in Western states had led to a 20 percent decrease in visitation across its North American properties.

Snowfarming operations at Bogus Basin, Idaho. Last year, the ski resort covered snow in insulation over the summer. Courtesy of Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area

“Bad years were a real rarity, now they’re becoming more common,” said Michael Pidwirny, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who studies climate change and skiing. “They’re going to even increase more in the future, and if it’s too warm, how do you make snow?”

Snowmaking only works when it’s cold enough: The “wet bulb temperature,” a combination of humidity and air temperature, must be below 28 degrees.

Pidwirny predicts that Whistler Blackcomb, the famous Vail-owned resort in his home province, will probably “reach a situation where one out of two years are really too poor to support good skiing in about 2050 (or) 2060.”

The resorts will just have to adapt, Pidwirny said. “And the way that they’ll adapt is they’ll recognize that it’s not guaranteed that they’re going to have a ski season every year.”

Perhaps not even snowmaking can change that.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Ski resorts are increasingly reliant on snowmaking. But at what cost? on Feb 26, 2026.

A cleaner cooking initiative in Myanmar is set to generate the first-ever batch of carbon credits under the new UN carbon market, more than a decade after the mechanism was first envisioned in the Paris Agreement.

The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body has approved the issuance of 60,000 credits, which correspond to tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced by distributing more efficient cookstoves that need less firewood and, therefore, ease pressure on carbon-storing forests, the project developers say. The approval of the credit issuance will become effective after a 14‑day appeal and grievance period.

The programme started in 2019 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – and is being implemented by a South Korean NGO with investment from private South Korean firms.

The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.

Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its national climate plan.

Making ‘a big difference’

The approval of the credits issuance represents a major milestone for the UN carbon market established under article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement. By generating carbon credits that both governments and private firms can use, the mechanism aims to accelerate global climate action and channel additional finance to developing nations.

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UNFCCC chief Simon Stiell said the approval of the first credits from a clean cooking project shows “how this mechanism can support solutions that make a big difference in people’s daily lives, as well as channeling finance to where it delivers real-life benefits on the ground”.

“Over two billion people globally are without access to clean cooking, which kills millions every year. Clean cooking protects health, saves forests, cuts emissions and helps empower women and girls, who are typically hardest hit by household air pollution,” he added in a statement.

Concerns over clean cookstove credits

Carbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods. Proceeds from the sale of carbon credits made up 35% of the revenue generated by for-profit clean cooking companies in 2023, according to a report by the Clean Cooking Initiative.

But many cookstove offsetting projects have faced significant criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions. Their main criticism is that the rules allow project developers to overestimate the impact of fuel collection on deforestation, while relying on surveys to track stove usage that are prone to bias and can further inflate reported impacts.

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The project in Myanmar follows a contested methodology developed under the Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it is “insufficiently rigorous”.

An analysis conducted last year by Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch claimed that the project would generate 26 times more credits than it should, when comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

‘Conservative’ values cut credit volume

But, after transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project applied updated values and “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, according to the UNFCCC, which added that this resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued than would have been the case in the CDM.

“The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism.

Over 1,500 projects originally developed under the CDM requested the transition to the new mechanism, including controversial schemes subsidising fossil gas-powered plants in China and India. But, so far, the transfer of only 165 of all those projects has been approved by their respective host nations, which have until the end of June to make a final decision.

The UN climate body said this means that “a wide variety of real-world climate projects are already in line to follow” in sectors such as renewable energy, waste management and agriculture. But the transfer of old programmes from the CDM has long been contested with critics arguing that weak and discredited rules allow projects to overestimate emission reductions.

Genuinely new projects unrelated to the CDM are expected to start operating under the Paris Agreement mechanism once the Supervisory Body approves the first custom-made methodologies.

The post UN’s new carbon market delivers first credits through Myanmar cookstove project appeared first on Climate Home News.

In Czechia, little remains of the idealist foreign policy conceived under President Václav Havel in the 1990s. According to long-standing democracy and human rights advocate and newly elected MP Gabriela Svárovská, state capture and populism are weakening the country in the face of an aggressive Russia, a crumbling world order, and a worsening climate crisis. Could an approach based on values give new strength to Czech and European foreign policy?

Petr Kutílek & Pavlína Janebová: Have you observed a new idealism in Czechia’s approach to foreign policy? If so, is it really new?

Gabriela Svárovská: In the Czech case, there was much idealism in the foreign policy of Václav Havel, our first president after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. This idealism arose all over Central and Eastern Europe as we liberated ourselves from totalitarianism and stepped onto the path to democracy. When I started working for the Office of the President, under Havel, the universality of human rights, the right to democracy and self-determination, and the protection of civilians were genuine objectives that were set out and pursued in foreign policy strategies. Ditto during the years I worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I remember that, at the time, there was a debate within the European Union on lifting the sanctions imposed on China because of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Czechia, an EU member by then, wanted the sanctions to be maintained. Even though we were often criticised by more experienced member states for being “unrealistic”, we stood up for the idealist approach.

At EU meetings, when Czechs or Poles took the floor, some of those present would just stop listening, for lack of trust or interest. But then came the first Czech EU presidency, in 2009, which gave us some agenda-setting power in the Council of Ministers. We raised the issue of human rights in Russia and elsewhere. We regularly invited human rights defenders to provide first-hand testimonies during Council meetings. We started implementing the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders – practical measures to support and protect them. We also pushed through the Civil Society Forum as part of the EU’s Eastern Partnership agenda. Finally, our voice was being heard and listened to.

Today, Czech politicians still like to speak of Havel’s legacy, but they no longer adhere to its principles. At most, they pay lip service to them in their media statements. Other, stronger influences have come into play, not least private business interests and populist voices claiming to challenge the establishment, often equated with “Brussels” and its climate policies. Little remains of the idealism that once characterised Czech foreign policy.

Has Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed anything?

After the invasion, the Czech government came out strongly in support of Ukraine, but this was largely motivated by society’s response. The first government press conferences were rather lukewarm. This changed after Czechs spontaneously took to the streets in solidarity with Ukraine and started helping Ukrainian refugees. The system started moving largely thanks to bottom-up pressure. It was a narrow political calculation.

The Czech government’s 2024 initiative to procure ammunition for Ukraine was important, because every artillery shell counts at the front. However, in my opinion, the initiative was poorly organised. The government’s first step was to announce it – for PR purposes, one might say. Only then did it begin to raise money – from other governments in order to avoid putting its own money into it. Predictably, as soon as the buying spree was announced, ammo prices went up. The government’s grandstanding turned out to be not such a smart move after all.

We must also ask ourselves whether, prior to 2022, we were sufficiently vigilant in relation to the Russian threat. Were we really doing our homework, in Czechia and Europe, in terms of building societal resilience against disinformation and cyberattacks or reducing fossil fuel dependency? I don’t think we were. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, who spoke out against Europe’s dependence on Russian energy? It was the European Greens, one of a few lone voices. Who, in 2019, imposed sanctions on firms that helped Russia build another gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2? It was Donald Trump – a very uncomfortable fact. Of course, he was pursuing US strategic interests. It is a shame that Europe was unable to see, define, and pursue its own.

The reason I welcome the concept of “neo-idealism” is precisely because I see so little of it in current Czech politics. It confronts us with the gap between our words and our deeds. This applies not only to foreign policy, of course, but to politics in general. It is one of the reasons for the crisis of democracy spreading across the West. Elites – and politicians in particular – like to talk about “ordinary people”, yet these are no longer their primary concern. Corporate sponsors, marketing advisors, and other influential players come first. Their meddling in decision-making amounts to the privatisation of political power. Let us call those who skilfully convert economic power into political power what they are: oligarchs. Czechia scored highly on the crony-capitalism index drawn up by The Economist in 2023. It came in second place after Russia.

What can Europeans learn from each other?

We need each other to be able to better understand the various security threats Europe is facing. Countries such as the Baltic states, Poland, and Czechia, being former satellite states of the Soviet Union, see the threat from Russia and consider it a priority. But have they ever really cared about the Mediterranean aspect of European security? Did they listen to Spain, Italy, and others when they talked about the problems in their region? By this, I don’t mean that we should support efforts to stop boats carrying migrants across the Mediterranean Sea. It’s about developing the Southern dimension of the EU’s neighbourhood policy.

The divergence in security threat perceptions is not an issue of double standards per se, rather just a lack of information. We have Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Armenians living in Prague, while other countries have people from North Africa, the Middle East, and other regions. That’s why it’s so crucial to listen to each other, share expertise and intelligence, and foster connections between our civil societies.

That said, I do think that Russia is the biggest threat at the moment. While its military capabilities may be declining due to massive losses on the front line in terms of both personnel and equipment, it remains a dangerous enemy for a Europe that is witnessing the erosion of the Pax Americana. For decades, we happily relied on NATO, financed in large part by the United States. We lived peacefully under the US nuclear umbrella and with the presence of US troops in Europe. We now have to face up to a new reality. We must become more self-reliant in the area of defence, while keeping in mind that security and resilience are much broader than just defence.

Could you elaborate on this last point?

Weapons cannot guarantee security in Europe if political cohesion continues to be lacking. Without it, how can our armed forces act together? How do we decide on their deployment? Today, we are struggling to even agree on the milder instrument of sanctions. We fail to implement them properly. Friends of Putin are benefitting from the war on our continent, and we are letting them off the hook. We still allow companies that are part of the Russian military complex to operate in the EU.

In Czechia, we host a branch of Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy company. There may be other companies that are owned by Russian oligarchs, and they might even be sponsoring political parties, but we simply do not know. What we do know though is that they are sponsoring disinformation campaigns, malign influence operations, and cyber attacks. Russia’s footprint could be spotted in anti-vax campaigns, climate change denial, conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, and anti-gender movements. We are unable to get rid of the presence of Putin’s regime on our territory, whereas that should have been the most straightforward part of our commitment to support Ukraine and protect Europe’s security.

It is too easy to place the blame solely on holdouts such as Hungary and Slovakia for Europe’s lack of political decisiveness. Other countries are hiding behind them to protect partisan interests of their own or cater to the most efficient lobbies.

How should Europe position itself towards the Global South?

In Czechia, there is little reflection on Europe’s colonial past. When the director of the National Gallery started to talk about the decolonisation concept in arts, she was ridiculed by politicians. Didn’t she know that our country never had any colonies? But we cannot ignore the fact that we have joined a club, the EU, that does include former colonial powers. In these countries, colonialism and the way it carries over into present-day relations with the Global South is discussed in public debate, by civil society, even by politicians.

It is also in our interest for Europe to make things right with the Global South. In today’s fragmenting world, we need more allies – also in the South. Today, big corporations from Europe and elsewhere are benefiting from slave labour, deforestation, land grabbing, and mining in these countries. Instead of continued exploitation, we should be offering them partnerships that, when it comes to trade and investment, observe the rights of their populations, including Indigenous peoples, and give them a say, for example in who is allowed to mine minerals on their territory and under what terms.

Should Europe still strive to promote democracy worldwide?

In 2009, in close cooperation with the Swedish EU presidency, we pushed through Council conclusions on democracy support, making this a key objective of the EU’s external policies. The preparatory work was a landmark effort, bringing together experts on human rights and on development. These goals are closely linked (if sometimes conflictual), yet these people had never actually sat down together.

Part of this effort was a discussion on whether to speak of “democracy promotion”. To avoid giving the impression of imposing our Western ways on other parts of the world, we agreed to use the term “democracy support” instead. I still think supporting democracy, with the involvement of civil society, is very different to colonialism. Of course, we have to recognise that different cultures and regions have their own models of public participation in government. But we must also keep our distance from those who say that democracy is only suitable for Western societies, and that other societies are not capable of it. That boils down to cultural racism.

Democracy may have different operating modes, different institutions. But you know a democratic country when you see one.

Soft power is an important foreign policy instrument for Europe. To many human rights defenders around the world, Europe remains a model. It has played a leading role in bringing about important international treaties and UN resolutions. Again, when we work in support of human rights protection, it should not be about copying our model, but about participation and cooperation. Context matters.

And what about the international rule of law?

Standing up for international law is not easy. It forces us to be critical of long-standing allies, such as Israel and the US. But if ever there was a time to think deeply about why international law exists, why it is vital to our security, it is now. Czechia is among the countries that should understand that any time in history, when the international order started to crumble, it was a bad time for the country.

In this context, which values should Green parties aim to project in society and politics?

As Greens, we are quite clear and confident in stating what needs to be done. We must combine care for the environment and the climate with proper social policies, while observing human rights. These are the three core values we stand for.

The difficulty is how to make ourselves heard amid a backlash that pushes everything green and social out of the public debate. Should we shy away from anything that may be perceived and portrayed as radicalism in order to avoid being marginalised? Should we be less vocal on certain issues to ensure we remain in the mainstream and keep attracting media coverage? Or should we just decide to say things as they are? This is a major strategic question for all European Greens.

The pendulum will swing back in the end, if only because Europe, including Czechia, will ultimately reap the benefits of climate policies, the more so if they are combined with a fairer distribution of wealth and a transformation of the current extractive economic model into a sustainable one, kinder to both the environment and people’s wellbeing. Meanwhile, it is essential that Green, progressive, and left-liberal parties and groups, as well as social movements, work together.

This interview was conducted prior to Gabriela Svárovská’s election to the Czech parliament in October 2025.