According to David McWilliams, "The Right Wing vs Net Zero is a big big political debtate ... gaining more currency in more countries [including] the US, UK, Spain, everywhere. Basically [the claim is that] Net-Zero is a 'woke target' that has been created to cripple the working man through high energy prices."
Prominent New Right movements – from MAGA supporters in the US to Europe’s Reform UK, France’s National Rally and Germany’s AfD – often portray climate change policy as a plot by shadowy “elites” to foist hardships on ordinary people. Nigel Farage, for example, has dismissed anthropogenic climate change as a “scam”, even while admitting he hasn’t “got a clue” about the science. Reform UK’s manifesto baldly claims “Net zero…can’t [stop climate change]. Climate change has happened for millions of years… We are better to adapt to warming, rather than pretend we can stop it.” Such rhetoric frames decarbonisation as a technocratic folly at best, or a deliberate elite conspiracy at worst – an expensive crusade that punishes working folk for negligible benefit. This conspiratorial bent echoes across the New Right. In the US, some Republican figures increasingly echo theories that global warming is a “hoax” by world leaders to control and impoverish populations. Prof Robert Lawrence claims that climate policies are an ideal target for populists because they “rely on expert knowledge, entail globalist thinking” and offer “ample fodder for conspiracy theories” given their preventive (and thus less visible) benefits.
To be sure, there are real distributional issues in climate policy. Poorly designed green taxes or regulations can hit lower-income and rural communities hard. France’s gilets jaunes protests in 2018 – “explosive anger at fuel prices and inequality… fired up by a carbon tax on petrol” after other tax cuts for the wealthy – vividly demonstrated how not to implement climate policy. Across Europe, observers note a “21st-century alliance” of right-wing populists with groups like disgruntled farmers against environmental measures (from fertiliser rules to emissions targets). This has fuelled backlashes to policies perceived as ignoring the little guy. Such grievances cannot be dismissed outright: climate action does bring social costs that must be shared fairly. However, abandoning climate action altogether is not justifiable. The evidence of climate risk is robust, and the long-term costs of inaction dwarf the upfront costs of mitigation. Nicholas Stern responded to the recent interventional by Tony Blair, warning that delaying cuts to carbon emissions will only exacerbate “climate change impacts that are already hurting households and businesses across the world… Delay is dangerous”. Indeed, the science is unequivocal that only reaching net zero greenhouse emissions will halt further warming – and the public, by and large, does not “want climate extremes of flooding, wildfires and crop failures” to worsen. In Britain, for example, about 61% of people support the net-zero-by-2050 goal (including a majority of 2019 Conservative voters), whereas barely a quarter oppose it. These realities undercut the New Right’s narrative that “ordinary people” reject climate action en masse. Yes, climate policy can impose near-term costs, but the answer is to design just transitions – not to indulge conspiracy theories or ignore a mounting crisis for the sake of short-term populism.
Anti-intellectualism and “Common Sense” Climate Denial
The New Right’s hostility to climate policy hinges on a broader anti-intellectual streak and deep suspicion of experts. Climate change mitigation, by its nature, involves scientific data, complex modelling and global coordination – everything populists love to sneer at. Populist leaders often dismiss scientific consensus as alarmism or even fabrication (despite the data and modelling being freely accessible to anyone with the time, inclination, and nous to look at it). They recast their anti-science stance as “common sense”. For instance, Germany’s AfD derides EU climate plans as “eco-socialist redistribution” and extols fossil fuels as the “basis of our prosperity”. In the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom rails against “hysterical reduction of CO2” and “wasting billions on pointless climate hobbies”. The clear message is that “real people” need not trust elite scientists or international agreements; instead, they should trust gut instinct that the climate fuss is overblown. This anti-intellectual posture also means evidence and expert warnings are easily waved away as part of the supposed conspiracy. Every heatwave, flood or wildfire can be rhetorically hand-waved – either denied outright, or attributed to sinister forces (as seen in wild online theories blaming deliberate weather manipulation by global elites). By nurturing a narrative that climate science is just another elitist orthodoxy – like “woke” culture or other bugbears – the New Right enables its followers to ignore inconvenient facts. The movement’s distrust of “experts” and multilateral institutions (e.g. the UN climate panel, or the Paris Agreement) provides a ready-made filter to interpret climate action as something nefarious or foolish. In short, climate change gets folded into the populist culture war, where loyalty to the cause often means proudly dismissing expert opinion as propaganda.
A Slogan in Search of an Ideology
Notably, this anti-climate stance often seems less a coherent ideology than a politically expedient slogan. It is a rallying cry that taps into anger about energy prices, taxes or remote bureaucrats, rather than a well-argued alternative philosophy on environmental stewardship. Unlike traditional political ideologies that offer systematic principles, the New Right’s climate scepticism is riddled with contradictions. It champions fossil fuels under the banner of nationalism and prosperity, yet ignoring that continued reliance on oil and gas can leave nations vulnerable (as Europe’s gas crisis showed) and dependent on volatile global markets. It claims to stand for the “little guy” while downplaying or denying climate threats that, in reality, hit the vulnerable hardest (through extreme weather, crop failures, etc.). And as a policy agenda, “scrapping net zero” or slashing green regulations amounts to a negation, not a vision.
Could one argue that an ideology underpins this stance? Perhaps. My preferred theory is that there is simply electoral advantage in promising low information and low education voters reduced short term costs, knowing full well that the long term costs that will hit them further down the line will be someone else's political problem. But perhaps I'm being uncharitable? One coherent political philosophy that could fit the New Right's positioning here is related to their stance on global economic integration: they're agin it. Perhaps this principle overrides all, even the cost benefit analysis that shows climate action to be a no brainer? They prioritise national sovereignty, and define possible climate action purely in national terms (and as a global externality, the cost benefit analysis does indeed change if you think only of the economic benefits to you, and the climate harms to you, of your own carbon emissions, ignoring reciprocal actions across the world). This would lead to a preference for adaptation measures over mitigation, and would allow climate mitigation to be framed as an extension of unpopular "globalism".
However, whether this amounts to a coherent ideology is questionable. It often looks more like a reactive collage of talking points – anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-expert – rather than a principled worldview. And in practice, simply ignoring climate change is not a tenable governing strategy – as droughts, floods or energy disruptions mount, any government is forced to respond. So the New Right’s climate posture looks like more performative populism than a serious long-term program. It is a stance that rallies opposition but offers no realistic alternative.
Ironically, threads of traditional right-wing ideology could support robust climate action if reinterpreted. Conservatives typically prize Order, stability and security – all of which are threatened by unchecked climate change. Military and security experts (many with conservative credentials) have long warned that global warming poses “a significant risk to…national security”, acting as a “threat multiplier” by stoking conflicts, mass migration and disasters. A true law-and-order mindset might view rising seas or megadroughts as akin to invasions or crime waves: existential threats to the nation’s welfare requiring a strong response. Likewise, the right’s patriotic duty to safeguard the homeland could encompass protecting communities from climate havoc and investing in resilience. Even the ideal of preserving social order for future generations aligns with curbing runaway climate disruption. In this sense, one could imagine a right-wing environmentalism that treats climate stability as a conservative cause – conserving the nation’s landscapes, livelihoods and continuity against a destructive force.
On the other hand, the libertarian strain of right-wing thought – emphasising individual freedom and market solutions – can clash with prescriptive government climate interventions. Populists often invoke personal liberty to oppose measures like bans on petrol and diesel cars, painting them as green authoritarianism. Yet even here, there is room for synergy. Free-market libertarians do typically value the ability to protect private property. All carbon pricing does is charge the external damage (that is, to others' private property) as an additional cost for fossil fuels. In fact, proposals to price or tax carbon have deep conservative roots: free-market icons from William F. Buckley Jr. to Milton Friedman championed pollution taxes as the economically efficient way to address externalities. Harnessing market forces to reduce emissions – via carbon tax-and-dividend system – arguably fits squarely within a right-wing preference for minimal government micromanagement, using incentives rather than mandates. Moreover, innovation-led approaches (promoting nuclear energy, carbon capture, etc.) can appeal to pro-business, tech-positive conservatives. Thus, while the anti-collectivism of some traditional right-wing values may conflict with specific climate policies, they do not inherently reject all climate action. The divide is more about means than ends: whether to allow government intervention versus trusting the market and individuals. It is noteworthy that several centre-right governments and leaders (such as Thatcher and Merkel) have acknowledged climate change and pursued solutions in line with their ideological bent. This underscores that rejecting climate science is not a prerequisite of conservative ideology, but rather a feature of this current populist moment.
Populist Climate Rhetoric vs. Reality
In the end, the New Right’s fiery rhetoric on climate change represents a stark departure from both the prudential “order-keeping” and the pro-market strands of conservative tradition. The populist framing – climate policy as elitist overreach – might resonate in the short term, especially during cost-of-living crises, but its sustainability is very much in doubt. It relies on the simultaneous discontent and lack of engagement of low information and low education voters. As evidence of climate disruption mounts year by year (with record heat, fires and floods becoming hard to ignore), outright denialism and obstruction may steadily lose public patience. Already, large majorities across many countries accept the reality of climate change and want action. While populist leaders can rally support by tapping into grievances, they have not demonstrated a credible path forward on climate itself – a fact that may become apparent to voters when impacts hit home. If and when the New Right’s champions find themselves in positions of power, they may be forced into an awkward reckoning with physics and economics. Climate change will not conform to political messaging. As one climate commentator put it, “Net zero…[means] stopping temperatures spiralling out of control…bringing drastically increased risk of…civilisation-level disaster. There is no happy medium… There is only action that is fast enough or not, and political decisions that distribute the cost fairly or not.” In other words, railing against “green elites” will not stop the floods or wildfires.
