BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Scepticism towards climate change and the green transition is greater in many European Union members than in neighbouring countries, the European Bank for Reconstruction and (EBRD) has found.
The EBRD’s survey for its 2023/2024 transition report shows sceptics and disengaged people were most common among a number of eastern European EU member countries on which it focuses than in the likes of non-members Tunisia, Moldova and Azerbaijan.
“Our expectation was that there would be greater support for the green transition in the EU, but what we see is the opposite,” Chief Economist Beata Javorcik told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
EBRD defines sceptics as people who do not see climate change as a problem and disengaged people as those who accept it is, but are unwilling to bear the cost. These two groups made up well over half of those surveyed in EU members Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Germany and Latvia.
Far-right parties are expected to profit from this growing scepticism in EU parliamentary elections in June.
Javorcik reasoned that, in EU neighbours from North Africa to Central Asia, green policies seemed more distant, while in many EU countries the trade-offs for people were more visible.
Javorcik said the higher energy costs, sparked by Moscow’s cutting of gas supplies to the European Union after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, had made EU consumers more aware that a greener future would require increased energy prices.
“Consumers are also workers and they are seeing how high energy prices are making European industry less competitive,” she said.
She said the EBRD had learnt by working in transition countries that reforms need broad-based support to succeed. A green future might offer more jobs, but people needed to be taken care of in the transition period.
Javorcik said Europe should draw lessons from the U.S. backlash against globalisation, with losers not compensated by winners and a lower welfare safety net.
“If you do not take care of people who lose as a result of the shock, there will be a backlash,” she said.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop)
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