By Tan Copsey
All around the world it seems conservatives are becoming conservationists. From David Cameron, leader of the conservative party in the UK, to John McCain, Republican frontrunner for the Presidency in 2008, via Arnie; the Right is sounding off about the need for action to combat climate change.
What is particularly startling about this development is that until recently many conservative parties have promoted forms of climate change denial. Being largely dedicated to the preservation and promotion of a capitalist status quo, the implicit threat of economic upheaval climate change embodied was too much for most of a blueish tint to seriously contemplate. Compounding this tendency was a long-standing aversion, bordering on abhorrence, to traditional environmental groups, which were seen as culturally incompatible with conservatism.
Those familiar with UK politics will already be aware of the attempts of Tory leader David Cameron to wrest climate change away from Blair and the Left, consistently using climate change as the central issue on which he bases his personal brand.
It is of real significance that this trend is increasingly echoed in the US, arguably the spiritual home of climate change denial and radical anti-environmentalism. Until recently climate change politics here had been marked by vicious and unthinking partisanship in civil society, remaining virtually untouchable at the federal level. Mainstream politicians sympathetic to the cause were haunted by the outright humiliation the Clinton-Gore administration suffered when it tried to act through the UNFCCC in the mid-nineties.
In the subsequent void left by the absence of strong voices promoting action the Republican controlled congress, and latterly the Bush administration, were able to grant increasing access to climate change deniers. However climate change politics within the US are undergoing a radical change. The most prominent example of this change can be found in the actions taken by Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has proposed the most far-reaching plan to protect the climate in US history.
The US congress still includes a number of prominent climate change deniers, James Inhofe of Oklahoma in the Senate who recently stated in an interview on CNN ‘"We're going through a warming period. No one's denying that…..the question is, is it due to man-made gases? And it's not". However Inhofe and his ilk are becoming noticeably become more isolated within their party. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., a co-sponsor with John McCain of a bill to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, dealt with Inhofe’s comments with a degree of derision that would have been unthinkable until recently. There has even been a recent shift in White House policy on the issue.
Another interesting element to this trend, best epitomised by the Cameronite Tories in the UK, and latterly the New Zealand National Party, is the way in which parties of the right are using climate change to attack centre-left Governments. In many respects this can be seen as a natural development in the politics of opposition. In each case governments have failed to fulfil their promises to the electorate, instead delivering un-cohesive, ineffective policies that have not stopped obvious rises in national emissions.
But how have conservatives managed to achieve this shift without betraying the fundamental principles upon which their ideology is based. As it happens, the global climate regime advocates policies that are already largely ‘liberal environmental’, and generally rely on the institution of market measures. There are, of course, elements that remain less palatable for the right, from the commitment to take account of historic responsibility for emissions, to the very use of the UN as the main arm of climate change governance. But these issues do not represent insurmountable barriers. In fact many see them as an opportunity to articulate a distinctly different approach.
Environmentalists and many on the left remain suspicious that this is a case of style over substance, another attempt to green-wash policies that are no radical departure from business as usual. Certain recent examples add weight to these claims. Last week Canada’s conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper announced a package of policies to protect the environment. From the relatively paltry funds allocated it is claimed by environmental groups that ten times more was earmarked for spending on reducing than on reducing green-house-gas emissions.
Despite this, there are reasons to believe that this change may spread still further, and become a permanent feature of democratic political landscapes. It seems likely that these parties will emphasise measures that provide for the ‘national interest’ whilst simultaneously promoting forms of trade liberalisation.
The shift that is taking place must be welcomed by both environmentalists and those on the left. Climate change can now be seen to have matured as a political issue. Debate grounded in shared understanding of the problem is much more likely to bear fruit and hopefully, somehow ensure a shared future conserving the things we all hold dear.
Picture via gusset's flickR account.
