Electoral backlash against ‘green’ cities is a reminder to do good, but do it better

Green political parties got a hammering in the European elections in June and may suffer the same fate in the 4 July UK poll. Lessons need to be learned to ensure it does not become a setback for the wider #sustainable #cities agenda.

Former Irish Green MEP Ciarán Cuffe lost his seat in the European Parliament in the June elections after his first five-year stint. “I didn't make it through so I'm still kind of reeling from the shock of that,” he told an event at the LSE’s power and politics festival.

From that perspective the election can rightly be classed as a disaster with the outcome showing green parties losing 21 seats to be left with 51 out of 720 seats, making it the sixth largest of the nine main blocs in the parliament (down for fourth previously). The question for supporters of measures to mitigate the climate emergency across Europe is whether that is a verdict on that agenda or is driven by other factors.

Parties of both the centre-left and centre-right have pushed through climate-focused urban policies across Europe. But the hit the greens took in the polling booth can be taken as a proxy for a negative verdict.

Cuffe and Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor of Paris responsible for a host of measures including urban planning, both identified three polices that had fuelled wider opposition to the urban green agenda. For Cuffe, measures to restrict cars in Dublin had led to the perception that motorists were being punished just at a time when they were feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis. The benefits were overlooked.

His other two factors were national rather than urban: the increase in fuel and energy costs due to the war in Ukraine and rises in building costs that were due to supply chain issues over Covid-19 but were seen as part of green regulations. “The facts and the benefits tend not to be talked about,” he said. “Looking at the voters, I think [they] are change averse.”

For Missaka, his triple whammy was the expansion of low emission zones (LEZ) in cities, rent caps in homes with the poorest energy efficiency ratings (known in France as "thermal sieves”), and rules limiting the urbanisation of natural, agricultural and forested areas (known as artificialisation).

Each initiative had a long phase-in period which initially made the issue abstract. But as the deadline neared, opposition coalesced. Owners of older vehicles protected the LEZs; landlords sold up rather than pay for insulation; and the real estate industry decided that the artificialisation law would undermine its market model by restricting its options for new buildings.

London does not quite fit into this pattern as Labour mayor Sadiq Khan was re-elected on 2 May for a second time with a larger majority despite an intense debate over whether the extension of the ULEZ emissions zone prevented the Labour party from retaking the Tory seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip on the capital’s northwestern edge.

Former London Deputy Mayor Shirley Rodrigues, and now vice president of the board of the C40 Cities group, echoed Missaka citing the cost of living, misinformation and disinformation, and “just a general feeling that people's incomes were being hammered and the issue of choice — you're taking away my choice, there isn't an alternative”.

With a centre-right EU legislature with a strong hard right opposition on one side of the Channel, the threat of the far right taking control of France, and an expected majority Labour government in the UK with a mandate for moderate action on climate change, the question is what advocates of urban sustainability can and should do.

Four lessons

The debate at the LSE event discussed several options, of which four stood out. First, advocates need to get better at communication, especially by engaging those likely to find themselves affected. In other words, don’t wait for the critics to find their cause.

Second, and related to the first point, is the better use of representatives of key stakeholder groups such as mothers of young children, doctors and local businesses who can highlight the benefits of change more effectively than politicians or officials.

Third, there needs to be a push not just for a transition towards greener cities but what academics call a “just transition” that ensures the benefits are shared and that any losers are supported with swift and sufficient financial payments. Fourth, focus on the measures that are being put in place rather than being distracted by debates about future plans.

Advocates of urban sustainability have been given a sharp shock, and there may be more to come depending on the outcomes of the French and British elections. The green transition has run into obstacles and the reaction must be to work out how to more effectively organise and communicate future policies better. A majority of European voters want action on climate change: politicians must do good but do it better.