Germany’s AfD among most hardline climate sceptics of all European right-wing parties – study
Clean Energy Wire
The German far-right nationalist party AfD is among the most climate-sceptical of European populist parties, explicitly denying that humans impact the global climate and actively rejecting policies for a low-carbon economy, a study (in English) by consultancy Adelphi has found. Parties like the AfD and British nationalist UKIP “go so far as to spread false information through press releases by drawing on ‘alternative sources’ that are rarely scientifically credible,” the authors say. However, they found that most of the 21 populist parties analysed were merely “disengaged” or had “inconsistent, sometimes ambiguous views, without openly rejecting climate science.” The study also says climate and energy are generally only “niche issues” for far right parties, with most opposing energy transition policy on grounds of cost to national economies and lack of impact on global emissions.
AfD was founded in 2013 primarily in opposition to eurozone fiscal and monetary policy. During the 2015 influx of refugees to Germany, the party adopted an increasingly anti-immigrant stance and also positioned itself as an alternative to the other parties’ consensus on the energy transition. A recent large-scale survey found that around 90 percent of Germans are generally supportive of the Energiewende.
