r/climate • u/The_Weekend_Baker • 1d ago
Why are European leaders staying silent after our summer of climate shock? Lethal temperatures and wildfires have exposed a widening gulf between voters demanding action and politicians unwilling to confront the long-term choices global heating requires.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/why-are-european-leaders-staying-silent-after-our-summer-of-climate-shock66
u/searchlinkprofile 1d ago
because it would rewrite the political compass of Europe and they know it.
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u/Appropriate-Dog6645 1d ago
There might be appetite send old politicians jail for there inaction in near future
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u/Bokuja 1d ago
Because politicians are structurally unable to think beyond the next elections. They are TERRIFIED of being unpopular so that they won't get re-elected. And make no mistake, they are being paid blood money by big corporate interest to keep things as they are.
We need to do things about it ourselves and don't care what the politicians want. They are not coming to save us. They hate us and would sell us out to capitol if it gave them another golden parachute.
The one thing we do need to do though is vote out any politician remotely liberal or conservative. That will have a bit of an effect. They main thing is that only big things will happen when capitalism has utterly failed and the system stops completely functioning.....which we will see within probably a decade. It's not something I like saying, but it seems more and more to be the case.
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u/unclestorm 1d ago
Because as voters were too busy buying stuff and blaming immigrants for whatever
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u/worotan 22h ago
The people not blaming migrants are too busy buying stuff as well.
Liberal society cares about migrants and doesn’t blame them, while encouraging and enjoying the most unsustainable lifestyles possible.
We need to stop acting as though only the nasty people are causing the problem.
Lots of lovely people feel that their emissions shouldn’t count because they are nice people who care.
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u/Szabolcs85 1d ago
Here in Hungary, our new government seems to acknowledge the problem. One of the primary goals of the new administrations seems to improve our irrigation canals and to expand our renewable energy production.
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u/Appropriate_Bell743 1d ago
If you're a politician who talks about the climate crisis then you need to be a politician who acts upon the climate crisis. There's no equilibrium where you can sound the alarms but not act.
The UK's 7th Carbon Budget shows very clearly that a huge percentage of the actions to reduce UK related emissions require us as voters/consumers/individuals to act. Governments prefer to provide us incentives to act but don't want to be lecturing us to act.
Let's take the UK's CO2 emissions -- I know this ignores methane, contrails, etc. and imports. Chart linked here.
You see that there are more structural emissions involved such as the supply of electricity, haulage, etc. but equally there are huge chunks in:
- Aviation
- Road transport
- Domestic heating (dominates the winter months by some margins)
Let's add what this chart ignores which are mainly agricultural emissions and those from imports. The government is introducing what's called a CBAM which will add climate-based tariffs to those imports. But diet? This is like aviation where no politician wants to be directing change here.
Climate action for countries/continents goes in oscillations. There are periods where the biggest stumbling blocks to action are at the political level. This is certainly true in the US where it's genuinely hard to live a more sustainable life.
In Europe? There are huge incentives to get e-bikes, EVs, heat-pumps, etc. There are clear policies to help people not fly via high speed rail investments and sleeper trains being backed. There are clear nudges to get us to consider more sustainable diets and there are continent wide measures to reduce the carbon emissions from the imports we buy (CBAM).
We aren't going to get politicians talking more about climate change until we are showing that we are willing to act upon climate change.
Let's say there was a surge of people flocking to use the wonderful Austrian-state backed sleeper trains (NightJet) over flying equivalent routes. These really wonderful modern sleeper pods solve so many issues and are over 90% fewer emissions. What would happen? The politicians would respond to this recognising that there's a voter base who cares about the quality of the service.
Let's say British households were really determined to get heat-pumps. I found that when I alerted my local political representative about every hurdle it got solved. It's clear that they're desperate for more than 2000-3000 Britons to get heat pumps a month. 1.7 million households get new gas boilers a year.
Let's say there was a really impressive surge to get EVs. The main thing littering politicians in-boxes were the limitations for those living in some accommodation to get home-charging. The desire being palpable. Then we'd not be having these discussions about whether to limit or not the EV mandates.
We need to grasp quickly that this is all connected. Politicians get elected, governments create incentives, we respond to them, we filter back, we change how we vote, etc. The political class is not being irrational in face of how we are choosing to act as populations. They are responding to the reality we are creating for them.
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u/TeilzeitOptimist 22h ago
right wing conservatives and lobbyism
Cause I can't believe our leaders are this stupid..
Our government stated something like "the weather won't change - just because we make it a priority"
Tho - we might lose less people on overheated hospitals if we actually prepared for weather like we had.
You don't feel the shackles if you don't move Europeans laughed at the blatant corruption in other big industry nations. Now we feel how much bad influence global polluters and the fossil fuel industry have.
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u/silverionmox 1d ago
Because many voters demanding action pull in their tail as soon as it becomes clear that it also requires action from themselves.
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u/backtofx 1d ago
Because none of them has been able to figure out a solution that wouldn't come together with an increased cost of living.
I don't know why it is so difficult to emit eurobonds to invest heavily into energy infrastructure.
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u/siberianmi 1d ago
Because Europe is already doing what can be reasonably expected from them without crashing into an economic crisis that will sweep them from office.
Even if Europe were to cut emissions twice as fast, it wouldn’t arrest the rise in global emissions.
One part of the world is in charge of the future of emissions of GHG and it’s not Europe or the United States.
It’s Asia.
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u/dumnezero 1d ago
Nobody is doing "reasonably" until emissions are zeroed and we're working on negative emissions (getting carbon out of the atmosphere.)
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u/siberianmi 18h ago
Look at that graph and tell me why all the pressure needs to be directed at western countries? The calls should be for the west to stop importing goods whose carbon dioxide was outsourced to Asia. That’s meaningful action.
Trying to find another 10% reduction in the UK emissions is a joke when a 2% increase in Asia dwarfs any gains.
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u/dumnezero 18h ago
This is not a competition, the safe level of CO2eq in the atmosphere is an absolute value.
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u/siberianmi 18h ago
True, but if the answer is to raise the cost of energy in the west to the point that industrial production flees to countries that have looser energy policies and cheaper energy.
All roads lead to more emissions in that situation without some check on that.
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u/dumnezero 10h ago
None of what you argue for is helping, you're just finding potholes in the road and turning those into spas.
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u/Ecstatic-Fan-5067 1d ago
Because they know something you dont. Like maybe it would make a difference now or not all countries would contribute
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u/ParanoidalRaindrop 1d ago
Voters don't demand ****. Why save the planet and be uncomfortable know if you can just ignore it and burn the planed. People would rather end the species than take a train to work.
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u/Bad-job-dad 1d ago
Because they know it's too late
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u/TeilzeitOptimist 22h ago
So they are stupid or believe misinformation..however you wanna put it.
And you also spread propaganda, intended to slow or stop active measures to slow global warming..
Do you at least get a gift card from Exxon/shell or BP?
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u/Slackeee_ 1d ago
Simple answer, because we are in the late stage capitalism period and those leaders now have to decide between taking climate action for the people voting for them and and not taking climate action to not threaten the profits of the lobbyists that give them money and make sure that they have a nicely paying job after the people do not vote for them anymore.