Zeus: European election turmoil threatens climate agenda

From Spain to UK to Finland to Brussels, backlash against green transition spreads.

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Former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin (left), ousted in May, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, at a meeting in Helsinki in March. Photo: Finnish Government/flickr.

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc. His climate columns have appeared in USA Today, The Independent, and New Thinking magazine).

LONDON (Callaway Climate Insights) — A year after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves through European oil and gas markets and catapulted prices across the continent, a backlash against the renewable energy transition has spread to the electorate.

Even as the continent endures its hottest summer on record, with temperatures over 40°C. (104°F.) and wildfire evacuations in the Greek islands this week, left-wing political leaders are being forced to reconsider actions to shift their economies by a rise in protest against perceived costs and any forms of sacrifice.