In the face of fascism, climate activists tell a better story
A climate change denier sits in the White House. The far-right AFD – who firmly oppose any action on the climate crisis – doubled their vote share in the German elections. Reform UK, riding high in British opinion polls, have announced a ‘war on net zero’. The rise of rightwing populist parties and ideologies has already led to the scaling-back of government climate action and ambition in the US, EU and elsewhere.
But climate activists are fighting back. A new network named ‘The Surge’ called a series of joint rallies for climate justice, anti-fascist and peace activists in January 2025, and were pleasantly surprised by the level of response.
According to Leonor Canadas, a spokesperson for the network: ‘We had marches taking place in 33 cities, in 14 countries. We only sent the callout in November, and we thought we’d just get a few European cities taking part, but it seemed like lots of people were waiting for this.
‘We have the climate crisis, the rise of fascism and the far right throughout the world, and the rise of wars and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Right now, the movements opposing these things are losing, and if we are to change the pathway on which we’re headed, we must come together.’
Telling a better story will be vital to success. Canadas described a ‘narrative battle’ where the far right ‘present their political programme as if it’s a radical change to the system, even though it’s not. That has been one of their smartest strategies, because people know the status quo is not working, especially for the working class. We need to get better at presenting our own alternatives, through a strong grassroots movement built from below.’
The Surge is now planning a Congress in April 2025, in Belgium, to agree a shared platform for future organizing. Nicolò Wojewoda, Europe Regional Director of the climate campaign group 350.org, explains how their own messaging has shifted, partly in response to the far right: ‘It’s challenging, because to achieve a just transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy, there does need to be a transfer of wealth from richer countries to poorer countries.
This is something that nationalist movements can use to set up a false, zero-sum choice between meeting global needs and meeting the local needs of people in Europe. We needed a way to turn that on its head.
‘We have the climate crisis, the rise of fascism and the far right through-out the world, and the rise of wars and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Right now, the movements opposing these things are losing, and if we are to change the pathway on which we’re headed, we must come together.’
‘So early last year we started to campaign for a wealth tax. The logic is quite straightforward – there’s enough money out there for a climate transition that would benefit everyone, but it’s in the wrong pockets… of people that are not only filthy rich, but are also the biggest climate polluters, whether it’s the billion- aires or the fossil fuel companies.’
While some individual climate-related policies, such as traffic reduction schemes or heat pump rollouts, have become focal points for ‘culture war’ backlash, the great majority of the public still want more, not less, climate action from their governments.
This provides fertile ground to challenge the far right’s division and fear-mongering with positive narratives about how climate action can benefit the majority in society – if only we can tell a good enough story. Rather than scapegoating migrants and the marginalized, we need to place the blame for society’s problems firmly where it belongs: with the systems that allow a minority to hoard wealth at the expense of everyone else.
As Wojewoda puts it, ‘The far right are trying to present themselves as the champions of working class people, even though their actual policies are more in line with the needs of the billionaires and the corporations. We need to talk about how, instead, a redistribution of wealth from the super-rich into climate solutions would benefit the majority, through lower energy bills, comfortable homes, lower travel costs, cleaner air, and taking back control of our energy and transport systems from the big corporations.’