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Not surprisingly, environmental policy initiatives often make big and surprising headlines about marginal environmental benefits – to no one. Actual environmental policy is often hard to sell – it involves things like long-term investments in repairing environmental damage, regulating new chemicals, and enhancing international cooperation to jointly tighten laws so that emissions don’t just move. Generally, parliamentary parties agree that such environmental policy is important: they only differ gradually in that they prioritize the single over other parts of the budget.
Symbolic game
So what can an “ambient party” (like C and MP) do? Well, one way is to make a token move that you know other parties will react to. The plastic bag tax is a good example. It will be a snack bar, where one side emphasizes that plastic pollution occurs mainly in other countries and that there are situations where the plastic bag is a better environmental option, while the other side may emphasize that “we must do something now! ” and it is emphasized that it is a symbol of going first.
The most important thing from a tactical point of view is, of course, that there will be a contrast: “those of us who like environmental policies like this” versus “you who like environmental policies like this”. One simply fights for a caricature of environmental politics to create artificial lines of conflict. As a strategy, this is understandable, but nonetheless makes it detrimental to a constructive environmental debate. The conflict is further compounded by the fact that parts of the environmental movement like to paint a reasonable questioning of populist measures such as “environmental hostility.”
Stop listening
When sensible voices are dismissed as environmental villains, many constituencies simply stop listening to the environmental movement. The problem is, of course, that there are those who are really working to roll back important environmental protection. When large groups stop believing in the environmental movement, it creates fertile ground to sell a purely environmentally unfriendly policy where all kinds of environmental and climate laws are portrayed as unnecessary and extreme.
Heal results in a frivolous culture in which we either celebrate even symbolic politics, or we see conspiracies and threats in all environmental regulations. The opinions of both parties are deeply unhealthy and create polarization on an issue on which most people actually strongly agree.
Nuclear power instead of coal power
Here are some examples of how current environmental policy could be improved:
– Without ideological blinders to the technology that is the best environmental commitment. This means, for example, to choose nuclear energy instead of fossil coal energy.
– No frivolous conspiracy theories: climate change is real, that even political opponents agree is not an argument against.
– Breaking the focus on token politics in the short term: It may be unattractive to work with trade deals or allowances, but it is the long-term work that produces results, not the short-term taxes.
– The biggest challenge for environmental policies is ensuring that they provide the right incentives and provide funds where they really benefit. If the parties could dedicate themselves to seeing each other’s environmental proposals, much would be gained in the debate.
Healthy voice
– Some environmental issues, which revolve around mining, are apparently not interesting enough for the parties and can lie dormant for decades, although they are obviously insane. Ask these questions.
At Medborgerlig Samling we will continue to work to be a healthy voice in the environmental debate. We want rigorous and effective environmental regulation, effective climate policy and strong support for biodiversity and clean nature, today and for future generations.
Christoffer Lernö, environmental policy spokesperson Medborgerlig Samling
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