Voting on the basis of environmental policy

We know that individual action isn’t going to help resolve the climate crisis. We need to address emissions by taxing fossil fuels and petroleum based products on a global scale but we continue to subsidize them. We need to protect and restore our natural landscapes and biodiversity. We need preparedness measures in regions vulnerable to the effects of climate change, many of which we are already experiencing.

Just because these policy interventions seem obvious to me (and climate scientists and millions of young people), I have been assuming that most either don’t know better or don’t care. I didn’t think environmental policy could be an election issue.

I started to change my mind when in Goa citizen’s protests over infrastructure plans through the forest forced politicians to take notice. The issue was raised again and again across various levels of government over the last year.

Turns out a 2021 UNDP-Oxford survey of over 1.2 million people across 50 countries covering 56% of the world’s population found that 64% of the people believed that there is a climate emergency. And 59% of these people said that we need “to do everything necessary and urgently in response.”

So when Putin called Greta Thunberg a ‘poorly informed teenager’, I knew he was wrong. But it appears a large majority of the world knows that too. This means the climate change and policies to address this crisis have public support.

The survey also found that the most popular climate policies globally are:

1. Conservation of forests and land (54% public support);

2. Solar, wind and renewable power (53%);

3. Climate-friendly farming techniques (52%); and

4. Investing more in green businesses and jobs (50%).

The climate crisis is an overwhelming unwieldy problem and individual action sometimes seems pointless but it’s not. Let your politicians know how you are going to vote. Make some ‘unrealistic demands’ like bans on deforestation and a plan for bringing carbon emissions down to zero.