Green was hit by social reality. How it can bounce back.

Green parties around Europe are in free fall. Yes, green might do a better job communicating a welcoming green future – a vision that feels both aspirational and affordable to all. Yet beyond the alarming truth that climate scientists repeat at the left, and climate change denial at the right lies an even more formidable reality. A reality we all share but no one addresses: preparing ourselves for climate resilience.

Why is support for green low while climate action is so urgent? How can green come back to relevance?

Reality Check

Much of what the green movement asked in the past 30 years has moved into EU and national legislation, particularly through decarbonisation policies and the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Legislation and measures have been built on agreed scientific data. Yet the reality of scientists is not reality to most of society, particularly to an anxious middle class and a pressured working class. Scientists may be as much an elite as the corporate elite they tend to crucify for being unsustainable.

Decarbonisation also is just one side of the climate coin. It might slow down climate change, but the genie is out of the bottle. Natural disasters are already hitting vulnerable communities harder, most housing is not adapted to summer temperatures, storms or floods, while in 2023 over 47.000 people died in Europe just due to extreme heat.

It might slow down climate change, but the genie is out of the bottle.

A Simple Story

So far, the green movement could do with one proposition to attract young urban progressives, middle-aged eco-conscious citizens, educators and academics, social justice activists and the creative and cultural communities. The story was simple: science shows the urgency and we need to act now to avoid disaster in the long term. The long-term though has become today's reality.

The story is even more complicated to win over the working class in carbon-intensive industries, rural farming communities, low-income urban populations, older age groups and skeptical conservatives. For those groups the EU Green Deal framed the story as "A Greener Future for All: No One Left Behind". A promise of a more prosperous, more healthy home for every single group in society.

Break Through the Noise

Delivering any story requires grabbing attention first. Unfortunately, cognitive science shows that people under pressure just focus on immediate concerns and easy explanations. The New Yorker investigated why working-class Americans drift to Trump. One quote summarizes it well: "Right now, capitalism has people working so hard - two, three jobs trying to survive - that they can't even lift up their heads to get the information."

Prima mangiare, poi filosofare. Most of us won’t listen to future disasters. Yet a decent job to live a good life is not what we associate with green. It’s at its core a social story.

Prima mangiare, poi filosofare.

What green story will be heard by those further away from green? And how to deliver it?

Hands-On Green

The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed yet. An old insight may help rethink green, as climate reality is pushing local vulnerable communities around the world to prepare for climate resilience now. Phoenix Arizona for instance offers hands-on learning, being the fastest-growing city in the U.S. and a near-desert city facing severe challenges of water scarcity and extreme heat.

Although Arizona has been a Republican stronghold, climate change has created pragmatism that turns out to be deeply green. The driving idea is to prepare Phoenix for climate resilience soon. The city delivers concrete green initiatives demonstrating benefits to every single group in society:

• Investing in critical infrastructure, energy efficiency and sustainable industries creating jobs
• Addressing immediate concerns of affordable housing, education, reskilling and healthcare
• Moving away from “saving the planet” to non-political benefits like jobs and infrastructure
• Connecting climate change to tangible impacts showing how it threatens local communities
• Highlighting cost of inaction in job losses, infrastructure destruction and harm to agriculture.
• Fostering local identity by safeguarding local environments like forests, rivers and agriculture for future generations

Many more examples exist such as Canada’s carbon pricing and rebate, New Zealand’s circular economy model and South Korea’s Green New Deal. All have one thing in common: they drive hands-on initiatives that make green benefits tangible for more people in local communities.

The Way Forward

So, green remains vital, yet it can prove its relevance to more people through building wider climate-resilient communities. In doing so, green will demonstrate to be more hands-on, connecting, inclusive, inviting collaboration with the adversary from the past. Not green as a lifestyle for earlier believers, but green that acknowledges hard times for vulnerable communities and works harder to ensure a better life for the wider middle class.?

Green might lead by seeing the opposite opinion as an invitation to empathize and learn, linking with wider civil society including small shopkeepers, self-employed and businesses. It might champion deliberative democracy and foster genuine citizen and stakeholder participation embracing dissenting working class opinions.

In this way, green will connect with new, unreached audiences and find itself reshaped, while moving the broader community from old ways of working to new resilience. Ultimately, green can make both green frontrunners and the working and middle class feel at home in a new, better community.

Green that acknowledges hard times for vulnerable communities and works harder to ensure a better life for the wider middle class.?

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