ABC: "Does the fight against climate change have an ideology?"

ABC has published an article on the relationship between ideology and climate change, highlighting the contribution of the think tank OIKOS.

The founders of OIKOS offer their vision on how the fight against climate change has historically been perceived as an issue of the political left. In the article, Toni Timoner, co-founder of OIKOS, maintains that the left appropriated environmentalism in the 1960s and 1970s to promote its political agenda and ideological identity. Furthermore, the OIKOS report cited in the publication notes that, although the level of concern about climate change is cross-cutting among Spaniards, political proposals to address it differ according to ideological orientation.

According to OIKOS, right-wing voters tend to prefer a more orderly, flexible ecological transition based on market incentives, while the left opts for more radical and restrictive approaches. This division, they warn, makes it difficult to build broad and sustainable consensus on climate policy.

«Would you say that right now you are very, fairly, slightly, or not at all concerned about climate change?». This is a question recently asked to Spaniards by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS). A concern that is more frequent «among women and people who ideologically position themselves on the left», reveal the survey data. Does environmentalism and climate change have an ideology?

«Historically that has been the perception among citizens», respond the founders of Oikos, a conservative environmental think tank. 

«That appropriation strains the environmental debate», adds Timoner. However, «the vast majority of parties have adopted part of the sustainable development discourse, but perhaps in a very limited way», points out Espluga.

Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, or Ireland are examples of countries where environmentalism has taken on major positions in public life. A political momentum that in Spain has not succeeded despite the fact that «the level of concern about climate change and the recognition of the serious problem it represents is ideologically cross-cutting among all Spaniards», Oikos argues in its latest study.

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