This paper aims to introduce a new theoretical framework, according to which climate change has an effect on the electoral support for the far right parties within Europe. The literature on far right wing voting has examined various theories in order to explain the increasing support for these parties. Many of these theories suggest that contextual factors, such as immigration or economic hardship, lead to higher electoral support for this party family across Europe. Other theories imply that people who vote for far right parties are nationalists and against international cooperation. Lastly, the quality of governance is another contextual factor that has a positive effect on the electoral support for far right parties. We argue that climate change has an effect on all the above factors.
As established we expect that climate change is highly likely to have an indirect effect on voting for far right parties in Europe. Our argument is contingent upon a noteworthy degree of climate change occurring. This is likely seeing as our current international agremens are going to take us above 2 degrees of warming. Therefore when performing our analysis we will consider a world of 2 degrees plus warming. First and foremost, according to literature on climate change and available data on the effects of climate change, one of the effects of climate change is that it leads to economic crisis. This is because extreme weather events come at a cost. There is the cost of repairing, compensating and adapting to the damage. These events become more intense and more frequent as climate change becomes greater. Secondly, the regions that suffer and will suffer most from the effects of climate change are underdeveloped or less developed countries. This is very likely to lead to mass immigration from the areas that suffer most to the developed world, part of which is Europe. Additionally, in order to solve the issue of climate change, a response at the level of global governance is required.
Our project shall start by engaging with the available data on the effects of climate change in order to establish the likelihood of the claims that stressed above. Once this is established it will lead us to developing our theoretical framework regarding the effects of climate change on the support for far right parties in Europe.
