Parliamentarians as “Backlash Mobilisers”: Climate Backlash in the Plenary Debates of the European Parliament (2004-2024) (Working Title)

As climate change mitigation is becoming increasingly important, some citizens are lashing out against green policies due to the financial burden they pose. However, little is known about how the political elite engages in this so-called “climate backlash”. Utilising an original dataset comprising of approximately 1,800 European Parliament (EP) speeches on climate change between 2004 and 2024, this study adopts a mixed-methods approach to measure MEPs’ rhetorical engagement in backlash against climate change mitigation policies. This paper shows that climate backlash related rhetoric has been present in the EP since 2004 and that being a far-right party member is a strong predictor for the use of climate backlash related rhetoric. However, going beyond far-right MEPs, this paper also shows that there is no evidence of a broad elite involvement in a potential climate backlash. Firstly, non-far-right MEPs rarely engage in such rhetoric. Secondly, controlling for age, gender, member state and ideology shows that MEPs from more recent legislative periods are not more likely to engage in climate backlash related rhetoric. Finally, arguments emphasising an economic or societal loss due to climate change mitigation have been very present in Eastern European MEPs’ speeches since 2004 and Eastern European far-right MEPs only limitedly engage in climate backlash related rhetoric otherwise.