GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
Voting for Climate, a Focus on Politics
What if the future of our planet depends on our political choices today? Join us as we sit down with Christophe Koninckx to dissect the recent EU, UK, and global elections, revealing their profound impact on climate policies. We'll uncover the critical state of the EU's Green Deal, discuss Labour's ambitious climate vision for the UK, and offer a unique Turkish perspective from Damla.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone. You are listening to Good Ge Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul.
Speaker 3:And this is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester. So this podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode, lovely, lovely and the beloved one and only Christophe Coninx is with us also we are going to talk about the EU elections, the elections in the UK, the elections worldwide. Basically, we're going to talk about the green politics. What is happening in the world at the moment and where are we headed and how can we change it? These are the big questions we're going to ask today. So, steve, let's start with you and let's start with the EU elections. Do you think we had a problem, as the green politics pushers Did? We have a problem. Is there a major setback and backlash in green politics, or are we still keeping our standing? How are we doing at the moment? Christophe, this is also a question for you.
Speaker 3:Let's dive in. Well, I think from my perspective it was less bad than it could have been, would be my summation. I think there were some commentators suggesting that the rise of the far right vote would see an end, in particular, to climate policies and climate action, and I think many people were slightly relieved when it wasn't as bad as it could be, and in some countries in the European elections it was actually quite progressive news, so it wasn't completely bleak. I think. What's also really interesting, damla, is that there was a kind of coming together where people thought that climate action was totally reliant on voters going in a certain direction, whereas when you look at the opinion polling for even people who vote in a fairly conservative way, they now kind of accept that action on climate in particular is needed. So I think it's a bit of a false connection sometimes to think that even people of the centre right and the right don't care about all this.
Speaker 3:Now, my final thing and then I'd love to know what Christophe thinks is the other issue was the last time we had these elections. There was a kind of green wave where Greta had just started a Friday strike for climate and we had a genuine groundswell of massive concern. We were pre-Covid and we'd seen wildfires all over the world. People were really focused on climate. So I think there was potentially a very green vote at its highest point and and we could only come down from there. So I think, in summary, I would say it's not the end of the world, but we still got to work really, really hard to to keep action happening well steve, uh, I'm totally following your, your analysis and, and it's right, I mean it's not a disaster to the degree.
Speaker 4:However, I mean we all know that you are the positive guy in this podcast. You should be in your role. However, I do think that Green Deal, in a way or another, is in great danger because, well, this kind of program, which was launched in 2017 and which is aiming to have a Europe carbon neutral in 2050, is really a program in which you have to have all forces joined, all together, to make it happen. And so far, I mean we are really far from reducing the carbon emission by 55% in 2030. It is still targeted and I would say that, with a step back from the Green Deal, I mean we are really missing an opportunity to reposition Europe, as the chief of European Commission, ursula von der Leyen, was aiming, you know, to reposition Europe on the map of the world as a key player.
Speaker 4:Green Deal is still an opportunity. I mean economy, to secure our energy independency and also to boost our competitivity. And, well, I mean we should admit that, apart from the renewable energy aspect, in which we've reached the target of 20% by 2020. We are far behind in terms of building renovation in terms of transportation. In terms of transportation, you know, even the German automotive car industry is a step behind the Chinese auto manufacturer, which is developing the electric car much faster than the German ones. I mean, all these you know aspects are putting Europe in danger and well, I mean it's time. I mean to react and, you know, to motivate corporation managers, the NGOs or even the citizens to claim hey guys, don't forget this Green Deal. And we should be behind this because it's a real opportunity, not only for the planet but for the economic as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I have a question for both of you guys actually, because I'm kind of watching everything from Turkey, so I do have also a different perspective of what's going on. But when I look at the news and the overall discourse, the rhetoric isn't amplifying the Green Deal or the climate. What is being talked about, the talk of the town, is about far right and the immigration and the economy and populism. So what I think is first, how did we miss the chance to make the climate the talk of the town? Because we have this election year all over the world, including Turkey. We also had the elections here in Turkey not the broader elections, but we had a very important election year and all the world this year is going to be in kind of an election phase.
Speaker 2:I mean UK, european Parliament, india. Of course, we're always looking forward to see what will happen in the United States, but the talk of the town is about immigration, politics and populism and what the Green talk comes after that a of the talk, but not the core. But what we always say that our biggest challenge is at the moment is climate. So do you think, uh, we missed the point a bit here as the climateers of the world?
Speaker 4:well, actually, the way I'm looking at that reality is the way the politics orientation is being driven by the politician leaders, which are taking into account the feeling of the population because they should be elected at the next meeting. Here on the continent, we often say that people are more anxious about the end of the month in terms of salary than compared by the end of the planet and the end of the biodiversity. That balance, and that taking care of the planet is taking care of themselves on a longer term basis. Taking care of the health of the soil is taking care of the health of the human, the health of what is in your plate and the health of your body. So I mean, this kind of broader perspective and which is more global is really a difficulty in not being taken into account by the citizen, and that's the key problem, I think the understanding of the real understanding of the issue.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think so, christian. There's a wonderful phrase in English that we use, which is to a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so for us three, as communications experts, we're bound to say that it's the comms, it's the communications that we haven't got right, but I think on this occasion it is. I am that person with a hammer and I'm looking at the nail and I'm thinking I've just got to hit this harder, because we've had this situation, haven't't we, where the populist right in particular, has tried to use net zero, action on nature, action on sustainability, as what we call an English wedge issue. They've tried to turn it into something that splits people and wins more votes for them. And, in particular, that whole narrative, christophe, around net zero being too expensive for us to afford during cost of living crisis.
Speaker 3:That's a phrase that we've heard time and time again.
Speaker 3:It's too expensive, and one of the shocking things is we now know that renewable energy is cheaper than old fossil fuel energy. We know that the idea that net zero is a cost we can't afford when times are tough is actually a lie, and we've seen politicians lying now for months and years in trying to turn action on climate into something that's too expensive or it's too, it's only for the rich, it's only for the rich, it's only for the really affluent that can afford to have this, and by doing so, what they're trying to do is they're trying to push people like us into a weird kind of corner where we're seen as as disregarding people's everyday life and disregarding the cost of living crisis, and I think that's a scandal, really. So I think I think you're right. I think that, where people's heads have been at in all of this, I don't think we've done a good enough job of positioning action on climate as being a solution to a cost-of-living crisis, a solution to an economic crisis, and not something we can't afford.
Speaker 4:Saying that, I mean it's about talking about the great impact of lobbying in Brussels in particular and the way I mean lobbyists are putting Europe under influence. And when you're talking about lies and deviance like that, I mean it's awful. When you I was looking at the Jews this morning and happening to learn that the next EU Union president would be someone who was highly under juridic pressure, I mean how could that be and how could that we would be led by people who are not clean in their way of behaving into society. I mean this is something unreal, are not clean in their way of behaving into society. I mean this is something unreal, as you will discuss later on in the US politics. I mean how could we be led by people like that? And that's a real problem.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there are two important points both of you made. One is, steve, that we had a very big issue with the positioning and the communication. But on the other hand, you just pointed out that climate is a global issue and it is hard for the citizen to grasp the multifaceted problem and see the solution there. But I do have kind of not opposition, but a question mark here, because what we call the citizen, it is me and it is you and it is Steve. So once upon a time in our agency's history the dark times I like to call we worked with some pharmaceutical companies before we went to the light and see the light. But on that occasion we always heard when we made a creative campaign. I do remember that some of the reps of the company were saying oh, this is so creative and this is so clever, but we don't think that the doctors will understand it.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I think we do make this mistake about our communities because, seeing a lot of research from different parts of Europe and Turkey also, it is clear that people do see the problem and people do see the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem is the economic system we have at the moment. What they don't see is a clear solution, solution on the green part. They hear a lot of big theories, they hear a lot of big deals and everything, but they do not see the clear will to make things change. So I believe that they may not trust enough to make this change.
Speaker 2:So we had this issue in Turkey's politics too. As everyone knows, we have this very polarized society and we always are amazed at how can this go? I mean, how can somebody like him can be elected over and over with this economic problems? What we don't see is the person in the street me also. They do see the opposition as right. Ok, this problem exists, but they don't believe that the opposition have the willpower and also the real power to change it, so they don't want to take the chance and lose everything.
Speaker 2:So I think this is also a question mark. With all the elections we see we always see the people. They do see the problem, they do address the problem right, but when it comes to voting, we don't see the results there. So I think that is not only a communication mistake, but also it may be an architectural mistake. We do as we build up the opposition and show people how the green politics will lead them to a better politics. I know I have missed everything together inside for an outcome, but this is what just resonates in my mind as a question Do we, can we really put a strong and willful future for them that they can believe that we can lead them to there?
Speaker 4:Well, from what's resonating in me is the following I do I'm totally aware that idealistic and naive people like me wouldn't be the good green leader to counterbalance the sharks, the black sharks which are leading the talk and, as a matter of fact, the society we are all in the DNS network dreaming of. It's such a bad world. It's a world of respect, a world of listening, a world of yeah, kind of love world, and this is totally much far behind what is being thought at the very top and where you have to have a kind of warrior posture and really to be in a way of performing and cutting the edge of the guy in front of you. Cutting the edge of the guy in front of you, it's the way of you know, evolving in a smart manner of reacting and understanding the global scope and to discuss all these issues with a kind of integrity. For me, it's the basis of the dialogue which is really needed at this time.
Speaker 3:Well, christophe, I think naivety, integrity and a world full of love could all summarise your approach beautifully. I mean, I am up for slightly more of a fight, though In fact we should say also in terms of fighting back on this. Our good friend Sandrine Dixon de Cleve is campaigning on this, isn't she, christophe? So we should give her a plug from the Club of Rome. They're planning to at least raise a petition to protect the European Green Deal and make sure that we continue to work hard on it. But if we could have a moment of optimism on the other side of a La Manche, here in the UK, it might not be too terrible. So at the moment, as everybody will know, we have an election it's very exciting and we have a ruling Conservative party that, after 14 years, have succeeded in almost every measure in bringing the country to a worse position than when they took office 14 years ago.
Speaker 3:And they did try to use net zero as a wedge issue. They did try to roll back on climate commitments. They did try to make the Labour Party's position on climate and nature a kind of topic that they could use to swerve the vote towards the right, and it's not worked. It has not worked. They had one. They had one by-election in Boris Johnson's old seat in London, where there was this protest around a low emission zone, and it meant that the Conservatives kept their seat and they thought this meant that they could take a cohort of voters and really take them with them on a sort of climate sceptic, anti-net zero journey.
Speaker 3:And it hasn't worked, and so we're now at the position where you know they continue to be 20 points down in the polls in the UK. They're not going to recover. It does look like Labour Party will win very decisively in three weeks' time, and the good news there is that, ironically, inspired by the European Green Deal, labour have a really ambitious climate mission. We want to be a completely clean energy country by 2030 and have targets on things like tree planting and the retrofit of homes. But the real big headline, I think, here in the UK is of the big five missions that Labour have put forward to the people. One of those five is clean energy. So I'm actually in quite an optimistic space here in the UK because I think we're about to see some really exciting changes if the next three weeks continue as they have been so far very ambitious goal and everything.
Speaker 2:What strikes me is why are each country's electives and everyone around the Green Deal so anxious? It's because when we see the far right rising, you can have this very ambitious goal and you can make it happen. But the climate change and this crisis is not something that could be solved if it's solved in your home only. So it forces us to be more international, it forces us to think globally, it forces us to be in solidarity with each other, to be in solidarity with each other. So when the far right seems to be rising, even if a little bit, then this is in threat. So I think that's very interesting. We are not only talking about climate anymore. We're talking about what kind of a society we want to build globally.
Speaker 2:So this question is our future's question, not only in the climate promise or the Green Deal, the deal of all deals, maybe I can call it, because it affects the economic system, it affects the social system we build up and it also affects the values and frames we build up so far. So here I just want to go back to Ursula Le Guin I love her so much, you know, and she says that everything we think that we always have done in the same way, the traditions and everything can only be one or two generations, even so, stretched 1,000 years. So everything can be changed. One or two generations, even so, stretched 1,000 years. So everything can be changed. If everything can be changed, our question is how are we going to change it? So we have different answers to those, but this, I think, marks the point.
Speaker 3:Change happens and shit happens. But we've only got one more minute and Christophe is about to go and get a train. I hope it's a train, Christoph. You're not really going to get behind the wheel of a car, are you? It's going to be a train. It's definitely a train, I promise I promise Good, good, good.
Speaker 4:This is the 514 train leaving from my town. Oh God.
Speaker 3:And I've done that walk, so you need to leave any second now, and all I would say is that we haven't talked about the US Stamler.
Speaker 2:And I think we have to make another program for it.
Speaker 3:That's the big mother of all elections. And you know, if for some reason I was reading the statistics and if Trump were to get in, it would release the equivalent of four billion tons of carbon dioxide. So that's what Trump, interestingly, also means fart in English. So that would be a huge, great big gaseous emission which is too scary to think about. But let's return to that another day, shall we Damla.
Speaker 2:Yes, we should. And let's this time leave the last word to Christoph. Right, christoph? It's on you to close this episode.
Speaker 4:Oh, thank you so much. No, my point is, you know, I mean, it's about the narrative. We've been driven by a society in which the belief is that the more we can get a car, two televisions, some stupid stuff, we do not need to be happy. While this time is over, I think the time is ready to change the narrative and to understand that, well, the fact of being happy on the earth is just nourishing our dream. Uh, you know, nourishing or dream with love, with connection with the great, great love, and, uh, and, and I think I think changing that mind and changing the, you know, the perspective, and reactivating or dreams is really something we need, uh, uh, really deeply. Uh, all of us Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Let the sun shine.
Speaker 3:That's Damla's first singing on the podcast. That's really exciting.
Speaker 2:I can't sing, but that's what I feel at the moment. Okay, let the sun shine.
Speaker 3:I'm doing the edit on this, so I'll cut some music in Damla, christoph, it's been wonderful talking to you, for me too. You too, steve, excellent. Take care, christoph, it's been wonderful talking to you For me too. You too, steve, excellent. Take care guys, kiss you all Bye-bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability Hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
