Neofascism and Climate Change

Neofascism and Climate Change

Gilbert Achcar

As a record-breaking heat wave engulfs much of Europe and North America, and as climate change and global warming—against which environmental scientists have long warned, calling for urgent action before it’s too late—are increasingly confirmed, at this alarming juncture for the future of the planet and its human and animal inhabitants, it is worth asking what is driving neofascist movements to question, to varying degrees, the reality of climate change, or at least its connection to human behaviour. We have previously noted that “Neofascism is pushing the world towards the abyss with the blatant hostility of most of its factions to indispensable environmental measures, thus exacerbating the environmental peril, especially when neofascism has taken over the reins of power over the most polluting people in the world proportionally to its number, namely the people of the United States.” (“The Age of Neofascism and Its Distinctive Features”, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 4 February 2025).

This pattern of denying the seriousness of climate change is neither natural nor intuitively fathomable, unlike other characteristics of neofascism, such as nationalism, ethnicism, racism, sexism, and extreme hostility to emancipatory social values. What, then, drives neofascist movements to deny the increasingly obvious reality and, most importantly, to oppose policies aimed at combating climate change in an attempt to mitigate it and prevent the catastrophe from worsening? Researchers have identified three main factors that explain this pattern. One relates to the far right’s traditional ideological arsenal, while the other two relate to the two class poles that determine neofascist behaviour: the broad social base and the narrow economic elite, whose support they seek to garner.

The first factor is based on ultranationalism, which is often reflected in “sovereigntist” and “isolationist” policies that reject any international agreements limiting the freedom of the nation-state to determine its economic and other policies. This behaviour reaches its most absurd level when it comes from the country with the greatest influence in shaping international agreements and policies, namely the United States. We have seen how Donald Trump justified Washington’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords, as if they stemmed from some collusion of the rest of the world to limit America’s freedom to develop its economy, particularly in exploiting its natural resources of fossil fuels, i.e. coal, oil, and gas. The neofascist rejection of international environmental agreements thus falls within a comprehensive rejection of any rules that, from the ultranationalist perspective, limit national sovereignty.

The second factor consists in tickling the feelings of the social base whose electoral support neofascists seek to gain. They exploit the discontent of some lower-income categories with the lifestyle changes and cost required in fighting climate change. This discontent is certainly magnified when neoliberal governments seek to make categories with modest incomes bear the cost of the fight, rather than imposing this cost on big capital, the primary culprit behind environmentally harmful pollution. A striking example of such an endeavour is the additional tax that French President Emmanuel Macron’s government attempted to impose in 2018 on vehicle fuel, a measure that would have mostly impacted the lower categories of car users. This attempt sparked one of the largest waves of popular protest in France this century, known as the Yellow Vests movement. One of the movement’s demands against the government was to impose a tax on the largest fortunes, rather than an additional burden on a large segment of the population.

Here we come to the third factor explaining the neofascist position on climate change. One of the well-known characteristics of old fascism is that it sought to gain the support of big capital despite its demagogic “populist” rhetoric, which claimed to champion the interests of the lower social classes and, in some cases, even claimed “socialism”—as in the case of German Nazism whose official name bore that label. The collusion between fascists and big capital stemmed primarily from the latter’s fear of the rise of the labour movement, with its social-democratic and communist wings, amid the economic crisis experienced during the interwar years of the last century—the years of the original fascist era.

Today, however, with the labour movement significantly weakened by the neoliberal onslaught and technological change, big capital’s motivation for colluding with neofascist movements is not defensive, but offensive. We are faced with a type of big capital that seeks to shield its monopolistic growth at the expense of small and medium capital. To do so, it needs to get rid of the restrictions previously imposed to limit monopolies, inspired by an economic liberalism committed to preserving competition as the primary driver of capitalist development. From this perspective, environmental policies are seen as restrictions imposed on the freedom of capital, a freedom involving an intrinsic contradiction, as complete, unrestricted freedom inevitably leads to the emergence of monopolies that undermine that same freedom.

The most prominent example of this is Peter Thiel, one of the leading US capitalists and the foremost proponent and supporter of neofascism among them. Thiel was one of the most ardent supporters of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and is also known to be the political godfather of Vice President J.D. Vance, the quasi-official spokesperson of neofascist ideology in the Trump administration. Thiel shamelessly declares his preference for monopolies, arguing that they allow for unfettered technological progress through unlimited enrichment, while opposing environmental policies on the grounds that they limit international competition! He shares this view with holders of US monopolies in advanced technologies and their applications in commerce and social media, who supported Trump’s recent campaign and are betting on him to combat the restrictions and taxes that European governments seek to impose on them. Trump has placed this task at the top of his agenda in the trade war that he has declared against the rest of the world.

Translated from the Arabic original published in Al-Quds al-Arabi on the 1st of July 2025. Feel free to republish or publish in other languages, with mention of the source.