Is destroying the planet a vote winner?
As numerous countries head to the polls this year, we ask whether anti-climate rhetoric is an election winning tactic.
Long term climate policy has long been at odds with short-term politics. As numerous countries head to the polls this year, we visit Brazil, Australia and the United States and see how climate policy is being used as a political tool to divide voters.
During recent the elections in Australia – a country with some of the world’s highest emissions per capita – experts believe that experiencing the effects of climate change first hand brought the need for action up the agenda, leading to the unseating of the climate sceptic Liberal National Coalition. We hear from a follower of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who believes that the country’s own deforestation figures are fake. Meanwhile, in the US, we look at how the Republican party’s position changed from the 2008 presidential elections from proposing climate policies to denying that man-made climate change is real.
Kate Lamble and Neal Razzell are joined by:
Kate Walton, political journalist based in Canberra, Australia
Kathy Hochstetler, Professor of International Development at the London School of Economics, UK
Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Program for Climate Change Communication at Yale University, USA
Reporter: Roberta Fortuna
Researcher: Immie Rhodes
Producer: Dearbhail Starr
Series Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Sound Mixer: Tom Brignell
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Broadcasts
- Mon 6 Jun 2022 01:32GMT³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service
- Mon 6 Jun 2022 08:06GMT³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service
- Mon 6 Jun 2022 12:32GMT³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service East and Southern Africa, South Asia, West and Central Africa & East Asia only
Podcast
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The Climate Question
Why we find it so hard to save our own planet, and how we might change that.