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Reinhard Loske indicates the new strategy he believes German greens must follow, now that environment tops the political agenda. Greens cannot allow themselves to be bypassed by the new green prophets such as Gore and Blair, they should shrub off their diffidence for doom and gloom or radical measures such as eco-taxes, detach themselves from the compromises they had to make during their government participation, and fully return to a radical ecological conversion of the industrial society, since this is the only realistic way to go. With soft-boiled ecological solutions we won't get anywhere. Or, to say it with Mark Lynas: "You can't bargain with the planet".^{^[5]}

To put the ecological objectives neat and clean there is an urgent need for a real debate, because it would be a lie to say everyone agrees. Only in this perspective talk about new ecological product politics, new instruments and a new ecological life style can serve any purpose. At the congress of the German greens in Cologne beginning December 2006, the radical ecology program of Loske was adopted. This brought Loske back in the picture. In March 2006 he stepped down as vice-chairman of the parliamentary fraction after a conflict with the former environment minister JürgenTrittin, because he had the feeling that he stood alone in the party with the environment topic. Trittin now quickly jumps on the radical ecology bandwagon and now defends radical measures such as serious Co2-reductions in the short term, a speed limit on the German motorways, toll levy (city Maut) at entering German cities, taxes on air travel.

Another group of German greens rather wants to hitch a ride with the rise of ecological modernism and clamour for more eco-efficiency. The chairman of the fraction of the green group in the Bundestag, Fritz Kuhn, pleads with a number of colleagues for a green market economy.^{^[6]}

A green market creates surplus value. Environmental laws must precede economic growth. If the correct pre-conditions are imposed, the market will generate ecological solutions. It is all a question of making the invisibly hand of the market green.

Germany

should take the lead in eco-investments and can this way developed into a new offensive economy, "a green tiger". That green tiger jumps at us on the cover of the fraction magazine.

Whether the greens will make the difference with the majority with this approach, is far from clear. The new socialist environment minister Sigmar Gabriel tells basically the same tale: "The markets of the future are green; environmental techniques 'made in Germany' ensure new markets, new products, new employment." The minister pleads in his memorandum for "ecological Industrial politics" for a New deal between economy, environment and work. ^{^[7]}

Reinhard Loske precisely cautions against such instrumentation of environmental policy: "Environmental regulations are almost always defended for being contributions to economic revival, as good for exports or for creating new jobs. As if the protection of the conditions of natural life wouldn't be a rightful aim in itself"

Anyway, the climate hype doesn't do the German-speaking green parties any harm. German greens do very nice in the electoral opinion polls: they would be well for 11% of the votes (their last national score was 8%). And Austrian greens obtained a banging victory at the ballot in October. They achieved their best result ever (11%) and won 21 seats in parliament.

In the

Netherlands

'green left' leading woman Femke Halsema went to the elections with the slogan 'Grow along. Long live the EKOnomy'. Talk of the town was a TV-spot featuring Halsema stepping in a flashy (hybrid) car in an attempt to shatter the greens fundamentalist image. The EKOnomy-book of Wijnand Duyvendak offers an overview of new eco-technologies everywhere in the world. Green is eco is hip. To point the accusing finger to people because they drive too much or take the plane, is not his thing. "That green moralising, that reduces everything to individual responsibility, is actually green rightist" he writes in the introduction. Green-left goes in its election programme for a sustainable economic growth. In spite of the trendy campaign of Halsema, green left stagnated at the 'second chamber' elections and she was beaten by the party with the old fashioned left recipes, the SP of Jan Marijnissen. Members of Parliament of the SP, such as Remi Poppe and Krista Van Velzen, stand for the good old style of hard environmental action against asbestos, chlorine - and nuclear transports, gentech, drilling for gas in the Biesbosch, violation of animal rights, and they always make the link with labour problems or health. We don't learn much about eco-innovation in the Sp-programme. THE SP won the elections with brilliance and has now 25 seats in the House of Commons.

On the 2nd of December 2006 the new strategic line of French greens was established at a congress in Bordeaux. The congress was preceded by a number of decentralised pre-congresses. In this first round a motion, signed by 500 militants (on the personal initiative of elected Yves Cochet) with the resounding title: "Urgence Ecolo. Remettre l'Ecologie au coeur des Verts et les Verts au coeur de l'Ecologie", prevailed over a range less powerful motions. A quote: "At the moment the ideas which we have defended as greens since René Dumont^]^[8, are taken over at last in the public opinion and the media, the greens themselves turn their backs on them, as if they were a shameful disease. We will not die if we point out that for years on end we have sounded the alarm bell with good reason... So let's now bravely affirm the ecological programme that characterises us and distinguishes from all other political formations. Let's lay the emphasis on our specific character, so that the sympathy in the public opinion for ecology is also correctly translated into electoral success."

At the plenary congress itself, a synthesis text was presented about ‘the third ecological wave’: after a time of ecological complaints and a time of government participation, it is now the time to change from doom and gloom thinking to formulating solutions. The President of the French greens Yann Wehrling summarised it this way: Only we greens can be sufficiently watchful and condemn each attempt to instrumentalise the ecology in a stealthy or treacherous way. They want to reduce the ecology into a subordinate heading in all party programmes. But our elected members know better: the ecology is sure to engender discord and struggle against a lot of lobbies and the political formations which support them. On the congress the candidacy of erstwhile environmental minister Dominique Voynet for the presidential elections in 2007 was approved. Before that Yves Cochet had already thrown in the towel. But the main challenger for Voynet was not Cochet, but a candidate of outside the party: the well-known television announcer Nicolas Hulot.

Hulot called on all French politicians (and president candidates) to sign his 'Pacte Ecologique'. "The ecological crisis cannot become the stake of an electoral strategy, thus he put, it must on the contrary be a matter of common concern". None of the presidential candidates can claim to have all the solutions for the environmental problems. He who does that anyway, is making a grave mistake and deceives the public opinion as well as his own self. The 10 objectives and five proposals of the pact of Hulot were established by a committee of sages (‘Le committee de Veille écologique’). Already more than 425,000 French have clicked on the platform on the Internet. Point 1 is the appointment of a vice-minister for sustainable development, a point 2 the institution of a carbon tax. Furthermore the emphasis is especially laid on increasing public sensibility to: what can we do ourselves to improve the environment? Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) and Ségolène Royal (PS) already said they want to sign the pact.

The main question on the green congress in Bordeaux was whether or not to back Hulot's candidacy instead of proposing their own green candidate. Eventually an autonomous green strategy was preferred. The congress attendants’ conclusion was that programme makers and politicians have each their own responsibility. Voynet pleaded in her final speech for a total ecological revolution. "we won't save the earth closing the tap in time after brushing our teeth or with a simple click of the mouse on the ecological pact", she sneered. The real battle still has to start. A recent survey clearly indicates that 25% of the French consider Dominique Voynet as a most credible candidate for conservation of the environment. But just as many potential voters mention Ségolène Royal.^{^[9]}

And also Sarkozy can not be underestimated: he already called on all candidates to use only recycled paper during the campaign. He organised a meeting with Al Gore and wants everyone who cares to listen, to know that green politics are too important to leave to green parties.

Tony Blair already started on his own green climate crusade some years ago. He likes to unpack the climate topic on international forums. In 2005, when the British presided, he put the climate problems on the agenda of G8 and the EU. Just like Al Gore, Blair enjoys talking about the climate abroad. It also came quite handy to divert attention from his

Iraq

policy. The Stern report (October. 2006) about the economic impact of the climate change fits perfectly in this strategy. The British premier keeps wrestling with the American no to Kyoto. No wonder then that he often blows warm and cold at the same time. No surprise that it was on the ‘Clinton Global Initiative conference’ in New York (15/9/2005) where he said: “that absolutely no country is going to reduce growth or consumption or will sacrifice its economy to reach overall environmental objectives”. He found that new stimuli have to be found because "nobody after 2012 is waiting for a new big treaty like Kyoto".

In the internal policy Tony Blair played out the climate topic in his campaigns of 1997, 2001 and 2005. The

United Kingdom

would go for an ambitious policy and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases with 20% compared to 1990 by 2010. When it became clear in 2004 that the first British climate programme of 2000 wouldn't do, Minister for the environment Margaret Becket announced a massive ‘Climate Change Programme Review’. But the new action plan presented in March 2006 was disappointing. Blair dropped his long cherished reduction objective for 2010. The WWF reacted that the premier is hardly interested in the internal implementation of Kyoto.

But the British environmental movement got tired of waiting for new reports and plans. In 2005, they launched a massive petition action (‘The Great Ask’) to get a 'Climate Change Bill' voted in Westminster. Radiohead singer Thom Yorke became the campaign figurehead. Concrete objectives had to be included in the climate law, e.g. each year 3% less CO2 expulsion in order to obtain an effective reduction with 60% in 2050. A successful manifestation of the environmental movement on Trafalgar Square with a melting ice statue of Blair, as well as the collection of 400 signatures of parliamentarians, led to an announcement by the queen in her throne declaration that there actually would come a climate law. "With interim objectives and not with obligations on a yearly basis", Blair clarified, which was another way of toppling the initiative from the outset, because the whole campaign was precisely build around these 'annual targets'. The environmental movement could only welcome the law, but continued to insist on a commitment per year.

The green party reacted a lot more sharply and called the announced law ‘a toothless law’. British greens defend a very radical climate law: with annual objectives, 6% reductions instead of the 3% Friends of the Earth asked for and 90% reductions of co2-expulsion against 2050. 'The Real Choice for Real Change' it says on the cover of their climate programme. The Greens are doing reasonably well in the polls (getting over 5%), but they get more and more competition now from the conservatives who also have discovered the environmental topic. The conservative shade minister for the environment Peter Ainsworth submitted his own full fledged climate plan. The leader of the conservatives, David Cameron, met Al Gore and now preaches the 'green revolution': "some green lobbyists and the media act as if one has to choose between economic growth and sustainable development. Truth is that we need both. We need green growth. The planet must come first now, then only politics,” Cameron stated. When Labour’s new man, Gordon Brown, announced an important speech on the climate, Cameron promptly travelled to Spitzbergen in

Norway

with people of the WWF to outdo his rival. He posed smilingly with a sledge dog during his so called climate inspection travel. "Vote Blue, Go green", was Browns scornful reaction. But the evil had happened. And the question remains: who will profit most from the climate hype?

A successful idea has many fathers. The good news is that green is experiencing a boost after a period of bashing the environment(alists) . On the downside many try to wangle the green topics and to remove their sting in the process.

In itself this evolution is not negative. It is particularly good news that established policy makers and parties are obliged to take over green ideas and to even translate them in policy actions, just as it is hopeful when large companies come with green products and green mission declarations.

Green parties are and remain necessary to keep stimulating the democratic debate about the objectives and especially the necessary structural changes. As long as there remain real ecologists keeping the eye on the end of the way, there's reason to rejoice for each step taken in the good direction.

^{^[1]} Oekom Verlag, Politische Ökologie, nr. 94, thematic issue “Nachhaltiges Konsumieren & Produzieren, Tita von Hardenberg, Von Okos, Yuppies und Bobos, 2005

GREEN PARTIES IN TIMES OF ECO-HYPE part 1

GREEN PARTIES IN TIMES OF ECO-HYPE

By Johan Malcorps

Global warming: the proof is all around us

In august 2005 hurricane Katrina killed at least 1800 people in New Orleans and surroundings (i.e. approximately 2/3 of the number of victims of the WTC-attacks). New Orleans was inundated, had to be evacuated, was plundered. 25,000 people were stuck for days in the Super Dome. Chaos and desperation reigned. The psychological shock in the US was tremendous. The link with the climate change was quickly made. Bush came under fire, especially because New Orleans was insufficiently protected and because the soldiers who should have been ready to aid, were supposedly tied up in Iraq. But for the first time Bush no longer got away with his boastful anti-environmental policy.

Katrina was the most spectacular of a series of natural disasters that are more and more often attributed to climate change. And it wasn’t even the most terrible one: in 2005 hurricane Stan cost more than 2000 victims in Central America, but it was covered a lot less by the press. Continuous high temperatures and exceptional weather do the rest: even the man and woman on the street realise something fishy is going on. Add to that an impressive range of environmental and climate reports, such as the millennium environmental report of the UN, the climate report of the world meteorological organisation and especially the important report of Nicholas Stern, ex-vice chairman of the World Bank, which calculated the costs of the non-implementation of a climate policy at no less than 50,000 billion dollar: a new milestone in the ecological history, after the report to the club of Rome (1972) and the Brundlandt report (1987).

The time of doom scenarios is behind us. The movie 'The Day after Tomorrow' (2004) concluded a long file of forecasts for calamity . Reality is catching up with fictions nowadays. Where just recently, dismissing the climate problem as inflated hysteria, and going along with negationists such as Lomborg and Kroonenberg, was 'bon ton' in certain US circles, especially amongst the neo-cons, the atmosphere has drastically u-turned in a very short time. In April 2006 the cover of Time-magazine shouts out: "Be worried, be very worried!", over a polar bear on a crumbling floe - "Global warming is happening and the proof is all around us" was yet another title. The climate-hype was born.

Al Gore for president

The success of Gore's movie, "An inconvenient Truth" didn't come out of the blue. The climate topic was already getting a serious boost: facts speak for themselves. With his slideshow cum film cum new book, Gore wasn't a complete newcomer either. In 1991, his first eco-bestseller 'Earth in the Balance. Ecology and the Human spirit' appeared... exactly one year before the presidential campaign in which he was chosen as vice-president. The subtitle is not unimportant here, 'Ecology and the Human spirit': Gore courted the support of Christian middle groups, his eco-message was and is aimed very much at the individual: change your own live to save the climate.

In his years as a vice-president Gore could hardly be called a radical environmental politician. Clinton and he bowed a number of times deeply to business: thousands of acres of forests were sacrificed under pressure of the industry; a proposal to prohibit carcinogenic pesticides in food (the Delaney-clause) was abandoned. And in spite of his nickname 'Ozone Man', Gore made one compromise after the other, allowing the further use of the notorious ozone destroying methyl bromide. By the approval of NAFTA (economic union of the US - Mexico) the whole American environmental legislation came under a lot of pressure from the much lower Mexican standards. But especially in the field of climate policy Gore didn't deliver. He signed the Kyoto-protocol, but with heavy reservations: "we will not submit the protocol for ratification to the Senate without the meaningful participation of key developing countries in efforts to address climate change" he said in Kyoto. And indeed, Clinton and Gore never even brought the treaty up for voting. The current Bush administration gratefully stuck to their point of view. Al Gore is the personification of a soft ecological policy: individual steps, market-conforming measures, with a wink to companies and capital. Clinton's one-liner: "The invisible hand has a green thumb" was his own way of summarizing his eco policy.

Now two years before the new presidential campaign, Gore comes with a new eco-campaign. After the showing of the film his partisans are getting a brief on his personal Internet site on how best to campaign The paraphernalia for the campaign are already available in all possible formats . The eco-hype around Gore is being orchestrated, so much is clear.

From Eco-hype to Eco-chic

In April 2006 the authoritative vogue illustrated magazine Vanity Fair brought a green issue, with on the cover the democrats Al Gore and Robert Kennedy, but also Julia Roberts and George Clooney, in fairy natural surroundings and flashily dressed in greens.

This is no coincidence either. It indicates that green has become 'in' on very short notice. It gets even better: 'green gets a glint of stardom, is sexy, has even become chic. Which dovetails with a new trend in the life style of modern yuppies and bobo’s: eco and bio are trendy: health food, veggie, ‘organic (fast) food’ and consequently also eco-clothing, eco-gimmicks, eco-travels and even eco-weddings. You can reduce your ecological foot print by offsetting environmental indulgences: have some trees planted as a penitence for environmental sins. It 's always eco without obligation, eco without the warning finger, 'patchwork-eco' instead of 'full fledged eco'.^{^[1]} Certainly not back to the ewe wool socks. The evolution of the body shop chain is characteristic: the original message of environment or fair trade was stripped of ideology, hollowed out to pure eco-branding, green marketing.

Green crusade or Greenwashing?

The large American hypermarket chain Wal-Mart announced a green crusade: less wrapping, durable products, saving energy. The company owns already 3500 mega-supermarkets and would like to double this number. But no worries: for each extra hectare of space they take, an extra hectare of forest is planted. Wal-Mart top man H. Lee Scott Junior. was laurelled in Fortune magazine as the man who will save the planet. And guess who was invited to instruct all Wall Mart cadres: Al Gore.

In the US debate raged about Wal Mart's green strategy. The measures taken are real, they have a genuine impact on the environment and contribute to a greening of the economy (also subcontractors such as Procter & Gamble are pressurised by Wal-Mart). On the other hand, there is no brake on the company's expansion. So aren't they just green-washing environmentally damaging practices this way, furthering traditional economic growth which continues to destroy the planet?

The Eco-magazine the 'The green life ' places Ford Motor Company and BP 1 and 2 in a top 10 of the worst 'green-washers' in the US. Ford sports a green image too (the greening of the blue oval), widely advertising in the media with an hybrid model and the green modernisation of it's first company site River rouge. But in reality Ford sells only 0.5% environment-friendly cars and most of the cars produced under the immense green roof of River rouge are heavy polluters. The second example is British petroleum (BP) that dresses up in green, even restyling it's name to 'Beyond petroleum', placing some solar cells here and there, but meanwhile intensifying its oil production. Truth is that BP exhumes 1.3 billion tons CO2 with its oil products, and saves 0.5 millions CO2 by means of solar projects.

Green-wash practices often cause disruption in the environmental movement: environmental organisations gladly grant their emblem to companies that take positive steps towards a better environment, but are then reproached to cooperate in green-wash practices. In Flanders we know for example the Electrabel fund sponsoring several environmental projects, whereas electricity producer Electrabel gets particularly bad points from the environmental movement in the ranking of producers. Precisely because green is hip, it is gladly taken in and recuperated^{^[2]} and this way made harmless. Everyone is for green, everyone is occupied with it. The debate about ecological objectives or real ecological reconverting of companies or sectors is suffocated. Window dressing operations are considered as in depth green.

Green parties in times of eco-hype

Are green parties getting rich while sleeping, now climate conscience is suddenly all over the place, now the environment became instantly hip again and, to the great surprise of the environmental boys themselves, ecology came back in vogue? Not necessarily.

The environmental problems are too important to leave them to green parties, is the new tune. A most perfide way of bashing them. It is said by politicians who never cared for the environment and only now come up with some greenish rhetoric. But it is also introduced by politicians who do carry out a real beginning of green policy, but then choose for a soft reformist treatment. It is finally also said by opinion makers who all of a sudden want to place the environmental topic above every political debate. The climate is too important to leave it to politicians, so it sounds with them.

In all three cases, the fact is overlooked that, if ecology is the challenge of the 21ste century, more political debate is needed about objectives and choices. For it is not because there's finally growing agreement about the problem, that there would be unanimity about the solutions. Far from it.

The Container group of "sustainable development" lends itself particularly well for such de-ideologising and political recuperation of the topics of the green struggle: ‘sustainable development’ is unwittingly equalled to ‘sustainable growth’. A policy of ecological modernisation: ecologically correcting economic growth, without questioning the growth itself. This way everyone can draw the card of sustainable development, which itself becomes a woolly consensus term that massages away every conflict of interests, let alone real political struggle. SD, environment and climate then become a technical matter, a question of good governance and our tipped good governors are of course most able to tackle this type of problems.

America: Bush - Schwarzenegger: the fight for "common sense greenness"

The champion of political green-washing of anti environmental policies is undoubtedly George Bush himself. He feels the hot breath of the green movement in the neck. Certainly after the recent democratic election successes and since it looks like climate indeed is becoming a voting issue. The bill of republican John Mc Cain and democrat Joseph Lieberman to apply Kyoto, scares the hell out of the American industry. "America is addicted to oil", this May it suddenly came out of the mouth of Bush, THE straw man of oil multinationals. The president goes for energy saving, bio oil and he wants to massively invest in a hydrogen economy. Even windmills are no longer taboo. But there's more: the president denies that he has no attention for the environment: he is in a judicious manner occupied with environmental matters, he goes for new techniques and he lays the emphasis on everybody's personal responsibility.

"The focus is on results - making our air, water, and land cleaner. We need to employ the best science and data to inform our decision-making. Our policies should encourage innovation and the development of new, cleaner technologies. We should continue to build on America's ethic of stewardship and personal responsibility through education and volunteer opportunities, and in our daily lives", thus the new green Bush.^{^[3]}

More persuasive is the attention for more environment and climate of the conservative governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, (he never played ‘the Hulk’, but turned somehow into ‘the green gubernator’). You can no longer say it's only green window dressing of an anti-ecological policy. Evidently some real initiatives are taken, but these are also always system confirming. In fact the main points have been formulated the same way as with Bush: a common sense judicious hands-on tackling of things, with emphasis on eco-efficiency, and calling on the individual responsibility.

Meanwhile Schwarzenegger asserts himself more and more as the ecological mirror picture of Bush at the Republican Party forum He put a law to vote that should result in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases in 2020 to the level of 1990. He gives support for the installation of sun roofs and low-energy houses in California. His proposal to strictly regulate Co2-emissions of cars, was whistled back by Bush himself, because it would be no state competence. The question is now pending before the high Court of Justice. Schwarzenegger doesn’t want to yield: "We won't continue to allow Washington to tell us if we can be healthy or get cancer. We don't want people to become sick of air pollution". Schwarzenegger positions himself as a judicious republican and a judicious green: he is “no trees freak, no crazy fellow living on the moon, talking to spirits and all that kind of holistic nonsense”.

All this cannot dishearten the Californian greens though. They specifically fight Schwarzenegger's asocial programme and demand clearer climate commitments: a real conversion of Kyoto, Co2-reductions in a shorter time span, a stop to deforestation, an environmental fund financed by the larger polluters. 2006 Was a good year for the Californian greens. In spite of all the ecological onslaught of the ‘green gubernator’, they did well at the elections. They even gained some 50 local mandates and a mayor in the city of Richmond.

For most of the US, the green party seems to thrive on the new attention for environment and climate. Apart from that, their commitment, together with the trade unions, for social topics also buys them a lot of support and so does their fight for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. If the democrats loudly sound the drums announcing strong actions (like the 'impeachment of Bush because of human rights violations', that democrat Nancy Pelosi was proposing), it’s eventually the American greens who score. The green party raises itself to become the third largest party in the US with 305,000 registered voters in the states where voter recording is permitted, and thousands of partisans in the other states.

(find all footnotes at the end of second part)

See previous entry for part 2: Green strategy discussion in Europe

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part2 of Green parties in times of Ecohype

GREEN PARTIES IN TIMES OF ECO-HYPE part 1

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