Why COP31 may be the EU’s last great climate hurrah

 

Why COP31 may be the EU’s last great climate hurrah

 

A populist surge in elections next year threatens to undermine diplomatic efforts.

Vapor rises from the cooling towers of a coal-fired power station Niederaussem, Germany on November 9, 2026. | Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

 

This article is also available in: French

November 8, 2026 7:00 pm CET

By Zia Weise

https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-election-gains-threaten-eu-climate-policy-cop31/

 

BRUSSELS — A possible string of far-right election victories next year could derail efforts to boost the European Union’s standing in international climate talks.

An EU plan to wield more influence over the annual United Nations climate conferences will be put to the test from Monday, when this year’s COP31 conference begins in the Turkish city of Antalya.

The bloc hopes to build up negotiating clout in time for the pivotal summit in 2028, when countries will face off over measures to step up global pollution-slashing efforts.

But there’s a risk that the EU’s unity on international climate issues will crumble before next year’s COP32 rolls around. 

Over the next 12 months, four of the bloc’s five largest countries — France, Spain, Italy and Poland — will hold closely contested elections where far-right and populist parties are expected to score high. Politicians from those camps made their disdain for the U.N. climate process plain in a European Parliament debate last month. 

“This COP will be a failure, like the previous ones,” said Marie-Luce Brasier-Clain, a lawmaker for the far-right party National Rally, whose candidate Marine Le Pen is the front-runner in France’s presidential election. 

A sign is seen near the entrance of the Antalya Expo venue, where COP31 will take place, on Sept. 30, 2026. | Goksel Yapar/AFP via Getty Images

“It's because you're pursuing an ideological agenda that cannot be implemented, on the basis of the Paris accords, without there being mass deindustrialization and social upheaval,” she told EU officials present at the debate. 

“Summit after summit, we see leaders taking private jets in order to explain that this big environmental problem is actually caused by tractors, that's what they tell the farmers,” said Mireia Borrás Pabón, a lawmaker from Spain’s far-right Vox, which hopes to enter a coalition with conservatives after the country’s November election. 

“Their priority, it seems, would be to eliminate fossil fuels… What does that mean? It means everything is more expensive,” she claimed. "Who do you think the COP really serves? Because it’s clear it’s not Europeans."

Far-right and right-wing MEPs from Poland, Germany and Austria echoed their views. At home, those parties are campaigning to slash national and EU measures to reduce emissions and scale back development aid, including for climate action abroad — changes that would undermine the bloc’s sway at COPs just as it seeks to solidify its leadership position. 

Centrist politicians see the risk, but they haven’t given up hope. 

“We have been seeing the United States turning the back on the fight for climate change and also climate science, and I could be worried that we also will see other countries also within the European Union take the same path,” Danish Climate Minister Samira Nawa told POLITICO. But the victory of many pro-climate Democrats in the U.S. midterms might signal a shift, she added. “Hopefully we can see the same within Europe.” 

Strategic shift 

EU governments vowed to step up their diplomatic efforts after they were left isolated at last year’s COP30 in Brazil. Ministers met several times earlier this year to discuss how the EU could improve its conference preparations, as well as its messaging. 

“There's been a lot of work during the past year, both during the Cyprus presidency [of the Council of the EU] and now during the Irish presidency to ensure that we become even better prepared,” said Mattias Frumerie, Sweden’s climate ambassador. 

The outcome was a tighter negotiating stance, a decision to cluster all country pavilions in the conference event space into a single “EU village” to project greater influence and a first-ever joint communications strategy for COP31 to speak with one voice. 

“COP31 will be a contest of narratives as much as a negotiation,” reads the strategy, seen by POLITICO. The EU should position itself as “constructive, not confrontational… confident, not triumphalist… listening, not lecturing… forward-looking, not defensive… multilateral, not transactional… relatable and accessible.” 

The EU and its governments have also sought to build alliances and increase their outreach ahead of COP31, diplomats say. 

The idea is to treat the annual negotiations as a long game, looking ahead at what’s known as the second Global Stocktake (GST2) in 2028 — an exercise to assess progress toward the Paris Agreement's goals and course-correct where necessary. The first such stocktake in 2023 resulted in a landmark agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.

The Danish Alternative Party climate change-themed election posters outside Christiansborg Palace on Oct. 22, 2022. | James Brooks/AFP via Getty Images

“The intent… is to start looking at a multi-annual approach to how COP is done by the EU, start looking towards GST2 and try to see the longer-term program that we have,” a senior European climate negotiator said. 

Political and economic trends across the EU, however, risk undermining those efforts. 

“We’re seeing it partly already … just from the conversations we’ve had in the past couple of months, which have been quite public as well, that some member states sense that the policies that we put in place to drive the transition are becoming too costly for their companies,” Frumerie said. 

Price pressures and the rise of the far right are pushing many governments toward a more cautious stance on climate policy. 

Shrinking fiscal space is also pushing many European countries to cut back on overseas aid, putting their contributions to the global climate finance goal agreed at COP29 at risk. Funding from developed countries for developing nations is a core principle of fairness in the U.N. talks, and frustrations over looming shortfalls tend to obstruct agreement on the kind of ambitious climate action demanded by the EU. 

A string of far-right victories over the coming year could supercharge those shifts. 

Ballot bonanza 

The first major election takes place just after COP31 wraps, on Nov. 29 in Spain. The conservative People’s Party, leading the polls, is in talks to enter a coalition with the far-right Vox to replace a Socialist government that has overseen a surge in renewable energy deployment and pushed for ambitious climate action at the EU level. 

Vox has called for a widespread rollback of the European Green Deal and in a 2025 policy program demanded Spain’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement while supporting a “disengagement” from COP decisions. While the People’s Party hasn’t adopted such strong positions, it has teamed up with the far right to block climate action in the past, for example in a failed bid to veto the EU’s new 2040 emissions-cutting goal. 

Next up is France, which will hold a presidential election in April and May next year. 

Le Pen, who leads the polls by a large margin, recently pledged to “achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and comply with the Paris Agreement” in a speech aimed at reassuring financial markets about her candidacy. She has also sought to distance herself from her far-right party’s history of climate denialism. 

But her party wants to axe €2.1 billion in development aid, including climate finance, and repeal a law that bans drilling for new oil and gas reserves on French soil — a move at odds with international commitments to cut back on fossil fuels. It also wants to impose a moratorium on new solar and wind farms, betting mostly on nuclear energy. 

“We need to build strategic [oil and gas] reserves and secure supplies while we wait for the electrification of energy use,” National Rally lawmaker Alexandre Loubet told POLITICO. “There is natural gas in my constituency, but the government refuses to exploit it.”

A demonstrator holds a large sign during a procession in Paris on Oct. 31, 2026. | Laurent Caron/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

After the summer, Poland will head to the polls, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-right coalition trying to fight off the nationalist Law and Justice Party. 

Under Tusk, Poland has invested in accelerating its switch away from coal and stepped up its involvement in COPs — in Antalya, as last year, its minister has been asked by the conference hosts to co-lead global talks on ensuring a fair energy transition. Meanwhile, the PiS fiercely campaigns against core EU climate policies and wants to retain the country’s coal generation. It has cast the bloc as misguided and isolated on the global stage. 

“We are negotiating with the whole world [at COP31], so we need to answer a couple of questions. Why are we alone as the European Union? Why won't the world contribute to the implementation of those ambitions?” said PiS lawmaker Anna Zalewska at the European Parliament debate. 

Finally, Italy will vote before the end of the year. Right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is aiming for a second term, has used her COP appearances to condemn “environmental radicalism” and has sought to weaken core EU climate policies, but has remained broadly supportive of diplomatic efforts. 

“Depending on the outcome of the elections, it doesn't make the situation for and within the EU easier,” Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist who advises the bloc on climate policy, told reporters in a pre-COP press conference. 

Still, Denmark’s Nawa expressed hope that any party winning elections in Europe would try to “make a secure life for people all around the world but also within the European Union.” 

“No matter what government, no matter what politicians are in power,” she said, “we have to solve these crises.” 

Nicolas Camut contributed reporting from Paris.