Why the 'climate' card doesn't work anymore
And what's replaced it
“In the last 15 years, the EU green deal (the plan to remake the economy centring around being ‘green’) went from marginal → mainstream → dead”
Aurélie went on “it’s probably a bit naive in today’s political context to try and argue for climate action with just the argument of climate.”
I hadn’t heard someone put it like that.
For context, Aurélie Maréchal is the director of the EU policy advocacy group Positive Money.
She’s worked inside EU institutions for 15yrs and has seen this whole trajectory.
Aurélie came on the Climate Unf*cked Podcast this week, and this part stuck with me the most.
“And it has been replaced 100 % by, what I call, the Holy Trinity of competitiveness, security/sovereignty and simplification.“
Take energy. In 2026, the argument with the most legs is probably ‘solar + batteries gives you complete independence and freedom instead of depending on other countries to trade nicely.
Positive Money have been adapting to this themselves.
They’ve made alliances with people they might not have partnered with before. Like a solar business who can make the argument that the country will be more competitive, have more sovereignty and simplify their energy supply.
Those arguments appeal to people on both sides of the political divide - something that’s increasingly important as more conservative parties generally don’t favour climate action.
You can watch the segment about this from 24 mins into the episode
🟢 YouTube
🟢 Spotify
Last, I hope the heatwave wasn’t too intense for you. I found it a strange mix of ‘god it’s too hot’ / ‘wow some sun is lovely’ / ‘why is nobody talking about this being the impact of climate change’!
Have a fab weekend,
Rob
P.S. Not a climate thing (although billionaire influence definitely does affect it), but watched this great video about corruption that I thought explained it very well