The fall of Green Parties: Was 'voting Green' a failed trend?

Photo Courtesy: Michael Brandtner (via Wikimedia Commons)

With the climate crisis at the forefront of political debate and sensational headlines about our planet’s impending doom ever present in the media, you would assume that Green Parties would be celebrating landslide election victories across the globe. So, why then, has the desperation to save our rapidly deteriorating planet not catapulted them into office in landslide victories across the globe?

Futile are the attempts of the Greens to gain a foothold in the UK parliament, attributed to a voting system that prejudices voters against smaller parties. Whilst their policies on the environment may be preferable to that of the Labour party, opting to vote for them has the same impact as choosing to shred your ballot paper. The sole seat that they retained after the 2019 General Election is a depressing testament to the impact of First Past the Post. With their vote share of 2.7% not concentrated in specific constituencies, worthless is their pursuit of seats in the House of Commons.

Whilst widespread recognition of a climate emergency has not translated into electoral success in the UK, the German Federal Elections tell a different story, with Die Grünen becoming the third largest party in the Bundestag in 2021. Their 118 seats, 51 more than in the previous election, allowed them to play a vital part in the formation of a liberal-left coalition headed by the SDP. However, even in the context of such overwhelming electoral success, the implementation of impactful legislation has been continually blocked by vested interests within government and a media storm. Calls for the resignation of the vice-chancellor and a negative turn in the opinion polls is not, therefore, the product of an unjust voting system, but the dependence of right-wing politics on the preservation of the industries that Green Parties are intending to obstruct.

The insistence that climate change can be reversed without a complete restructuring of our fossil fuel dependent societies is a product of this dependency, generating a widespread public disinterest in transformational climate policies that dooms Green Parties. The election results in Luxembourg exemplify the fall that is unavoidable should this disinterest endure, with the collapse of the three-party coalition mostly attributed to the losses sustained by the Green Party, losing five of the seats that they previously held in the Chamber of Deputies.

Similarly, in Switzerland, having emerged in 2019 as the fourth largest party in the National Council, their losses in the 2023 election speak to an interest in climate change that is fleeting in the face of populist rhetoric. The far-right SVP succeeded in portraying the imminent threat to Swiss society as ‘illegal’ immigration and, in doing so, deflected attention away from the irreversible damage that continues to be wrought upon the planet.

Salvaging the remains of a movement that has been reduced to vandalism and blocking roads seems inconceivable within a political landscape that is hostile to change and outraged by nonconformity, in which protests are dismissed as a mere ‘annoyance’ and policies as moderate as the extension of ULEZ face public outcry. However, when considering the reversal of climate change within societies built around consumerism, we have to recognise that paper straws and food waste bins are simply not going to cut it. Without a restructuring of our entire system of thought, Green Parties will forever be consigned to the peripheries of politics, and the promise of an idyllic ‘net zero’ society will remain a faraway utopia.