The Politics of Climate Change: A Discussion with István Bart

Written by Maria Stambler

Photo credits: KLÍMA POLITIKA

A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of sitting down with István Bart, a climate policy professional at Klíma Politika with over 15 years of experience on a global, European and national level. Climate change is virtually on every government’s agenda in our day and age and since we live in Hungary, we wanted to find out what the Orbán government’s stance on climate change is. This is what we discovered.

To be effective in the fight against climate change, nations need to work together to come up with good policies. However, the rise of populism across Europe – and indeed the world – could potentially hinder progress towards such policies if nations become more isolationist.

“Conservative parties tend to be more in favor of exploiting natural resources and this is happening also in Hungary. There are countless examples of this low level assault on nature in Hungary, starting from taking away funding for natural parks, eliminating nature reserves, cutting down trees, etc. So there are enough examples to conclude that when there is a doubt whether to support the environment or business interest, Orbán’s government will usually go for the latter,” István explains.

Hungary’s economy gets a significant part of its income from foreign businesses setting up factories here because labor costs are lower than in Western Europe, and when a new factory needs to be constructed, nature concerns are seldom the priority. Several examples include nature reserves close to Győr and Dunakeszi that were given up to developments.

“This government that we have in Hungary now is not very pro-environment and this is, in a way, due to the fact it is a government of, by, and for the oligarchs. Therefore, there is a lot of business interest living in a symbiosis with this government,” István goes on. The government is not the only one to blame, as there is also apathy on the part of the voters. According to István, the average Fidesz voter lives in a rural area, is over 50 and has an education level of no more than eight years of primary school. For these people, the vision of nature is not the same as for us city folk enrolled at a prestigious university might have. While we see it is as something that needs to be protected, for them it’s not such a big issue.

Although the Orbán government is not environmentally-minded domestically, when it comes to the issue of global warming it does not exhibit the typical skepticism that some conservative governments tend to do.

“The Orbán government’s position on global climate change is that it supports the fight – as long as it doesn’t cost anything. Whenever it’s free, they take it. Our President is very vocal on supporting climate action and that, undoubtedly, is a great thing because that’s not really part of his job description. So whatever he’s doing is really above and beyond the call of duty. Orbán himself is never publicly opposing climate change, there is no climate change skepticism in this country which is a good thing because being a conservative, you could easily picture him as a skeptic,” István explains.

Fidesz normally goes along with the EU climate policy. For example, Hungary gives more international pledges than Poland – in absolute and per capita terms. Hungary is also quite active in international climate finance and is usually quick to implement environmental legislation put forward by the EU. However, István cautions against taking all this at face value because Hungary is helped by the fact that its EU climate targets are very weak, so the EU does not ask too much from Hungary. The Hungarian economy hasn’t grown all that much in the last few years, meaning emissions are actually below the target without undertaking any meaningful action.

“Hungary’s actually spending a lot of the EU’s money on fighting climate change. But it’s also telling that at the same time, whenever there’s any other political and/or business priority, Hungary will go for that. Last November the Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, took part in a discussion in Munich on new greenhouse gas targets for cars for 2030, and this is a major thing for the German car makers, of course they don’t want very tight targets. At this discussion, Szijjártó made it clear that Hungary would oppose any kind of tightening of the vehicle CO2 emissions targets because for Hungary the most important thing is the German automobile industry. No consideration was given to any climate impacts that might occur because of that. To sum it up, Hungary wholeheartedly supports climate as long as it’s for “free,” István concludes.