Presentation short abstract

The paper discusses the construction of a parallel environmentalism under the era of (semi-)authoriatarianism in Hungary, through examining its think tank on climate policy, the primary aim of which is to align with the government's national(ist) rhetorics and political interests.

Presentation long abstract

Environmentalism has not been a priority issue in Hungary under the Christian-conservative Fidesz government after 2010, often described as an authoritarian (Antal 2019; Rupnik 2022) or penal populist turn (Boda 2022). Legislative and institutional changes have significantly curtailed the involvement of civil society and environmental experts in decision-making and policy (Gerő et al. 2023). Alongside hostile rhetoric toward civil society, the government dismantled key institutions such as the independent Ministry of Environment and the Ombudsman for Future Generations, while discontinuing support for alternative energy initiatives.

While weakening traditional environmental governance, the government has sought to construct its own, parallel environmentalism. This includes establishing politically loyal, or at least non-confrontational organizations and creating a climate policy think tank—the MCC Climate Policy Institute. At this institute, political loyalty and pragmatic ideology prevail over professionalism; research processes lack transparency, and the influence of its work on government climate policy remains unclear.

This paper examines the government’s strategy of building a parallel environmentalism through an analysis of the Climate Policy Institute, its knowledge production, and the values it promotes—where Hungarian national(ist) interests consistently take precedence. The central question is: How does a (semi-)authoritarian state construct environmental narratives that address climate and sustainability while aligning with governmental and political interests? The study draws on discourse and document analysis conducted between 2023 and 2025.

Presentation short abstract

This paper explores the role of eco-emotions in far-right discourses of environmental and reproductive futures in the United Kingdom, through analysing media and materials produced by far-right, fascist, and ‘anti gender’ groups, policy documents and mainstream media.

Presentation long abstract

This paper explores the role of eco-emotions in far-right discourses of environmental and reproductive futures in the United Kingdom. It is vital to begin to understand how eco-emotions – a central concern in contemporary climate activism - can be weaponised for reactionary means, in a context of growing authoritarianism. The paper analyses media and materials produced by far-right, fascist and ‘anti gender’ groups, policy documents and mainstream media. It understands the borders between the extreme and the mainstream as permeable and contigent (Mondon and Winter, 2020) and is attentive to the relationship between far-right discourses of replacement, overpopulation, degradation, scarcity and the emergence of xenophobic, nationalist and populationist policy proposals. Contemporary research on eco-emotions and climate activism has focused on fear, anxiety and grief (Pinkhala, 2022). However, political orientation cannot be taken for granted, as Bhatia and Hendrixson’s research on ecofascist solastalgia and the interconnection of eco and demographic anxiety in the US demonstrates (2025). This paper builds on Menrisky’s notion of everyday ecofascism as ‘intimately connected with narratives of ecological belonging,’ which is ‘mapped onto discourses of territory and race’ (2025: 24) to examine how different emotions – anxiety, fear, shame, hate, even love (Beyer and Weisskircher, 2024) – are mobilised in relation to far-right discourses on reproductive and environmental futures, which work to normalise racist state violence, legitimise practices of eco-bordering (Turner and Bailey, 2022; Benoist et al, 2024) and populationist interventions that seek to control the mobility and reproduction of global majority women (Iossifidis, 2026).

Presentation short abstract

The paper proposes the concept of hydrosocial nationhood to illuminate the emerging hydraulic imagination of the contemporary far-right, with a focus on water conflicts in Spain.

Presentation long abstract

In November 2024, as deadly floods swept through Valencian towns, VOX blamed not the climate or infrastructural decay but 'ideological mismanagement' by Madrid and Brussels environmental agendas. In drought-stricken Andalusia, they pointed to the same environmental 'elites' for 'abandoning' the construction of dams in the name of ecological restoration. Indeed, in the past few years, water has become an key political battleground for the far-right in Spain. This paper looks at how these parties use conflicts around water to manifest their co-extensive imaginaries of nationhood and ecological order. Building on the hydrosocial cycle literature (Swyngedouw 2004; Boelens et al. 2016) and more recent work on the ideological use of nature under authoritarian discourses (Gorostiza and Del Arco 2022), the paper aims to draw out the emerging hydraulic imagination of the contemporary far-right. The paper focuses on VOX and relies on the analysis of press, party materials, parliamentary debates, and social media. We ask: How do far-right actors produce knowledge and narratives about water systems? What kinds of infrastructures and governance arrangements do they advocate for in the midst of water conflicts? What are the (potential) ecological and democratic consequences of these imaginaries? While past political ecologies have shown how water infrastructures reflect and reproduce power relations, this paper contributes a novel angle by focusing on how the far right discursively reclaims hydraulic modernity and territorial sovereignty as part of an anti-ecologist, populist agenda

Presentation short abstract

From the ‘Freedom’ Convoy’s truck occupation to the European farmers’ tractor blockades, use of the internal combustion engine as a tactic of carbon populist protest has gone viral. We examine the class composition of these two protest cycles and the far-right conspiracy theories fuelling them.

Presentation long abstract

In 2022, the use of trucks and tractors as a tactic of carbon populist protest became increasingly evident as a hallmark of the conjuncture. In the early part of that year, hundreds of trucks occupied large swathes of downtown Ottawa for weeks, filling the capital city with diesel fumes and the blaring horns of big rigs. Later that summer, Dutch farmers once again started up their tractor engines, as they had in 2019, this time spurring on a pan-European, multi-year wave of farmers’ convoys. In both cases, the internal combustion engine provided form and content: a carbon-intensive protest tactic in defense of carbon- and nitrogen-intensive production.

In this presentation, we examine the class composition and resource infrastructure of these two protest cycles, while tracing the far-right ideologies orbiting and fuelling them. We pay special attention to globalist conspiracy theories of food, which fused pandemic paranoia around ‘climate lockdowns’ with forecasts of meat bans and mandatory insect-based diets, with disgust mobilised to connect the dots between invasive species and population ‘replacement’. This dovetailed with cults of bodily purity and renewal: a corporeal anti-globalism crystallised into carbon-intensive diets promising national rejuvenation. At the more extreme end, these territorial associations blended into fascistic themes of ‘blood and soil’, stark gendered binaries, and wellness obsessions with raw food diets and extreme fitness. The convoy-based protest cycles, we suggest, accelerated a broader moral panic cycle, defending energy-intensive metabolisms framed as central to the vitality, strength, and virility of nationalist bodies: the metabolism of the nation.

Presentation short abstract

In Romania, far-right movements fuse Orthodox Christianity with ecological narratives, framing nature as a symbol of national and spiritual purity. Environmentalism becomes a tool to promote exclusionary, nativist politics, linking faith, land, and identity in nationalist discourse.

Presentation long abstract

In Romania, the intersection of ecology, religion, and far-right politics reveals a complex and often troubling fusion of environmental concerns with nationalist and spiritual ideologies. Far-right movements increasingly appropriate ecological discourse, framing environmental protection as a sacred duty tied to the nation’s identity and Orthodox Christian values. Forests, rivers, and rural landscapes are not simply natural resources; they are imagined as extensions of the Romanian people’s spiritual and cultural heritage. This vision portrays environmental degradation not only as a material problem but also as a moral and spiritual threat to the nation.

Religious symbolism is central to this discourse. Orthodox Christianity is invoked to legitimize environmental stewardship, presenting the protection of nature as a moral obligation and an expression of divine duty. Traditional rural life, often idealized in nationalist narratives, becomes a model for harmonious living with the land, further intertwining faith, culture, and ecology.

However, these narratives are exclusionary. Ecological care is framed in ways that reinforce nativist and xenophobic ideologies, portraying outsiders, migrants, or globalized economic actors as threats to both the environment and national purity. In effect, ecological discourse becomes a tool for legitimizing far-right agendas, masking social and political hierarchies under the guise of environmental concern.

Understanding this entanglement is crucial for scholars and policymakers seeking to pursue environmental advocacy in Romania. It highlights how ecology can be co-opted by ideological movements, demonstrating the need for inclusive approaches that protect both nature and social diversity while resisting the instrumentalization of environmentalism for exclusionary politics.

Presentation short abstract

The paper examines far-right mobilization against renewable energy infrastructures in peripheralized regions in Germany, adopting a socio-territorial lens. It argues that aesthetic regimes of landscape imaginaries play a key role in shaping the conflicts’ political trajectories.

Presentation long abstract

In many European countries, the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure has become a key arena for far-right mobilization, often framed as green backlash (Otteni/Weisskircher 2022). Heated debates and fierce opposition have been sparked by the construction of solar farms and wind park repowering, as well as regulatory changes in heating and insulation policy (Biresselioglu et al. 2024). We argue that these conflicts cannot be sufficiently explained through notions of far-right exceptionalism or reductive diagnoses of “NIMBYism”. Instead, this paper revisits the culturally loaded figure of landscape as a key analytic lens for understanding contemporary far-right ecologies and energyscapes (Lintz/Leibenath 2020). It asks to what ends the far right mobilizes against what it frames as an intrusion into the “German Seelenlandschaft” (AfD 2025). What pressures do such nativist mobilizations and far-right party politics exert on emancipatory strands of political ecology? And how might such pressures—paradoxically—open space for renewed critiques of “green capitalism” and its infrastructural formations? To explore these questions, we draw on empirical material from two peripheralized regions in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, adopting a socio-territorial lens (Autor*innenkollektiv Terra-R 2025). Our analysis shows how metabolic relationships emerging from everyday practices of energy-landscaping (Castán Broto 2019) are ideologically inflected and spatially constrained. Building on Walter Benjamin’s reflections on aesthetic regimes, we argue that such interpretations rely on entrenched “cultural landscape” ideals. This underscores the need both to question these regressive imaginaries and to examine how progressive energy policies intersect with them—while also exploring alternative forms of everyday energy-landscaping.

Presentation short abstract

The variety of far-right environmentalisms at the national, regional and local level is often explained by recourse to culture. But what is culture? In my presentation I propose a realist understanding of culture that could help to explain the mainstreaming of the far-right and its environmentalisms

Presentation long abstract

Far-right environmentalisms are articulated and enacted within specific national, regional or local contexts (cf. Benoist 2024: 117). This results in a variety of far-right positions on the environment and socio-ecological transformation in Europe with actors appealing to and adapting to national myths or hegemonic ideas about the environment. For instance, while the Alternative for Germany (AfD) rejects renewable energies (cf. Weisskircher, Volk 2025: 22) and advocates for nuclear power, opposing positions are taken across the border. The Freedom Party Austria is considered as a „renewable energies enthusiast“ (ibid.: 19) and strongly rejects any form of nuclear power, connecting to a national Austrian identity shared by all political positions (cf. Gruber 2025: 195). Recent research also suggests that national myths regarding the environment can be a causal factor in mainstreaming the far-right (cf. Malm et al 2025: 5ff.) or that culture could also be crucial for resisting authoritarian projects (cf. Gonda, Bori 2025: 11).

Given this, the issue arises for me: What is culture? In my contribution I’ll elaborate on an answer to this question based on Archer’s (2004) work regarding the Cultural System and the Socio-Cultural Interaction. This realist perspective provides an approach to empirical research on far-right environmentalisms or environmental justice struggles, by offering a way to analyze how local, national and regional myths, subjective beliefs, imaginations and mentalities regarding the environment have historically formed, could co-cause the mainstreaming of far-right environmentalisms, and could also be sites of intervention and resistance against (far-right) authoritarian projects.

Presentation short abstract

This presentation discusses developments of far-right ecologism in the French context based on the analysis of interviews conducted with militants from extra-parliamentary far-right groups who have included ecological issues to their political agenda.

Presentation long abstract

The far right is known globally rather for a sharp anti-environmentalism, including opposition to climate science and the dismantlement of environmental regulations. Yet, some far-right actors have taken the environmental (and climate) crises seriously, acknowledging and mobilising around ecological issues. This article studies such developments in the French context based on the analysis of interviews conducted with militants from extra-parliamentary far-right groups who have included “ecology” to their political agenda. Further challenging the climate-denialism/ecofascism dichotomy, the examination of far-right ecological activism reveals how climate denialism and pro-environmental stances are far from being mutually exclusive. The finding emphasise a move away from and mutation of outright denialism and an ambition to increase awareness on ecological issues among the far-right political camp at large, trying to regain legitimacy on the latter. Yet, climate issues are often simultaneously overlooked. The respondents denounce a Co2-centered environmentalism for being a keystone for technocratic decision-making and the pursuit of capitalism under a green banner alike. Instead, they advocate a more encompassing ecological approach, insofar as they understand the 'climate crisis' as in fact being a mere symptom of a wider 'anthropological crisis' which they aim to mitigate. This article shows the multiple roles of “climate change” and the climate/environment division in contemporary forms of far-right engagement with ecological issues, speculating on how environmentalism without climate might in fact fall under a form of climate adaptation.

Presentation short abstract

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technology is sometimes supported by far right political parties, for environmental and other reasons. Analysing when and why this happens offers a lens onto far right positionings on ecological issues, which highlights technology as a key dividing line.

Presentation long abstract

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR)? CDR is a set of technologies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering it, and an absolutely necessary option under the current climate policy master frame of net zero, to balance out emissions that are deemed impossible to abate. Far-right parties often resist climate action, but not always (Lockwood 2018), and it is very important to understand the conditions under which the far right will resist or support CDR, but it has not been studied.

In this talk, I set out suggested directions for research on this topic, by speculating around two broad themes, informed by existing literature. The first theme is about far right ideas, and how they may clash or chime with CDR, whereas the second theme is about what far right political parties do in relation to CDR, acting for or against, or showing preference for some types over others.

Presentation short abstract

The presentation introduces a special issue on 'Centre-right politics of environment', to be published in Environmental Politics in 2026, examining the growing ambivalence and strategic repositioning of centre-right environmental politics amid the global mainstreaming of the far right.

Presentation long abstract

This special issue examines the growing ambivalence and strategic repositioning of centre-right environmental politics amid the global mainstreaming of the populist far right. While historically marked by inconsistency, reactive posturing, and pressures from left-leaning competitors, the centre-right now faces intensified ideological and electoral challenges as far-right actors advance more nuanced environmental narratives and reshape the political spectrum. Bringing together diverse cases, methods, and scholars from multiple regions, the issue establishes a systematic research agenda that explores how the centre-right seeks to (re)construct its environmental identity, how internal ideological diversity shapes its approaches, and how it navigates relationships with green, left, and far-right actors as well as global environmental governance, from national stewardship to disputes around climate justice and green colonialism.

Our introduction examines the transformative pathways of centre-right ecologies in the context of far-right mainstreaming. We propose a typology of shifts in centre-right environmental politics that accounts for ideological variation within the tradition, most notably the social conservative and libertarian strands and their ambivalent ties to nationalist and populist currents. In doing so, we probe the key points of contention between the center and the far right, including the role of social responsibility, the state and the market. Our key contribution, however are the four key mechanisms of change: contamination, reverse contamination, alignment, and collusion. Overall, the introduction problematizes the role of the political mainstream in deepening the ecological crisis, underscoring the centre’s troubling ambivalence in shaping the future of environmental politics.