Yellow Vests, Green Europe

Bas Eickhout on how smarter climate policies can avoid more protest movements like the Yellow Vests | A lawmaker in charge of writing opinions for a European Parliament committee denies climate science | Poland pushes Big Coal at UN climate conference

Protecting the climate and ordinary working people is a delicate exercise. Look at the huge Yellow Vests protests in France where President Macron mishandled an environmental tax and the far-right exploited the discontent. Bas Eickhout, a Dutch Green lawmaker vying for a top job in Brussels, says smarter climate policies can avoid more burning cars, flying cobblestones, and mass deployments of police. Eickhout also dings far-right lawmakers for hypocrisy over fossil fuels and wasting taxpayer money by holding up legislation with vexatious amendments. First we play a round of There Are No Good Answers featuring the British far-right lawmaker who wrote a draft opinion for a European Parliament committee denying climate science.

James Kanter is co-founder and editor EU Scream. For 12 years he was an EU Correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times based in Paris and Brussels.  

More on Democracy

View all

Stay Tuned

Join our newsletter to be the first to know about the EU Scream podcast.