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Prof. Aseem Prakash on The Hill news site, "Can the climate movement survive populism? Lessons from 'yellow vest' protests"

Submitted by Stephen Dunne on December 12, 2018 - 4:11pm

France faced a widespread "yellow vest' protest against President Macron's new climate proposal for “green” levies on transportation fuel. The reason behind it was that ordinary French citizens were being targeted instead of big companies that pollute more but pay no tax. This doesn't mean that citizens don't care about climate change at all, they see it as an elite priority compared to other issues such as dissatisfaction with the government. To solve this, the climate movement needs to connect with ordinary people. One way to do it is to frame this issue in a way that relates to ordinary people and solve the problems that they are facing today. Lastly, they need to find ways to compensate those who are impacted by policies that address climate changes and fight the perception that the underprivileged will bear the costs of climate action. "

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