In this guest post, Luis Harrison discusses the research from his recently published article in Environmental Politics: Climate populism: the limits of the ideational and discursive approaches.
There is a persistent assumption in both public and academic debate that meaningful climate action is primarily championed by the liberal left and centre. Policies such as net zero, nature conservation, and decarbonisation are commonly associated with progressive politics and institutions like the UNFCCC and the COP process. By contrast, climate scepticism and denial are often portrayed as defining features of exclusionary right-wing populism.
This obstructionism can take several familiar forms: rejecting the existence of climate change, questioning its severity, or accepting the science while resisting policy interventions on economic grounds. These patterns align with what scholars call the ideational approach to populism, which interprets populism as a worldview that pits a virtuous people against a corrupt elite. From that perspective it appears natural, even definitional, that populists would target climate science, expertise, and policy.
In my recent article in Environmental Politics, I argue that this assumption is now inadequate. Treating right-wing populists as inherently anti-climate obscures important shifts in contemporary climate politics. It also risks weakening efforts to advance ambitious climate action, since it prevents us from recognising how adaptable and flexible populist discourses have become.
The changing face of right-wing populism
Much of the scholarship and policy commentary continues to frame climate populism as a phenomenon located almost exclusively on the exclusionary right, where elites are accused of using climate policy against ordinary people. Denialism on the right certainly persists, illustrated starkly by Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and his dismissal of climate change as a “con job”. Yet equating populism with denial overlooks significant developments across Europe and beyond.
Over recent decades, many right-wing populist parties have moved away from rejecting climate science. Instead, they increasingly accept the reality of climate change while objecting to specific policies. These objections are typically articulated around sovereignty, fairness, and the perceived distributional burden on workers and households. Such reframing has enabled the populist right to nationalise environmental politics, positioning themselves as defenders of ordinary people against distant experts and unaccountable international institutions. Even parties that still express scepticism frequently support measures such as renewable energy expansion or pollution reduction. Treating them as a uniform bloc of denialists inadvertently reinforces their claim that climate policy marginalises legitimate concerns.
Climate change has also become entangled with broader narratives about immigration, demographic change, and national decline. Concerns about the distributional effects of climate policy can be folded into exclusionary frames. The Yellow Vests movement in France is a well-known example: anxieties about fuel prices and household budgets merged with a wider narrative about political neglect and elite indifference. Climate politics here provided a language through which diverse grievances could be articulated.
Boris Johnson: green populist?
The simplistic picture is further complicated by the case of Boris Johnson, as I have suggested recently. Despite previously mocking green policy, Johnson placed climate action at the centre of his political programme, championed net zero, invoked a green industrial revolution, and pursued active climate diplomacy in the run-up to COP26. Rather than rejecting expertise or international cooperation, he embraced both, framing climate mitigation as a source of national pride, industrial renewal, and global leadership. From within the ideational approach, this seems inconsistent or opportunistic. Yet this interpretation overlooks the way Johnson rearticulated climate action through a nationalist-populist narrative. Climate policy became a way to position Britain as a global leader once again, to restore industrial confidence, and to strengthen the story of a unified national people with a renewed sense of purpose.
Johnson’s example reveals the limits of the ideational model’s rigidity. If populism is defined as inherently anti-science and anti-climate, then cases like this can only be dismissed as deception or contradiction. A more convincing explanation comes from the discursive approach, which treats populism as a flexible political style rather than a fixed worldview. From this perspective, populism can incorporate climate action as long as it is framed in a way that resonates with national belonging, popular sovereignty, or economic revival.
Recognising this shift matters. The assumption that populism and climate action are necessarily opposites is under increasing strain. If populist actors can rework environmental politics rather than reject it outright, then both scholars and policymakers need to take seriously how climate agendas can be co-opted, reframed, or redirected.
In my own research, I adopt the discursive approach precisely because it helps illuminate how populism adapts to new issues, drawing diverse groups into its construction of the people. This offers a more accurate understanding of the changing terrain of climate politics and helps guard against underestimating the populist right’s capacity to shape environmental debates.
Bio: Luis Harrison is a doctoral researcher at the University of Brighton and a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Leeds Beckett University. He has recently submitted his doctoral thesis which examines the intersections between climate politics and populism, with case studies in Latin America and Europe. More broadly, Luis works on the limits of contemporary political theory in the Anthropocene with a particular focus on Indigenous worldviews and political action, and the politics of the non-human.
