Climate action or climate scepticism? Bachelor Thesis

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Climate action or climate

scepticism?

A study on how Scandinavian populist radical right

parties approaches the climate issue in their

manifestos

Bachelor Thesis

Author: Joanna Toll

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Abstract

This thesis examines and explains how the three Scandinavian populist radical right parties, the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People’s Party and the Progress Party approaches the climate issue in their latest manifesto, and how it has changed over a period of ten years. By means of a content analysis and categorisations of climate scepticism, climate omission and climate measures, this thesis finds explicit evidence of climate scepticism in the Progress Party whereas there is no such evidence for the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People’s Party completely omits the issue. On the other hand, there is evidence of measures to fight climate change in the Progress Party, and the same goes for the Sweden Democrats. However, the only relevant difference when comparing the manifestos over a ten-year period is a decreased usage of statement connected to both climate scepticism and climate action in the Progress Party’s manifestos.

Key words

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1 Introduction

The climate changes and how human action affects the environment is one of today’s greatest challenges. In order to prevent the devastating consequences, the climate has become a part of the political agenda in all institutions at all levels. At the same time a threat to climate actions has appeared in the political landscape, namely populist radical right parties, which are often connected to negative attitudes towards politics aiming to handle the climate issue (Lockwood 2018). In Scandinavia those parties are represented as the Sweden Democrats in Sweden, the Danish People’s Party in Denmark and the Progress Party in Norway (Jungar & Jupskås 2014).

The Scandinavian countries have not always only been neighbours, but they have also been an united kingdom. From the late 14th_{to the early 16}th

century, Sweden, Denmark and Norway together were called the Union of Kalmar (Gustafsson 2006). Thus, the countries have experienced similar political as well as cultural historical contexts. Nowadays, the three Scandinavian countries belong to same welfare state regime (Esping-Andersen 1990).

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challenges or political partisanship (Carter et. al. 2019). Since this is the case, climate sceptical politics could be expected to be hard to perform in the political landscape given in each country.

However, the populist radical right parties all have seats in their parliaments. With 5.7 per cent of the votes in the election 2010 the Sweden Democrats gained seats in the parliament for the first time, and in the latest election held in 2018 the support from their voters increased and they gained 17.5 per cent of the votes (Swedish Institute 2019). During the ten-year period used in this thesis, they have however never had a position in the government (Swedish Institute 2020). The Danish People’s Party is represented in the parliament since 1998 (Bille 1999) and has supported the government from 2001 until 2011 (Danish institute for parties and democracy n.d.). Furthermore, the party is represented in the parliament at present, since the last election in 2019 (The Danish Parliament 2019). Finally, the Progress Party is nowadays part of the Norwegian national parliament (Stortinget n.d.). In the previous election in 2013 the party got seats in the parliament as well (Högström 2013). The Progress Party has been a part of the Norwegian government since 2013 until the end of January 2020 when the party left (Norwegian Government Security and Service Organisation n.d.).

Populist radical right parties are often studied in relation to their

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mention the climate at all. Moreover, due to the increased significance of the climate issue on the political agenda in the last decade, differences and similarities are to be observed over a ten-year period. Significant climate actions can for example be identified as the Paris Agreement signed by 186 countries, aiming to collectively work against the climate change, or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) report from 2018 about the consequences of global warming (United Nation n.d.a), which also lead to the European Union to broaden its climate action by declaring the climate emergency (European Parliament 2019). To the purpose of this thesis, two manifestos of each party in two different points of time are used and analysed by means of a content analysis. Therefore, the questions for this thesis are the following:

• To what extent can characteristics of either climate scepticism or climate action be found in the Sweden Democrats’, the Danish People’s Party’s and the Progress Party’s latest manifestos?

• How have their approaches to the climate issue developed over a ten-year period?

2 Theoretical background

In order to understand the comprehension of the topic, a background on climate change political actions as well as radical right-wing populism are established and then, the connection between right-wing populism and climate scepticism is addressed.

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been adopted by all member countries (United Nations n.d.b), as well as international agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement (United Nations n.d.a). Furthermore, the European Union, in which both Sweden and Denmark are members (European Union 2020) has adopted 12 of the Sustainable Development Goals into their European Green Deal (European Commission n.d.).

The current populist radical right family in Western Europe has occurred since the middle of the 1980s. What is common for most populist radical right is their authoritarian attitude towards sociocultural issues, which most commonly implies a nationalism based on exclusion. This is reflected in the political outcomes where ethnical and cultural homogeneity in the nation-state often is in focus (Jungar & Jupskås 2014). However, radical right-wing populism could not really be categorised as an own ideology, since it is often combined with other political ideologies, such as nationalism (Lockwood 2018).

Another feature of populist radical right parties is their approach towards the governing people, as they claim that they are a corrupt elite while the rest is the pure people. Therefore, the politics should correspond to the pure people’s preferences rather than being a result of ignoring the will of the people. The elite is often referred to as the established political parties, intellect and rich people and the media, and they are also blamed for all ill in the society. Hence, there is a cleavage between the people and the elite (Golder 2016).

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disapproval of immigration. The populist radical right parties tend to emphasise these kinds of questions and thereby attract their voters (Golder 2016). Lockwood as well (2018) refers to the modernisation and explains that the negative populist radical right attitude towards climate change policies could be explained by their resistance to structural changes, which is essential to their ideology. In particular, populist radical right parties set the focus on the changes that leave some social groups behind. These groups are left behind due to the consequences of globalisation and technical changes and are often identified as male workers at industries and manufacturing and occupations with less skills needed. Therefore, the populist radical right ideology represents masculinity, as environmental concerns are considered stereotypically feminine (Jylhä et. al. 2020).

While it is nowadays commonplace to argue that populist radical right parties tend to favour climate scepticism, knowledge about why this is the case is scarce. However, there are a few scholars who investigates this phenomenon. One explanation given by Jylhä et. al. (2020) is the urge to protect the

economic system. Simultaneously, populist radical right parties tend to avoid emphasising socioeconomic issues too much, which attracts voters from all over the left-right dimension. Moreover, Lockwood (2018) gives several explanations to why populist radical right parties tend to favour climate scepticism and explains that such parties treat the climate change agenda as an indirect damage, while the main issues are immigration and the European as a supranational power. One explanation for the climate scepticism among populist radical right parties is that the nature of the ideology creates an attraction to conspiracy theories. Moreover, climate action could be

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Another significant reason for right-wing populist parties to denounce climate actions is their opposition to state intervention, which is essential to their ideology as well, as they belong to the right side of the left-right

dimension (Farstad 2017). Since climate politics are often connected to state interventions such as governments intervening markets, climate politics are an intervention in people’s lives and the individual freedom. Moreover, Poortinga et. al. (2011) confirms that the political affiliation is the main reason for doubtfulness about climate change since it reflects the core values and worldviews. This also reflects the cleavage between the pure people and the corrupt elite, as distrust to the elite and the institution could be one explanation for sceptical attitudes towards the climate. Pushing such issues is according to the people, to operate against them (Jylhä et. al. 2020). In this vein, the people might feel under-represented both in terms of the climate and politics regarding the environment. This relationship between the climate, the elite and the people create a rejection of the climate and environment as such, as well as a political question (Huber 2020).

3 Methodology and material

3.1 Methodology

A qualitative text analysis is adequate when the goal is to investigate a text in which some parts are more relevant than other parts and the message can be identified by using analytical tools. As the researcher tries to find answers and explanations, the questions asked to the text could be what kind of ideas can be found in a context, and also how they change over time. While

processing the text the reader should ask questions that should be able to find an answer to, such as what meaning it attributes by a specific actor

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A context analysis will be used in this thesis since the goal is to investigate the climate, environment and energy parts of the party manifestos, as those are the only ones connected to the climate, and also to analyse how it has changed over time. A content analysis consists of systematically categorizing the context of texts and is useful in order to identify patterns in several parties’ manifestos, thus it allows to obtain a broad overview of the material. Moreover, a content analysis is adequate when the goal is to study the comprehension of a theme in texts, or to study how something is valued (Boréus & Kohl 2018, p.51-55). In this thesis this will be accomplished by categorising the content of the texts, the manifestos, according to

Rahmstorf’s (2004) climate sceptics and the basis of Båtstrand’s (2014) climate measure.

In order to answer the questions, a categorisation of the climate sceptics and climate measure will be done. Hence, the manifestos will be read and divided into categories in terms of climate sceptics and climate measure, after

identifying the meaning attributed by the party in question, thereby it is also clear how it is valued. First, an analysis of each latest manifesto will be performed. Subsequently, in order to be able to answer the second question, the same procedure will be performed again on the former manifestos. Once these measures are identified, a comparing analysis on the former and the latest manifestos will be done as well.

3.2 Operationalisation

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responsibility on global warming. Third impact sceptics, who claim that a warmer climate caused by climate change could be useful, as there are positive consequences. Hence their statement about climate change is that it exists, but it would not have a major impact. Therefore, for example concrete statements about that there is no knowledge about the reason for the changed climate, will be categorised as attribution sceptics. Furthermore, if a party does not mention the climate at all it falls outside the measures and will be categorised as climate omission.

On the other hand, following Båtstrand (2014), climate measure is to be used as categories when collecting results and analysing the manifestos. Due to strict definitions of what can be categorised as a climate measure, it has been adjusted in order to be compatible with the material. Therefore, the climate measure refers to concrete policies that would decrease the negative

consequences of climate change, global warming or the greenhouse effect, even if the parties do not explicitly express that they intend to do so with their policies. The definitions of these indicators are specifically; a changed climate due to human activity or natural forces which results in changes in the global atmosphere, increased temperatures on earth due to human activity respective warming of the atmosphere caused by different emissions

(Environmental Protection Agency n.d.). Furthermore, if a policy

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Table 1: Measurements of climate scepticism, climate omission and climate measure Trend sceptics Claiming there are no climate change at

all.

Attribution sceptics Claiming that climate change exists but not necessarily due to human action. Impact sceptics Claiming that climate change exists but

is not having or will not have a major impact.

Climate omission Do not mention the climate at all. Climate measure Includes concrete policies that would

decrease the consequences of climate change, the greenhouse effect or global warming.

3.3 Material

The material this thesis is built upon are, as mentioned, each party’s

manifesto from two periods of time. All manifestos except one are collected from the website Party Manifesto Project. The material is collected from this home page due to at least two reasons, partly in order to even find the

material, but also to make sure that it is the actual version. The exception is the Danish People’s Party’s latest manifesto which was not provided on the Party Manifesto Project. However, a ‘voter booklet’ from 2018 with a similar setup as the former one is accessible on the Danish People’s Party’s own website, which is as close to a manifesto that can be found due to the circumstances. The Danish election were held in 2019 (The Danish

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this document does not compromise the reliability of the analysis, as it does the exact same function as an actual manifesto. Hence, the voter booklet from 2018 is now on called manifesto as well. Information about the years each manifesto was published and from where it is collected are presented in the table below.

Table 2: Year and website for access for each party manifesto

Parties Former manifesto Latest manifesto Sweden Democrats 2010, collected from

Party Manifesto Project

2018, collected from Party Manifesto Project Danish People’s Party 2011, collected from

Party Manifesto Project

2018, collected from the party’s website

Progress Party 2009, collected from Party Manifesto Project

2017, collected from Party Manifesto Project

Using manifestos is adequate for the purpose of this thesis because parties can speak freely and as much as they like. By using the manifestos from each party, it is possible to understand the world as the party want the voters to understand it. Henceforth, the policies presented in manifestos can be

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4 Results and analysis

In this section, first, the most recent manifestos of each party are analysed, following the previously described categories. For clarification purpose, there is a frequency table included for each manifesto. Second, with the exact same strategy, the former manifestos of the three parties are analysed.

Finally, the three cases of study are discussed and compared with one another, both considering their latest manifesto and the former ones.

4.1 Sweden Democrats

4.1.1 Latest characteristics of climate actions and climate scepticism The climate and energy section in the manifesto from 2018 include more discussion about their political position of the climate issue than actual policies, as there are four of them. Aspects included in the discussion are the value of the Swedish nature, Sweden’s greenhouse gas emissions and also that the usage of climate resources should be focused on international interventions and research are presented. Furthermore, the party emphasises that they prefer to fund international interventions and research rather than higher price on fuel or taxation of vehicles. In their opinion, such

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issue, therefore there are no categorisations of climate sceptics in the manifesto from 2018 (Sverigedemokraterna 2018, p.18).

Out of the four policy points there are three that could decrease the negative consequences of climate change, global warming or greenhouse gas

emissions. These include aiming towards more effective energy and energy research, to use the resources for international arrangements and research, and promotion of electric vehicles in the transport sector

(Sverigedemokraterna 2018, p.18). Hence, there is evidence of three climate measures in this manifesto.

Table 3: Frequencies of each measure identified in the manifesto Sweden Democrats manifesto 2018 Trend sceptics Attribution sceptics Impact sceptics Climate measures Number of times identified 0 0 0 3

When reading the Sweden Democrats manifestos with the general features of populist radical right climate approach in mind, it is pretty obvious that the question in focus is not the climate, as they treat the issue briefly. However, the party manages to achieve three climate measures as those policies would result in decreased consequences of the climate change. Furthermore, there are several formulations that indicates their awareness of the environmental issue. Those are as mentioned for example statements about the

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statements imply that they are aware of the environmental issues, but there are no references to the reason why this is the case.

On the other hand, it is possible to assume that the Sweden Democrats reaches out to their voters, as even the environment and energy section of the manifesto reveals their approach regarding modernisation and economy. Their dissatisfaction is shown as they emphasise job opportunities as well as the role of economic resources. These features correspond to the assumptions in the theoretical background. Moreover, according to Lockwood’s (2018) statement, the party is in line with other European populist radical right parties who oppose carbon taxation, as they express that they prefer to fund international interventions and research, rather than seeing taxation of fuels or vehicles, which is also a state intervention. The party has also identified the consequences of this structural change, as they in the short section of climate and energy, mention the importance of still being able to provide jobs. Even though the climate issue is referred to as a global issue which has to be solved by cooperation, there is also some focus on the nature of the own territory, which is not surprising, as one of the main features of radical right-wing populism is the nation-state. What is surprising however, is the trust and belief in higher powers, as they explicitly mention that they want to see international interventions. This implies that even though European populist radical right parties tend to reject ideas such as the European union, the Sweden Democrats finds such constructions somewhat significant, even though Lockwood (2018) claims that it could be interpreted as a

cosmopolitan elite agenda. Furthermore, such interventions contradict what Farstad (2017) argues about the opinion of (state) intervention when for parties positioned on the right wing.

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that indicates that they are not too extreme in any direction. The party manages to cover the climate measure but however not the climate sceptic measure. The climate measures together with the indications of their awareness of the environmental issue, but absence of explanations to it and the brief space given the issue, makes the Sweden Democrats fit in as a populist radical right party in the social aware Scandinavia.

4.1.2 Ten-year development

In the manifesto from 2010 the Sweden Democrats include five points in the environmental section, in which energy is included as well, as the title is ‘a responsible and sustainable environment and energy policy’. The party explains that main concepts of the ecological view are responsibility, sustainability and administration. Furthermore, the party also mention that ‘overall environmental problems’ are to be taken seriously and the global environmental problem cannot be solved by Sweden alone. However, neither this statement refers to any kind of values and therefore there are no

categorisations of climate scepticism in the manifesto from 2010. Moreover, in their desirable Sweden, decisions regarding the environmental issue are to be taken with consideration of other important values. The five points of policies are focused on fields as biodiversity, improved marine environment and nuclear power, investment in biofuel and improvement of the

environmental-improvement arrangements in developing countries.

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Table 4: Frequencies of each measure identified in the manifesto Sweden Democrats manifesto 2010 Trend sceptics Attribution sceptics Impact sceptics Climate measures Number of times identified 0 0 0 2

By admitting that there is an environmental problem and that is has to be taken seriously the manifesto can be kept from associating any kinds of sceptics. This goes for the manifesto from 2010 as well as the manifesto from 2018.

The absence of climate sceptics measures in both the manifestos could be interpreted as an adaption to the current significance of the climate issue. However, there are no arguments that makes it clear that they do not associate with sceptical attitudes, such as an explanation that humans actually have a role and responsibility in the matter. Moreover, as they succeed to emphasise values which are common among sympathisers of the populist radical right, they get even further away from not being associated with the sceptics. In terms of typical populist radical right parties and the social awareness of the climate issue, the conclusions about their approach over the ten-year period is rather reasonable than surprising.

Regarding the climate measures there are three categorisations in the latest manifesto and two in the former manifesto. This implies that even though the relatively short sections of energy and climate, the party is willing to

implement policies that would improve climate. Whereas the environment and energy has gotten a bit more space in the latest manifesto, it is

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significant, generally international and on the political agenda, the party might have realised that they should put an extra effort on the question, which is clear when comparing the size of the space given climate in each manifesto. Even though the manifestos have achieved climate measures, the party has not forgotten or let go of their core values, as they also refer to the consequences of the structural change in terms of jobs, and also the feature of such parties preferring not to see carbon taxations. What on the other hand is passably surprising when discussing a populist radical right party as the Sweden Democrats, is that they have expressed their awareness of the environmental issue, as they refer to it, at least since 2010, which not always correspond to typical populist radical right parties’ values and approaches to climate and belonging policies. Furthermore, this could be an adoption to the political landscape and social awareness of the climate issue. Since the party has succeeded to gain votes and influence in Sweden the latest years, their approach to the climate issue could be benefitting as they explicitly do not oppose the general opinion about the climate.

4.2 Danish People’s Party

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that states that they do not believe in climate change. The neglection of the climate and environment also implies no climate measures (Dansk Folkeparti 2018).

Table 5: Frequencies of each measure identified in the manifesto Danish People’s Party manifesto 2018 Trend sceptics Attribution sceptics Impact sceptics Climate measures Number of times identified 0 0 0 0

It is obvious that the Danish People’s Party is a populist radical right party, as the focus is directed towards a few questions, which concerns different kinds of safety and independence of the European Union, while the climate issue is totally missing in the manifesto. Therefore, the categorisation falls out of the main categories which implies the climate omission instead. Due to the absence of the climate issue and policies about it in their manifesto, it could also be possible to categorise it as trend sceptics. In short, the

manifesto from 2018 implicitly expresses that the Danish People’s party are trend sceptics and that there are larger problems than the environment, such as the national identity and territory, and safety. This goes in line with the prediction of populist radical right parties, however not in Scandinavia where more social awareness occurs.

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economic safety in the defence, tight immigration policy, and a safe Denmark. Neither in this manifesto words such as environment,

sustainability, greenhouse gases or global warming are mentioned. Similar to the manifesto from 2018, it is rather possible to claim that since the

environmental issue does not seems to be an issue for the party at this point of time, they could be categorised as trend sceptics, but actually only get categorised as climate omissions, since there are no obvious statements explaining that they do not believe that there is no climate change at all. However, climate is mentioned, but in connection to taxation and a warning about what other leaders would do if they got the power. Therefore, in this manifesto all kind of climate measures are missing as well (Dansk Folkeparti 2011).

Table 6: Frequencies of each measure identified in the manifesto Danish People’s Party manifesto 2011 Trend sceptics Attribution sceptics Impact sceptics Climate measures Number of times identified 0 0 0 0

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Farstad’s (2017) statements about radical right-wing populism, their position on the left-right dimension, conspiracy and in this case about the climate, immigration and the European Union. It also corresponds to Golders (2016) theory about grievance regarding modernisation, economy and culture. Secondly, it also corresponds to established theories about populist radical right parties being sceptical to climate change or even denying it. What is does not correspond to however, is the Danish first place on the

Environmental Performance Index. One conclusion that can be established is therefore that the Danish People’s Party approach towards the climate issue is somewhat extreme in contrast to how it is treated generally in the country. Assuming that the Danish People’s Party uses their manifestos in order to provide their voters notions about the world and country they would

contribute to, both their manifestos appear as attractive according to someone who generally sympathies with the radical right. For example, there are no unnecessary spending’s on climate and environmental issues, which

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4.3 Progress Party

4.3.1 Latest characteristics of climate actions and climate scepticism The manifesto from 2017 includes both a principle-program and an action-program with three pages each. There are two specific parts of the manifesto which categorises them as attribution sceptics. They argue that climate changes over time and that knowledge about the processes involved in these changes is insufficient. In this vein, to understand climate change, more research is needed. This indicates a belief that human action not necessarily is the reason for climate change. Furthermore, they explicitly explain themselves that they are attribution sceptics, as they claim that it could be incorrect to connect different forms of weather to human action

(Fremskrittspartiet 2017, p.41-47). Since this is the case, the Progress Party’s manifesto from 2017 is assigned two attribution sceptics measures.

On the other hand, there is evidence for several climate measures. The Progress Party emphasises policies connected to environmental-friendly hydroelectric power, better conditions for the export and import of electric power, increased focus on research concerning renewable energy, promoting international environmental agreements and promotion of making sure that environmental taxes are used for the right purpose. Therefore, in total there is evidence of five climate measures in the manifesto from 2017

(Fremskrittspartiet, 2017, p.41-47).

Other interesting features of the manifesto is that they claim that

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Consistently emphasised in the manifesto is their opinion that ‘framework conditions’ must be implemented and followed in order for industries to function fairly. This concerns the national industry as well as international to make sure companies do not move their factories to other countries which could be more beneficial. Furthermore, the party claims that the issue which politicians and scientists from the UNs climate panel emphasises could be serious. The party is also critical to the idea of using environment policies to raise the taxes, which means limitations of the individual freedom. On the other hand, the party claims that environment should not be exposed for inconvenient pressure (Fremskrittspartiet 2017, p.41-47).

Table 7: Frequencies of each measure identified in the manifesto Progress Party manifesto 2017 Trend sceptics Attribution sceptics Impact sceptics Climate measures Number of times identified 0 2 0 5

The Progress Party’s manifesto from 2017 presents statements that could be connected to both the climate sceptic measures and the climate measures as well. Even though they have got a few climate sceptics measure, the

environmental-friendly proposals and thereby climate measures are more than the climate sceptics measures.

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scientists in the field of climate and some of them are included in the IPCC. At the same time the party discusses, what could be interpreted as conspiring, that the climate issue that politicians and IPCC emphasise could be serious, which is usually not a common standpoint as most of the countries in the world have accepted the fact presented in the IPCC reports and have adopted the international agreements into their own policies.

In the 2009 Progress Party manifesto, energy and environment are four separated categories with two pages each. There are four statements in the manifesto which can be identified as the attribution sceptics. When

discussing climate change, they claim that it is a natural part of the planet’s development. This indicates an attribution sceptic approach to the issue, as they do not consider human action to be a reason to the changed climate. Furthermore, the general Norwegian perception of climate change is built upon information from IPCC, however the party emphasises that the base of IPCCs research is incomplete science. This statement is connected to the discussion whether human action affects the climate change, which also can be categorised as an attribution sceptic approach. A third statement which can be categorised as attribution scepticism is when the party argues that it is too early to draw conclusions about the source of the changed climate. Finally, the Progress Party promotes stimulation of further research and an open, critical debate about the reasons for and comprehension of the climate change (Fremskrittspartiet 2009, p.18-23).

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measure categorisations are to development of renewable energy,

international environmental agreements, to make sure that taxes connected to the environment respective pollution are used for environmental measures by means of earmarking and focus on research and development of

environmental-friendly technology. In total the manifesto from 2009 achieves six climate measures (Fremskrittspartiet 2009, p.18-23).

The Progress Party aims to make sure that the country will remain a major power in the field, since it is an important feature of the business world. Oil is an important part of the energy supplies and industries, as it is a huge feature of the economy, and also provides job opportunities in the whole country. They want oil production to be as stable as it has been before, and also emphasising that the Norwegian oil production is a leader in the environmental work (Fremskrittspartiet 2009, p.18-23).

They also claim that it is important to gain knowledge about climate change based on research. Regarding arrangements aiming to prevent climate change, they argue that there is no point in adopting expensive arrangements as there is no reliable science or positive outcomes of implementing urgent arrangements. Rather than overspend resources on arrangements without a proven effect, they prefer to use the resources to research, in order to establish more effective arrangements (Fremskrittspartiet 2009, p.18-23). According to the Progress Party, the pollution in Norway is due to other countries. In order to be able to manage the issue, international agreements have to be established. The party emphasises the significance of

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Table 8: Frequencies of each measure identified in the manifesto Progress Party manifesto 2009 Trend sceptics Attribution sceptics Impact sceptics Climate measures Number of times identified 0 4 0 6

The manifesto from 2009 fit into the attribution sceptic measure, as the manifest from 2017. Hence, in terms of being sceptical to the causation of climate change, it has remained the same over the ten-year period. However, the party has decreased their usage of statements that are able to connect to climate scepticism, as the former one includes four of those and the latest one two. Even though there are a few other statements that could be interpreted as a sceptical attitude towards both climate change and research about it, this indicates some kind of adaption to the Scandinavian approach.

Since the Progress Party’s manifestos has included four respective two attribution sceptics measures, it is questionable how this unusual, very obvious, approach to climate change is able to function in the current social awareness. But the answer could be due to the voters who firstly probably have got the same opinion about climate change, and secondly probably does not vote only in order to solve an, according to them, non-existing climate crisis. However, a progress being made from the former manifesto to the latest manifesto is that in the latest manifesto they emphasise that the

environment should not be exposed for inconvenient pressure, which is more than what is said about the climate in the former manifesto.

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policies that has been categorised as climate measures are nearly the same once in both the manifestos, as the party seems to have reused many of them over the ten-year period. Regarding the changes over the ten-year period there have thus been a decrease on both of the categorisations used to measure climate action and climate scepticism. The decrease of climate sceptics measures implies a caution to express the sceptical attitude and to fit into Scandinavian, but on the other hand, the decrease of climate measures implies the opposite. In other words, this could be understood as an adaption to both the political discussion about the climate and the voters as well. Moreover, there are other populist radical right attitudes towards the climate that can be identified. These are resistance to a structural change, is their strong belief in the oil production, which is mentioned in both the

manifestos. Even though different political forums discuss about phasing out the oil production, they want to keep it as stable as it has always been. This is an excellent example of a populist radical right party’s approach to structural changes. Not only would a reduced oil production result in a loss of

something that has been a part of their culture and business culture for a long time, it would also result in job losses, and probably a feeling of being left behind. What also is mentioned in both the manifestos is their will to spend money on research rather than overspend resources on arrangements regarding the climate.

4.4 Discussion

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that the country to which the Danish People’s Party belong, hold the first place in the Environmental Performance Index.

After analysing the parties’ latest manifestos there is one evident difference, the Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party at least mention the climate and environment in their policies, while the Danish People’s Party does not mention it at all. However, the most common measure among the four usable manifestos is the climate measure. This does not go in line with typical populist radical right parties, rather the Scandinavian climate in which they both operate. Since there is a social awareness about the issue in

Scandinavia, the parties maybe consider it worth to at least mention it, in order to fit in to the Scandinavian society. It is possible that they would have preferred not to put as much effort on the issue as they do, according to themselves, but not to mention it could be a disadvantage, as awareness of the issue seems to be important to the citizens of Scandinavia, even though it is not to the sympathisers of the populist radical right.

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into the theoretical assumption, even though the climate issue has become more important and politicised the last years. The Progress Party and Danish People’s Party does not hesitate to explicitly or implicitly, make clear that they rather abide to the basic assumptions of their political opinion and their voters, than adapting to other current existing norms, opinions and directions. The Sweden Democrats on the other hand, have been found to be more careful when discussing the climate issue and have therefore not assigned such statements any values. Even so, there are a few characteristics from the theoretical assumptions that corresponds to the Sweden Democrats

environmental policies as well, such as the already mentioned aspects of the economy and modernisation. The correspondence of assumptions and evidence concerns the voter aspect as well, according to the findings, all the parties should more or less have succeeded to satisfy their voters regarding the climate question.

Even though there are differences between the three Scandinavian populist radical right parties, there are also similar features that can be identified. The most obvious similarity is their approach to the climate issue, which seem to be that is not such an urgent issue and that there is no certainty that the humanity has a role in the changed climate but is worth to mention anyhow, according to the Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party. Furthermore, both the Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party mentions in their latest manifesto that the prefer to use resources to fund research, rather than

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ten-year period, which correspond to politics of the right side of the left-right dimension. Moreover, the Sweden Democrats already discussed it in their former manifesto and have not made any relevant changes in any directions since then. However, as previously discussed, the Progress Party have changed their approach in the latest manifesto and reduced statements connected to both the climate sceptics measures and the climate measure.

5 Conclusion

Assuming that radical right parties tend to favour climate scepticism, the aim of this thesis is to determine whether the three Scandinavian parties in this family differ or converge in their approaches to the climate issue in their respective manifestos. Moreover, this thesis intends to observe for differences in their manifesto in a ten-year period.

The analysis in this thesis allows to determine that the three parties do not place the climate among their top priorities which also is the common case for populist radical right parties. However, there are relevant differences between them regarding the climate measures. Both the Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party achieves several climate measures in both of their manifestos, while the Danish People’s Party that does not mention the climate and thereby have not achieved the any climate measures in either of their manifestos. On the other hand, they adhere to climate scepticism to different extents. Whereas the Danish People's Party do not include climate policies, their categorisation is climate omission, the Progress Party holds evidence of attribution scepticism and the Sweden Democrats discusses the environment but does not emphasise it in a way that makes it able to

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scepticism discussed in the analysis, is sufficient to confirm that results go in line with the expectations according to the theoretical background. However, this thesis does not allow to determine whether the parties follow climate sceptic approaches in order to adopt voters. What on the other hand can be interpreted as adoption, is the climate measures identified in the manifestos which correspond to the social awareness in Scandinavia. As the evidence of climate measures goes parallel to evidence of climate sceptics, there is on the other hand reasonable to believe that the populist radical right parties appear sceptical towards climate change when communicating with their voters. Whereas the most common identified climate sceptics measure is attribution sceptics, there are implicit evidence of trend sceptics for the Danish People’s Party and no evidence of impact sceptics. The attribution sceptics evidence that has been found reflects some of the assumptions about populist radical right parties, such as the tendency to conspire or mistrust science and research. Moreover, impact sceptics would for sure not fit into the

Scandinavian political landscape. The absence of the approach that a warmer climate would be benefiting, impact scepticism, implies that such an

approach would be too radical in Scandinavia. On the other hand, it would be reasonable to believe that the populist radical right parties located in

Scandinavia would belong to the ones that could identify advantages related to a warmer climate. However, neither claiming that the changed climate would not have a major impact, which also is a feature of the impact sceptics, fits into Scandinavia. Moreover, the same goes for the category trend

sceptics.

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Due to the increased awareness in Scandinavia and the saliency of the climate generally, the climate sceptics measure could be expected to be decreased and the climate measures expected to be increased. However, that was obviously not the case. Essentially, this implies that even though the climate issue has increased saliency in the political agenda over the last years, this does not really seem to apply to the three Scandinavian parties. One possible explanation could be that the parties include the climate question in the former manifestos and thereby already do so while other populist radical right parties in Europe do not address this topic. Whereas this thesis does not provide any explanations for why the climate issue has increased saliency in the political agenda over the last years, it could be a hypothesis for future research. In summary, despite of the increased saliency of the climate issue, the three Scandinavian parties are not affected by this change and are not addressing the climate issue as more urgent or include more climate actions.

Moreover, as there are similarities between the parties regarding the radical right political positioning and climate change, they could potentially form a Scandinavian model. However, in order to determine if there is a

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