Orin G

T Saturday's Christmas dinner and awards ceremony of the Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the keynote speaker, former governor of the Trinidad and Tobago Central Bank Jwala Rambarran, made note of a big political challenge in efforts to combat climate change.

Politicians firmly on the right of the political spectrum and hostile to climate change mitigation policies won recent key elections. Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Javier Milei in Argentina. If the polls in the United States hold up and he avoids conviction for a trailer load of clear and alleged crimes for which he's being prosecuted – we could be adding Donald Trump to that list a year from now.

Rambarran will be attending the United Nations climate change conference, COP28, which opens in Dubai on Thursday. He's there, he told me after his presentation, for the finance session in the first of the two weeks of conference. The hard bargaining – the more difficult part – is in the final week. This is where Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley usually shines. Mottley is arguably the most respected global voice on climate change policy crafting – indisputably so in the global south.

Rambarran said of the political challenge: 'Far right populists with little interest in tackling climate issues are winning elections and appear to be on the ascent around the world.

'Argentina's new president has called climate change a socialist lie,' he noted, and 'the Party for Freedom, which won the most seats in the Dutch Parliament, says in its manifesto that we must stop being afraid of climate change.'

The changing temperature on the right has been noticeable – on climate change and on the environment in general. The charge is being led by opportunistic loud mouths such as pharmaceutical mogul and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

The debate is for the most part less strident than how Ramaswamy is presenting it (climate change is a hoax and all the experts are lying about it); and the Conservative Party in the UK is a fascinating case study of how the right has drifted.

Of the UK's three major political parties, the Conservatives used to be the leading proponents of environmental conservation. It's in their name. Conservative with a big C, not small C conservatives like their Republican cousins. Conserving – traditions, architecture, the environment – is their raison d'etre.

Environmentalist and Conservative peer Zac Goldsmith was one of the leading British figures on environmental matters. Zac's father, Sir James Goldsmith – born in Paris to a wealthy German/Jewish family – was a leading industrialist, financier and member of the Conservative establishment. In banking circles, the Goldsmith name was nearly as familiar as that of the Rothschilds.

Zac trod a similar path to the top of the British political establishment as Sir James. The best private schools (in the UK they're called public schools). Tory peerage. High-profile roles in government. He was equally at ease on the pages of Tatler – a gossip magazine for aristocratic gazing – as being cited in an environmental policy document. He was close to Prince Charles, now King Charles III, another avid conservationist – and at one time David Cameron, the former prime minister who returned to public office two weeks ago as Britain's new Foreign Secretary.

About two decades ago, the UK Guardian noted, Cameron committed to tough targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and strongly supported renewable energy initiatives.

'Halfway through the coalition government's term (beginning in 2010) the energy began to dwindle and tensions grew,' the Guardian said.

'Internal opposition was voiced on onshore wind farms, green levies and subsidies for renewable energy. Cameron went from hugging huskies to famously denouncing climate policies as green crap.'

Cameron's climate change commitments unravelled over time and things got worse under his successors. Theresa May, the Guardian noted, got rid of the Department of Energy and Climate Change that Labour prime minister Gordon Brown had created. Boris Johnson made gains, such as bringing forward a target for halting the manufacture of cars with internal combustion engines – but Neil Carter, a professor of politics at the University of York, told the paper that Johnson has mostly been a let-down on climate change.

This brings us to current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Goldsmith resigned as foreign office minister in June, saying in a blistering letter that Sunak doesn't care about the environment.

'At Cop26 (in Glasgow) we secured unprecedented commitments from countries, philanthropists and businesses that – if delivered – will put the natural world on the road to recovery. At the time, (the World Wildlife Fund) said that nature truly arrived at Cop26,' Goldsmith wrote.

Goldsmith listed progress on the environment – from plastic pollution to animal welfare – but concluded: 'I have been horrified as, bit by bit, we have abandoned these commitments – domestically and on the world stage.'

Goldsmith was especially peeved about what he said was the UK's abandonment of a pledge to spend US$15 billion worth of aid on climate and environment.

Over recent COP meetings, the inability of the richer countries to maintain their financial commitments has emerged as the most fraught issue, particularly in negotiations at the back end of the conferences.

COP participants will have to reckon with the reality that parties hostile to the environment are gaining more traction in some countries. One reason is that right-wing politicians have been successful in fuelling popular opposition to climate measures by arguing that they are job killers that take money out of the pocket of Joe Public.

The author is a media consultant. Details at oringordon.com