BERLIN/WARSAW/MADRID — From Germany and France to Poland and Spain, the far-right made inroads into the youth vote in key states in this European Union (EU) election — as a generation that has grown up amid constant crises seeks new answers and follows politicians fluent in TikTok and YouTube.

Young voters, traditionally perceived to be more left-wing, drove the wave of support for environmental parties at the last EU election in 2019, earning the nickname “Generation Greta” after the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

But following the pandemic, the Ukraine war and cost of living crisis, many shifted their support this year towards far-right populist parties that tapped into their concerns, fueling their overall rise in the June 6-9 EU parliament poll.

With the leaders of Europe’s often upstart ethno-nationalist, anti-establishment movements mastering new social media better than their mainstream counterparts, they are earning cachet as a subversive counterculture among some young people.

They appeal in particular to young men who feel left behind and censored by an increasingly “woke” mainstream, analysts say.

“Germany is not going in a good direction and they were the only party with a really clear message, on migration,” said Christoph, 17, a trade school student in Berlin who declined to give his full name, who voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany.

Support for the AfD, which wants to curb migration and warns against what it calls the Islamization of Germany, was up 11 percentage points to 16% among under-25 year olds, according to an exit poll by Infratest dimap — more than double the 5-point rise among the broader population.

The shift, which helped the AfD achieve a historic second place nationwide, was notable in that Germany’s decision to allow 16-18 year-olds to vote for the first time had been expected to favor left-leaning parties.

Though the far-right did not do well everywhere among young voters — and they are a relatively small category in a continent with an ageing population — the trend will still worry mainstream parties, who face a snap election later this month in France, and federal elections next year in Germany.

ECONOMIC CONCERNS UP, CLIMATE DOWN
A recent survey of Germany’s youth showed that young people were increasingly worried about inflation, expensive housing and social divisions, and less about climate change. The Greens won just 11% of the youth vote on Sunday, down 23 percentage points. “There is no longer a sense that if they just work hard then the future will be better, and they are disappointed by the parties in power,” said study lead author Simon Schnetzer, noting that economic gloom was making them more receptive to the AfD’s anti-migration rhetoric. Christoph said his experiences led him to believe Germany’s more recent immigrants were more prone to violence and unwilling to integrate.

In France, the far-right National Rally (RN) took a 25% share of the vote among 18-24 year olds, according to pollster Ipsos, up 10 percentage points compared with an around 8-point gain overall to 31.4%. To be sure, most of the youth in the EU’s two top powers still back leftist parties, and many worry about the latest trend.

“It worries me because I saw the far-right wants to deport people even if they have German citizenship like me,” said Ensar Adanur, 17, a German of Turkish origin. “But Germany is home for me.”

In Poland, however, support for the far-right Confederation among 18-29 years old voters increased from 18.5% to 30.1%, making them the leading choice for that demographic.

Mainstream parties “no longer have any credibility for me, the previous government and the current one show it clearly”, said Paweł Rurkowski, 30, an IT specialist who voted for the Confederation.

SLICK ON SOCIALS
Far-right parties’ relative proficiency in young voters’ preferred channels of communication — video apps such as Tiktok and YouTube and messaging app Telegram — is a big factor behind their increasing success with that generation, analysts said.

The recent German youth study showed that 57% of young people get their news and politics through social media. But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, like many mainstream politicians, only joined Tiktok a few months ago.

“If you are not on young peoples’ channels, you simply do not exist,” said Mr. Schnetzer.

Meanwhile social media platforms algorithms favour controversial messages that generate engagement over serious content, said Ruediger Maas, founder of the Institute for Generational Research in Augsburg.

The AfD’s lead candidate for the EU elections, Maximilian Krah, went viral on TikTok, for example, with dating tips for young men: “Don’t watch porn, don’t vote for the Greens, go out into the fresh air … Real men are right-wing.”

He has some 53,300 followers on Tiktok, compared with just 11,000 and 2,652 respectively for the lead candidates for the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens.

“My generation doesn’t really know about politics but we hear about the AfD all the time,” said AfD voter Christoph.

In Spain, social media influencer Alvise Perez clinched 6.7% of the youth vote, compared with 4.6% of the overall vote, after conducting his anti-immigration and anti-corruption maverick campaign almost exclusively on Instagram and Telegram.

Far-right party Vox, meanwhile, which was strong on Tiktok, garnered 12.4% of the vote among those under 25, compared with 9.6% overall.

“It seems to be the only party that really opposes the government when it comes to taboo subjects such as immigration or gender discourse,” said Xavier, a 22-year-old university student who cast his vote for Vox. — Reuters

BEIJING — Weeks of scarce rainfall in parts of China, coupled with sweltering heat, has brought drought to several provinces, prompting alerts and actions from authorities to minimize impacts on agriculture, and water and energy supplies.

Temperatures this week are forecast to scale record highs in parts of China as countries across Asia brace themselves for another summer of extreme weather.

China’s Water Resources Ministry this week launched emergency responses to manage drought on in Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong provinces, indicating various regions in the country spanning the northwest to the east are facing parched and scorching conditions.

With dwindling precipitation since May in areas around the Yellow River Basin, in combination with the onset of searing temperatures this month, drought is threatening cultivated land that were being prepared to be sown as well as sown crops, Xinhua reported.

The harsh weather conditions will feature until the end of next week, with drought expected to worsen, the official media said.

In some parts of Hebei, Henan and Shandong provinces, temperatures could reach 44 degrees Celsius or °C (111.2 degrees Fahrenheit), potentially breaking historical records for the month of June, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Surface temperatures could hit 70 °C in some localities including in Shanxi and Shaanxi, it added.

The emergency management ministry has alerted affected regions including northwestern Shaanxi, northern Hebei and Shanxi, eastern Anhui and Shandong as well as central Henan to protect water and food production.

China’s national forecaster predicted continuous heat wave conditions and warned about the need to prepare for emergency power supplies as well as fire prevention in forest areas, the People’s Daily reported.

Electricity demand typically soars in high temperatures as people crank up the air-conditioning to stay cool.

Rain, not heat, is the threat in southern China. Coastal Fujian’s provincial observatory raised a warning for wet weather and potential disasters after forecasting heavy rainfall until Saturday. — Reuters

KYIV — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has directly caused or paved the way to the emission of 175 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, a joint report said on Thursday.

The report, published by Ukraine’s environment ministry and climate NGOs, said their estimate included both emissions that had been released and those that would be produced during repair work following the destruction caused by the February 2022 invasion.

It laid out some of the main carbon-emitting activities caused by fighting.

“Billions of liters of fuel used by military vehicles, nearly a million hectares of fields and forests set ablaze, hundreds of oil and gas structures blown up and vast amounts of steel and cement used to fortify hundreds of miles of front lines,” it said.

The 175 million tons estimate was the equivalent to the annual emissions produced by 90 million cars, or the whole of the Netherlands in a year, it said.

The war launched by Moscow has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, but it has also caused vast environmental damage as two armies engage in the biggest European land war in 80 years.

The report, which seeks to quantify the war’s carbon footprint, was put together in cooperation by Ukraine’s environment ministry and climate researchers from Ukraine and other countries.

The report used a measure called the Social Cost of Carbon to calculate the approximate financial cost of the additional emissions.

“The total climate damage that the Russian Federation has caused after 24 months of the war amounts to more than USD 32 billion,” it said.

The report said that the war emissions could be divided approximately into three thirds: military activity, the steel and concrete needed to rebuild damaged infrastructure, and the final third being made up of several disparate factors including fires and movement of people.

“In the early months of the war, the majority of the emissions were caused by the large scale destruction of civilian infrastructure requiring a large post-war reconstruction effort,” the report said.

“Now, after two years of war, the largest share of emissions originate from a combination of warfare, landscape fires and the damage to energy infrastructure.”

Military activity was responsible for 51.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions, the report said.

The majority of that number, 35.2 million tons of CO2 equivalent, was caused by the Russian military’s fuel consumption, with a further 9.4 million tons from the Ukrainian military’s use of fuel.

Among the world’s biggest consumers of fuel, militaries worldwide account for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2022 estimate, opens new tab by international experts.

According to the report, the war has significantly increased the frequency of landscape fires in the affected areas.

It said a million hectares of land had been scorched by 27,000 war-related fires, causing the equivalent atmospheric damage of 23 million tons of CO2.

The report also calculated that the closure of airspace over Ukraine and some parts of Russia, as well as the restrictions on certain carriers’ use of Russia’s airspace, have created just over 24 million tons of CO2 of additional emissions.

“Restrictions or caution has largely cleared the skies above some 18 million km2 of Ukraine and Russia, adding hours to journeys between Europe and Asia that consume additional fuel,” it said. — Reuters