greenlash
nounEtymology Blend of green + backlash.
1
Informal A backlash against environmental concerns.
- As EU countries such as Spain, Slovakia and Poland prepare for elections later this year, and with European parliament elections in 2024, there is a real risk that rightwing, populist parties will latch on to the “greenlash” and surge back in the polls.2023 July 12, Nathalie Tocci, “After two years of real progress on climate, a European ‘greenlash’ is brewing”, in The Guardian:
- Unlike in many countries in Europe, where motorists, farmers and rightwing groups have been driving anti-climate action, the UK has long enjoyed a comfortable political consensus on the subject. But conditions for a greenlash are assembling.2025 April 19, Martha Gill, “There’s only one way to fight the climate greenlash: appeal to the naysayers’ self-interest”, in The Observer, →ISSN:
1 more example
- Spain knows it has a problem. In a time of right-wing opposition to Europe’s environment-protecting Green Deal regulations — “greenlash,” it has been called — the progressive government of Spain has embraced an ecological transition.2025 July 14, Jason Horowitz, “It’s Paradise Lost as Climate Change Remakes Europe’s Summers”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- Related terms
- greenhushing, brown