Increased interest in the climate after the floods • Climate skeptic party expected to win
Tomorrow, the global super election year continues with the parliamentary elections in Austria.
After the major floods in Central Europe, the climate has emerged as one of the major election issues.
– This is our future that the government must handle, Izzaldin Abdalla told TV4’s broadcaster at a climate demonstration in Vienna.
But despite the great focus on climate change, it still looks like a distinctly climate-skeptic party will win the election.
The Freedom Party – which sits in the same group in the EU Parliament as Orbán’s Fidesz and Le Pen’s National Gathering – looks set to make a record election.
Train traffic is still down
It is not Helga Hofbauer’s first climate demonstration. Most certainly not her last either. She is a member of the group “Seniors for the climate” and is today a bit on the edge of a demonstration with mostly school students and young people from “Fridays for Future”.
For her, it goes without saying that the floods should make people think about the climate when they go to the polls.
– The train routes are closed, commuters cannot get to work. The fields are flooded. There are really big consequences, and it should make some people think, she says to TV4’s broadcaster.
But a few hundred meters away, another group of people is preparing for an election meeting, where the climate is far from a priority.
Presumed election winners
In central Vienna, people are frantically waving small Austrian flags. German schlager and American rock thunder out of the speakers. This is the Freedom Party’s last major election meeting, and people are excited.
The party has been criticized for being extremist, pro-Russian and for spreading false information about vaccines and climate change. But despite this – or perhaps thanks to it – the Freedom Party is leading in the polls ahead of the election.
But power is still far from secured. The conservative People’s Party says that they will not support the Freedom Party in a coalition – unless party leader Herbert Kickl refrains from becoming chancellor.
Christopher Böck, who has traveled to the election meeting from one of Vienna’s suburbs with his mother, is nevertheless optimistic. He hopes for an FPÖ-led government that will enforce one of his heart issues.
– All these sanctions against Putin… he says to TV4: sent on the spot in Vienna. “Perhaps we should consider trading with Russia again.”