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Yves Herman/Reuters
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The growl of diesel-powered tractors, the stench of burning tires, manure sprayed at police. This week, in the normally staid Belgian capital of Brussels, months of protests by farmers across the 27-nation European Union became something much closer to a farmers rebellion.
And at its heart is a policy challenge with much wider, international implications: How can governments stem the rapid overheating of our planet, and build more environmentally sustainable economies, in a way that is politically sustainable as well?
For while the farmers’ grievances vary from country to country, their protests have been eagerly embraced by right-wing populist parties. The parties are taking aim at the EU’s ambitious European Green Deal, designed to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.