Key Takeaways from the IDU Forum
Towards a Green–Blue approach – our take from the IDU Forum
In December, Shared Ground crossed the Atlantic to take part in the International Democracy Union (IDU) Forum in Washington, DC.
The IDU—founded in 1983 by leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, and Helmut Kohl, and now chaired by former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper—is a global alliance of more than 80 center-right groups dedicated to democracy, individual freedom, and a rules-based international order. In many ways, it is today the largest international gathering of like-minded center-right and conservative leaders and parties across the world, and it was an honor for us to be partners of such an event—and to such an institution.
Organized on a regular basis, the IDU Forum brings together policymakers, senior party officials, and thought leaders from this global membership and beyond to build relationships, discuss policy challenges, and share best practices for campaigning and governing. A major meeting point for debates on the center-right, we were proud to be invited by the event’s organizers to discuss the topic that we hold dearest to our heart: the environment.
We therefore hosted an engaging debate during the conference, focused on the environment and developing a conservative vision for the coming years, taking into account the geopolitical situation, legitimate security concerns, and the reality of energy markets today.
During our conversations, we identified the following issues:
There is a place in the current debate for a conservative approach to the stewardship of nature and climate—one rooted in pragmatism and reality, with a focus on nation-based priorities.
Energy is at the center of every conservative conversation. With a shifting geopolitical landscape changing people’s everyday reality and the growing need for energy due to the development of new technologies, it is clear to everyone on the right of the political spectrum (and probably beyond) that a reliable flow of energy is needed, and that if we want to have a sustainable energy mix, this needs to be both affordable and reliable.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, security has become a #1 priority for many European countries. With President Trump’s America First policy, there is a growing pressure for the EU (and beyond) to address the issue of energy security and to show more leadership.
Business: this will come as no surprise from the heirs of Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, and Ronald Reagan, but the idea that business needs to be part of the conversation when it comes to energy and the environment is a recurring theme that we have heard at almost every point in our conversation. This does not mean trusting the private sector blindly; rather, as US policymakers said in the 1980s when discussing nuclear disarmament with Soviet officials, the approach should be “trust but verify” (a motto that can be applied both ways). Business partners are essential to the transition.
Where is the space for the environmental and climate solution building on the right?
With this in mind, we boarded our flights back across the Atlantic with a confirmation of our assumptions. Even though we were not expected to be “messiahs” in a conversation already full of challenges, we were struck by how much interest our interlocutors showed when we explained our mission: depolarising ecology by reconciling conservatism with the environment (and vice-versa). We were impressed by the positive reactions this sparked among our colleagues.
Conservatives and the center-right do have things to say on the environment, and they too want to protect nature, but they need to be able to propose an agenda for their own policies, not only against those of the opposition. Too many of our conversations began with frustration—the feeling that environmental issues have been “hijacked” by the left. Some were ready to concede, however, that this perceived monopoly is also due to the fact that the right, despite having launched many major environmental initiatives throughout history (from Theodore Roosevelt’s national parks, to Margaret Thatcher’s landmark speech on global warming, to Richard Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970), has largely withdrawn from the issue.
There is therefore real space for the right to develop solutions for environmental and climate challenges—but these solutions cannot simply be a “recycling” (pun intended) of ideas proposed by the left. A conservative, or right-of-center, environmental approach must be rooted in the values that define the political right: conservation, subsidiarity, trust in individual choice, a strong sense of responsibility within communities, and genuine distrust of top-down, bureaucratic solutions. This also implies a search for regulatory simplicity, if only for the sake of efficiency, and a grounded attachment to the natural environment in one’s own community. Love of nature at the local level must remain the starting point of any right-of-center environmental conversation—for everything begins at the grassroots, with the “little platoons” so accurately described by Edmund Burke.
Let us be honest—ecology and the right is not a new relationship—and it should never have ceased to be a familiar one. We hope to bring this link back to life through our activities, and will be talking more about our efforts to reconcile conservatives with the environment (but also the environment with conservatives) over the next episodes of our Substack. So stay tuned!
By Natalia Węgrzyn and Thibault Muzergues
Natalia Węgrzyn is the Executive Director of Shared Ground and co-founder of the Our Common Home network, a coalition of organisations focused on enabling civic participation across society to develop solutions for our changing natural environment. An experienced strategist and policy expert, Natalia has a proven track record of building partnerships and bridging environmental and social divides.
Thibault Muzergues is the Political Director at Shared Ground. An expert in European, Mediterranean, and Transatlantic politics, Thibault worked as a campaign consultant in the UK and France in the 2000s before joining the International Republican Institute, where he spent nearly 15 years working to advance democracy around the world. A public intellectual and Research Associate, he is also the author of four books and numerous publications.
