At the ballot the leader of the anarcho-capitalist extreme right defeated the outgoing Sergio Massa
– In the election campaign, the new president of Argentina Javier Milei became known for holding a chainsaw during a demonstration (to “cut” the useless ministries) and explaining that thanks to a medium he came into contact with his dog Conan, died in 2017, and then also with many famous people died. And also with God, who would have entrusted him with the mission of leading the country. After winning the elections in Argentina last night, the leader of the ultra-right party La Libertad Avanza promises to bring to the Casa Rosada his anarcho-capitalist and ultra-liberal ideas. But what does Milei think about global warming and climate policies?
Elections in Argentina, “cultural Marxism” and climate change
Javier Milei embodies the figure of the climate denier more than any other political figure in power today. And it does so by drawing hands from the repertoire that the extreme right has put together in recent years to normalize itself. A very clear clue is found in Milei’s reference to “cultural Marxism“.
For the new president, as for much of the extreme right throughout the world, the West would be a slave to an overwhelming and totalitarian hegemony of Marxist culture. TV, media in general, public discourse (the ‘politically correct‘), institutions and universities would be occupied by a coven of Marxists who hold power at the expense of the rest of the population.
Among the many evils committed by the Marxists in power, there would also be what Milei presents as the great deception: global warming. Climate change, according to the new leader of Argentina, one of the 30 countries that emits the most greenhouse gases in the world, would be nothing more than “a lie of socialism” and all the scientific discourse on climate change would only serve to generate fear in the population to pass favorable policies to the usual known. For these reasons, Milei also wants to disregard the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, failing the international obligations of its predecessors. A move not far from that made by Trump with the Paris Agreement.
No agenda for the climate?
The fact that in the program with which Javier Miliei won the elections in Argentina against the outgoing Sergio Massa – of whom he had been economic adviser a few years ago – there are no points on climate and environment does not mean that the new president does not have any agenda in mind. It can be reconstructed on the basis of how it has voted in Parliament in recent years and of some statements made in the election campaign.
In addition to voting against the establishment of three national parks in the country, Milei went so far as to say that, in the name of ultraliberalism at Milton Friedman – the ideologue of the Chicago school – a company should be free to pollute a river without any kind of restrictions. On the other hand, with the chainsaw, he also wanted to cut the Ministry of the Environment.
And he has repeatedly denied that human factors have any relevance in influencing the Earth’s climate system. It also did so during one of the debates of this election campaign in early October, attributing the current increase in global temperatures to the natural variability of the climate. In other cases he has dusted off a great classic of negationism, that is the idea that the whole discourse on global warming is a hoax mounted to art since only a few decades ago some scientists spoke of “global cooling”. (Indeed, after the optimum climate of the Holocene the temperature of the Earth gradually dropped – until the beginning of the industrial age, when the curve reversed in such a way that it could not be explained except by the determining role of anthropogenic emissions).
On the energy side, Milei – like all the other candidates – wants to multiply investments in oil & gas, and especially in the fossil gas field of Vaca Muerta. For the president who wants to abolish the central bank and make the US dollar the new national currency, the export of hydrocarbons is a good way to collect dollars. And patience if more than 50% of national emissions come from this sector today. For the same reason, Milei is also in favor of the massive development of the domestic lithium extraction industry, an activity that has strong environmental impacts – on which its program is completely silent.