Editorial: When Politics Overshadows the Climate
by Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir
The years 2024 and 2025 will likely be remembered as one of the most volatile political periods in post-1989 Romania. A chain of overlapping crises like contested elections, political fragmentation, a constitutional dispute over the presidential vote, and an escalating fiscal imbalance absorbed nearly all national political attention.
While headlines focused on coalition collapses, electoral reruns and shifting parliamentary majorities, one policy area silently drifted to the margins: climate mitigation.
Paradoxically, this regression happened at a time when Europe was accelerating climate action, COP30 was underscoring the urgency of fossil-fuel phase-out, and financial pressures for decarbonisation were increasing. Romania, however, entered a form of policy hibernation, where long-term strategic issues were repeatedly sidelined by short-term political battles.
1. Political instability crowds out climate governance
Throughout 2024 and 2025, Romania faced turbulent local, parliamentary and presidential elections, a constitutional crisis after the annulment of the presidential vote, months without a fully functional government completed by fragile coalitions unable to sustain long-term reforms. In such contexts, governments typically avoid politically sensitive reforms, climate mitigation being one of the most sensitive. Measures such as carbon taxation, industrial decarbonisation, phasing out coal, or limiting car use in cities require stability, predictability and broad legitimacy. None of these conditions were present.
As a result, key national strategies were delayed. Mitigation, which requires coordinated cross-sectoral action, became nearly impossible to advance inside a fragmented political ecosystem.
Climate action was treated less as a development opportunity and more as a political liability. Public communication fell silent, while debates were dominated by themes of sovereignty, inflation and security.
In this environment, climate mitigation lost political champions. No major party articulated a vision for a low-carbon transition, and most avoided climate commitments during campaigns to prevent alienating industrial lobbies or car-dependent voters.
2. Economic tensions slowed investment in mitigation
The fiscal crisis of late 2024 and 2025, driven by rising deficits, EU pressure for correction measures and uncertainty in budget planning has reduced the state's ability to invest in climate-relevant programmes. Thus energy-efficiency schemes stalled, incentives for photovoltaic systems were delayed, public-transport modernization slowed and cities postponed low-emission-zone planning. With financial uncertainty dominating policy debates, climate investments were reframed as optional rather than essential, despite EU funds being available.
Municipalities, overwhelmed by budget corrections and political transitions, deprioritized updates to their Climate Action Plans (CAPs).
Romania's climate governance relies on coordination between the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Development. During 2024–2025, frequent cabinet reshuffles and interim ministers created discontinuity across all these portfolios.
One of the most striking effects of the 2024–2025 turbulence was the way climate discourse became politicized not on ideological grounds, but as a casualty of political conflict.
- Climate policies were reframed as elite-imposed or externally dictated.
- Misinformation campaigns gained traction due to governmental instability.
- Public trust in long-term strategies eroded.
This environment is incompatible with sustained mitigation, which depends on bipartisan continuity and public confidence that climate reforms serve national interests.
3. Why this matters: Romania risks falling behind just as Europe accelerates
During the same period, COP30 made it clear that global mitigation is dangerously behind schedule,fossil-fuel phase-out must accelerate outside UN paralysis, adaptation funding will shift towards countries with credible mitigation plans and just transition must become a structural component of national climate strategies.
Romania's political paralysis therefore risks undermining access to future EU and international climate finance, isolating Romania from coalitions of ambitious member states, slowing the country's economic competitiveness and weakening national resilience as climate risks intensify.
Mitigation is not simply environmental policy but it is industrial policy, energy security and long-term economic strategy.
To regain momentum, Romania must:
- Depoliticize climate policy by establishing cross-party climate commitments.
- Stabilize climate governance through long-term advisory bodies, such as climate councils.
- Restore investment capacity by linking fiscal reforms to climate-relevant growth sectors.
- Reframe mitigation for the public as a source of economic opportunity, not constraint.
- Rebuild municipal capacity to update and implement CAPs.
The turbulence of 2024–2025 revealed a reality often ignored in policy discussions: climate mitigation cannot survive without political stability, institutional continuity, and strategic leadership.
Romania's climate future now depends on transforming the lessons of crisis into a durable and insulated architecture for long-term climate governance.