Turning pink again

A new factor that evolved between the first and second waves of the pink tide is that environmental or ‘green’ concerns have risen much higher up the political agenda. This is in line with a global context in which climate change issues have become much more pressing. In some cases, the resource nationalism of the first wave (a focus on gaining more control and higher value from the extraction of raw materials) is being replaced in the emerging second wave by a much wider set of green policies designed to protect the environment and create a pathway towards a net carbon-zero economy at some point near the middle of this century. There is a widespread perception that action to prevent continued global warming is increasingly urgent.