How to lose the debate on climate change
Rather than inspire the masses, climate protesters undermined the cause they seem to think they understand better than most
Global warming is not a belief nor a point of view, but a threat. However, climate activists who endorse criminal activity are on a hiding to nothing
Any belief sits across a cline, from the evangelist to the sceptic. This is true for the “belief” that climate change is real and it is why we are decades late in taking action.
Global warming sceptics pop up in the most unlikely of places. A smart and funny chemistry teacher on YouTube seemed to be a useful resource for my son’s exam revision until, that is, he went off the National Curriculum script.
“CO2 levels have increased since the Industrial Revolution, which some think is responsible for the increase in global temperatures. As 95% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour, I'm not so sure, personally.” No doubt enjoying the anonymous freedom afforded by the internet that would be unavailable to him in a classroom, he went on: “Every Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] model over the last 20 years has been wildly incorrect, and any warming has been far lower than predicted.”
That is the science the United Nations relies on. No harm done though because I know that at least one teenager didn’t then rush out to stop IPCC climatologists from getting to their place of work.
On the other hand, five climate activists have just been jailed for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance because they held a Zoom call to recruit volunteers to block the M25. Their call to action succeeded, with 45 Just Stop Oil protesters creating chaos on London’s orbital motorway over four successive days in November 2022.
Hardly a peaceful protest but then, you could argue, neither was the suffragette movement of the early 1900s. The Women's Social and Political Union, whose motto was “deeds not words”, sometimes resorted to violence because they felt the impact of peaceful tactics had been exhausted.
Back to November 2022, and countless members of the public – whose opinions about climate change were unknown – missed meetings, flights and medical appointments, two lorries collided and a police motorcyclist came off his bike. Prosecutors at the trial alleged the protests had cost the economy at least £765,000 ($989,059) and the Metropolitan Police more than £1.1m.
The judge at their trial at Southwark Crown Court told Just Stop Oil’s Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin: “You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views.”
In my long career covering climate change, I’ve written about the good, the bad and the pathetic, but the re/insurance sector stands out as mostly good. More and more climate scientists and engineers are joining the ranks of underwriters to find, not excuses, but solutions
Parading their views outside Lloyd’s in February, activists from Extinction Rebellion formed a 300m-long human chain around the iconic building in the City of London. Their spokesperson, Marijn van de Geer, said: “We are all standing here today risking our freedom because the climate and ecological crisis is getting so bad, so quickly, that we can’t see any other way to get our voices heard.”
The protesters allowed staff to leave One Lime Street but refused to permit anyone to enter or re-enter. I was one of those who left the building and then, um, re-entered. Over the noise of the XR Rhythms UK percussion band, I shouted to the person politely blocking my way that I had been writing about climate change for nearly 25 years.
As my underwriter host and I peered at the protesters through the glass of a lift at Lloyd’s, we saw their placards that suggested we ought to feel ashamed of the link between insurance and fossil fuels. My host told me: “The world would come to a halt without oil and gas and so there has to be a transition.” Tell that to the people of Pakistan who found themselves chest-deep in floodwater, I thought, but didn’t say.
In my long career covering climate change, I’ve written about the good, the bad and the pathetic, but the re/insurance sector stands out as mostly good. More and more climate scientists and engineers are joining the ranks of underwriters to find, not excuses, but solutions.
Climate change is not a belief nor a point of view, but a threat. Enabling tribalism – and thus the existence of a cline – is a waste of everyone’s time and activists who endorse criminal activity are on a hiding to nothing.
Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur for environmental defenders, is correct in saying the multi-year sentences handed to the Just Stop Oil activists were “punitive and repressive”. Nevertheless, rather than inspire the masses, they undermined the cause they seem to think they understand better than most.
Re/insurers are uniquely placed to influence corporates and incentivise society to tackle global warming. Collective effort by the sector as a whole would be direct action worth having.
