Why London’s Climate Protesters Are Missing The Mark
The game of balancing economic growth and pollution isn’t being played in the United Kingdom.
The group “Extinction Rebellion” has dominated UK headlines this past week. After shutting down key infrastructure in London city centre, disrupting the train network, and threatening to hinder Heathrow Airport on one of the busiest weekends of the year, it’s fair to say opinions are rather polarised.
While some refer to the protesters as “incompetent middle-class self-indulgent people”, others consider them brave champions of an important topic. Both, of course, can be true at the same time. It is certainly difficult to see them as a serious activist group spurred on by the fear of climate change, when the news is littered with footage of “protesters” picnicking out on London’s key thoroughfares and generally making the most of the beautiful sunny Easter weekend, during a period of time when the legislative parliament they claim to seek to influence are not even in session.
Even putting these tactics criticisms aside, their particular targets also presented some issues. One of their most poignant demands states: “The Government must enact legally binding policy measures to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and to reduce consumption levels.” Firstly, I tend to find issue with any political group that lists such things as “demands” rather than presenting a manifesto — something observed much more nefariously in the demands of the alt-right “Generation Identity” group. Secondly, even the most ardent supporters of green technology see this as being an absolute impossibility.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, which supports its course of strong action and demands, said that the time frame being urged by Extinction Rebellion was “…an ambition that technically, economically and politically has absolutely no chance of being fulfilled.”
All this action does indeed raise a key point though, while groups like Extinction Rebellion seem to miss the pragmatic mark, those in government and on the right-wing of political discourse have been severely deficient in climate change proposals and awareness. This hasn’t been helped, of course, by the perpetually impending economic crisis of Brexit, which has dominated both the legislation and zeitgeist of Britain for almost three years now.
What members of this group typically fail to acknowledge revolves around a concept you’d not often hear me referring to: Privilege. In this case, the privilege that living in an economically developed country gives us, which is necessary to even consider changing out behaviour to reduce climate change, courtesy of the pyramid of needs in the UK no longer requiring us to put survival and economic growth as a top priority.
As of 2015, the UK contributes only 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion. These figures massively dwarfed by the economic powerhouses of China and the United States. While the US certainly has a case to answer for, China and India as two of the top contributors know too well how the balance of economic growth and emissions works out.
We need to focus on a way of tackling climate change that creates new industry rather than limiting the existing. As is always the case in a capitalist system, there needs to be an incentive for companies to switch technology beyond government regulation. Governments should be focus on subsidising carbon-capture startups and renewable energy companies to give them a boost in the early stages of company growth, allowing them to compete more easily with fossil fuels.
It’s then in the hands of the developing countries to skip a step and avoid a decades long economic growth courtesy of a booming energy industry, as is symptomatic of all major industrial revolutions. Because if climate data around deadlines for change are to be believed, no amount of carbon-neutrality in the west will be sufficient to tackle the issue if the developing countries of the world don’t follow suit.
