John Pearson considers the efficacy of climate (and other) protests
The Climate Crisis is not something that can be read about, reflected upon and then set aside. Each of us, individually, with our hearts and consciences fully deployed as much as our intellects, have to keep checking in on our own level of commitment at any particular moment
So writes Jonathan Porritt, environmental campaigner extraordinaire, most recently associated with Just Stop Oil, a body disbanded only this year. He spoke at a public meeting in Newcastle upon Tyne this October.
The focus has drifted somewhat over time, he suggests – away from concerns regarding climate change. There has been a general unravelling of society due to the “Polycrises”: the socio- economic climate is against us all. Perhaps we should all have some sympathy for our Politicians and World Leaders, faced with numerous crises to address?
But, not too much! These are the people who make promises at International Conferences, only to renege on them more often than not.
Climate change is very real, and by way of introduction, Jonathan detailed seven significant announcements made during the second half of this October alone:
• The Leader of the UN suggests we have already lost the fight to keep temperature increases to within the 1.5 per cent target limit.
• There was an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere of 3 parts per million in 2024, the largest annual gain since measurements began, back in 1967
• 500,000 thousand people are dying every year as a consequence of heat shock
• The Antarctic Sea has its lowest level of ice ever
• Mosquitoes have been found surviving in Iceland, one of the last two regions they have never been found before.
• Worldwide subsidies of the Fossil Fuel industry has reached over £2 BILLION per day
• More coal is burnt in power stations now than ever before!
Some shocking new revelation appears approximately every other day across the year.
And what do the World Leaders do, at their much heralded COP Conferences? Very little from one gathering to the next. Grand statements are made but real progress in the right direction is always sabotaged, it is suggested, by those countries with vested interest in the status quo. At COP 26 the proposed closing statement promising the ending of coal use was amended, at the insistence of only three countries, just to its “phasing out”. The tearful Secretary General, exasperated by this last presumably, suggested that the above “reflects the interests, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today”.
Faced with the above scenario, what might we be justified in doing in our search for climate justice? What protest can and should we make?
We live in a country whose citizens are blessed, in theory, with the right to a degree of free speech. Generally, if we are unhappy with some situation we are allowed to publicly complain about it. This affords groups the opportunity, one might think, of gathering to highlight concerns, protesting against the course of action their Government is taking, and so on.
But in practice the above right is ringed around by other laws, those prohibiting discrimination, libel etc. as to content, and the nature of any protest will be further governed by laws on assembly and whatever the Courts consider to be Criminal Damage. Our own Government is currently seeking powers to prohibit repeat demonstrations, and so an end (in Newcastle, for example) not only to protests against the housing of illegal immigrants in hotels but also against the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, Climate Change, and so on.
It is suggested (Ayer, 2025) that since the 1930s it has been almost unheard of for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest. Of late, “public nuisance” has become punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. How much does the law prohibit/inhibit us, and do such restrictions in themselves drive the aggrieved to ever more prominent and ever more vociferous protest? And when/how does the vociferous, driven by frustration or whatever, spur on criminal damage and actual physical violence?
I understand the frustration which compels people to complain. I appreciate their further frustrations when they feel their voice(s) go unheard.
What is reasonable? We feel passionately that the world faces a very dangerous future. How DO we make our case? By speaking truth to power?
Zack Polanski, new leader of the Green Party, appears to break a long-standing mould. To me, most of his predecessors were somewhat polite, timid even in their attempts to make our case. Polanski is far from timid, calling-out the current Government not just for its indifference and half hearted responses to climate change but in respect of the deeper underlying inequalities that many labour under.
I confess that I myself am not a natural protester. brought up to turn a blind eye, or keep a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity and so on. I am loathe to nail my colours to the mast if that involves doing more than turning up to a silent protest, and would I go as far as to use a hammer to do the nailing?
My parents might have added to their mantra “Children should be seen and not heard” that protestors should not even be seen; a very reserved approach, where daring to say boo to a goose would be extreme, hurting that goose or its property quite out of the question!
I can understand the frustration of seemingly/clearly not being heard, and am not afraid of expressing an opinion myself. But is that enough?
At the end of the day one might equally pose the question; what good will the protest do? What difference will it make? So: why bother? Why bother – because what happens otherwise? Changes go ahead unchallenged.
When the world comes to a terrible end in just the ways we have warned of will we still be around to say “told you so”?
Much “taking action” costs little in terms of effort, shame or reputation, and, equally, delivering leaflets, holding private meetings all risks getting little or no concrete response. So must we resort to Direct Action – It is suggested that the aggrieved should be willing to take direct action against, and harm, property. Not so, against people.
If international diplomacy cannot be relied on, then what can interest groups do to be heard? Porritt examines the factors that may or may not effect change
• Civil Dissent; Express disquiet at every opportunity and at every level, but this may just be ignored.
• Civil Disobedience; in a form of organised revolution the young people in at least six countries have declared that they have had enough of the way that things are going. Street protests, if on a large enough scale, might begin to influence those in power.
However, he suggested that real change would only come about through the sufferings of the really big financial institutions – not banking, which he suggested was corrupt beyond repair, not Investment institutions, who exist solely to make profits, ignoring opposition – but through the insurance industry. As the incidence of more and more climate-change related disasters hits this industry mortgages will no longer be offered, new ventures will not be financed and so on… as they are all simply too risky to insure. When this reality is grasped then the Establishment will be forced to come to terms with the scale of the problem.
Maybe we can get the responses we crave if enough of us protest in earnest, and maybe some concrete action does need to be taken. It can be argued that without the throwing of a few bricks, and the damage of certain property, then women today would still not have the vote.
Anna Holland, a contributor to the above book, herself imprisoned for throwing soup at Van Gogh’s “Sun Flowers” wrote, in a poem from prison;
There is no art so beautiful as action
We may not all agree.
To date, there have been some 38 Marches against Israeli actions against the Palestinians, sometimes bringing together as many as 100,000 protesters. This in itself has not brought about concrete change in Gaza, but our politicians cannot claim that there is not an issue to be addressed, and most have come round to a kind of sympathy with the victims. As the numbers of those arrested at such marches rises above the 2000 mark (merely for supporting a slogan) they must ask themselves, surely, just how realistic are the laws which call for these arrests?
And what of the Police? Put in an invidious position, perhaps caught between the warring factions? Having to “keep the peace”. Whose side are they on? Officially neutral, their actions on the ground have sometimes brought this into question. At most organised protests nowadays, even in the case of an apparently minor street corner altercation, someone for sure will have their mobile phone at the ready, will film the police’s actions, and post this on Social Media and so on. On the other hand, where the Police themselves film individuals or groups there can be outcry from the Civil Rights brigade.
The impact of your protest may in reality be greater than you currently suppose. Recent releases of Cabinet Papers (after the expiry of the 30 years ban) have shown that Government were genuinely “rattled” by citizen action in certain past protests.
The latest direct action tactic of protestors is, apparently, Citizens Arrests targeting those seen as personally responsible for the flouting of regulations. And so, chief executives of water companies, some openly admitting repeatedly breaking the law by their actions or inaction, have been arrested by groups who then alert the Police. The hope is that the latter cannot then avoid pursuing prosecutions against the executives, something which they otherwise seem reluctant to do. Maybe this is, indeed, the way forward?
1 Ayer, A. (2025) Love, Anger and Betrayal; Just Stop Oil’s Young Climate Campaigners. Mount House Press