Extinction Rebellion should target Chinese Embassy – Bill Carmichael

We still – just about – live in a free country, so I fully support their right to peaceful protest, no matter how hypocritical and sanctimonious many of the protesters are. Who can forget, for example, Dame Emma Thompson’s first-class flight across the Atlantic to join a protest critical of the aviation industry?

And we can expect more disruption in the future as, according to one of Extinction Rebellion’s founders, Liam Geary Baulch, people are flocking to join the cause following the release of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2019.

Perhaps the demonstrations are getting bigger, but I think we are also seeing a not-so-subtle, and very significant change in tactics on behalf of the activists during this week’s protests. Before the lockdown, Extinction Rebellion became notorious for its hostility to public transport, with protesters regularly climbing on the roofs of trains or gluing themselves to the doors of buses in order to stop ordinary people from getting to work.

This was bizarre, especially considering that other than walking or cycling, public transport is by far the most environmentally friendly method of commuting.

Such stunts certainly hit the headlines, but the overwhelming reaction of the general public was very negative, and they did nothing to promote the fight against climate change.

And it would appear a lesson has been learned, because this time around public transport has not been directly targeted – although by blocking roads the activists are still delaying the movement of ambulances and buses.

I suspect that someone in Extinction Rebellion’s PR department decided that the sight of a bunch of gap-year millennials preventing working people, many of them black or Asian, from getting to their zero hours jobs was not such a good look after all.

The danger for the activists is that by becoming more “sensible” in their protests, they may also become less newsworthy.

The 2019 protests, for example, led 
the broadcast bulletins for days and 
were on the front pages of most newspapers. This time around I had to dig deep into the BBC website before I saw any mention of Extinction Rebellion’s antics.

Another turn-off for the public is the constant refrain from activists that the UK government has “done nothing” to combat climate change.

The UK’s record is, in fact, mixed. It is true, for example, that we have reduced greenhouse gas emissions to 45 per cent below 1990 levels – but only by “offshoring” heavy industry to places like China where carbon emissions are rocketing.

But it is untrue to say we have “done nothing”. We have, for example, drastically reduced the use of coal in energy generation, boosted renewable energy and our government is pushing for further international action on climate change at the COP26 summit in Glasgow later this year.

And don’t forget that any action on climate change always comes with a cost – and it is invariably the poorest people in society who have to pay it. For example green taxes on energy, which artificially raise fuel prices to reduce consumption, hit the poor hardest and are a significant contributor to fuel poverty in the UK.

The stark fact is that any sacrifices made in the UK to reduce our carbon emissions are a mere drop in the ocean of global emissions.

The UK produces around 1.1 per cent of all global emissions. China, which is opening the equivalent of one new coal-fired power plant a week, produces 30 per cent. Whatever we do won’t make much difference to the overall picture.

Perhaps Extinction Rebellion should turn its attention to the world’s biggest polluters, but for some reason we are still waiting for that big demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy in London.

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