After weeks of protests, UK becomes first country to declare 'climate emergency'

The UK has become the first country in the world to declare a national climate emergency following protests and acts of civil disobedience from a grassroots environmental group that launched in October.

It's a spectacular success for the Extinction Rebellion, while most climate protests have failed to capture the attention of the public, media and politicians. Although the declaration on its own does not mandate action on climate, it was the first of the protester's three demands, along with reducing emissions to net zero by 2025, and creating an assembly of citizens to lead the government on climate issues.

On Wednesday in the UK, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called on the government to declare the climate emergency: "We are living in a climate crisis that will spiral dangerously out of control unless we take rapid and dramatic action now."

The proposal, which demonstrates the will of the parliament on the issue but does not legally compel the government to act, was approved without a vote.

Extinction Rebellion said in a statement: "This is the first step in the government telling the truth about the climate and ecological emergency.

"Pressure on politicians will now increase as nothing but decisive action will suffice."

What happened?

The Extinction Rebellion has changed the paradigm of climate protests, according to Leo Barasi, the author of Climate Majority, a book investigating how to shift public opinion about climate change.

He's also written a Master's thesis on whether climate protests will ever convince lawmakers to act on climate change (his conclusion, they wouldn't).

"I found that extreme weather sometimes influences public opinion, while UN climate conferences and IPCC reports often trigger media coverage and parliamentary debates," Barasi wrote on his blog.

"But climate protests generally have little direct effect on any of these."

For the thesis, Barasi looked at public protests from 2006-2014 and found no examples of them leading to debates in parliament, while every UN conference or report, and half of the extreme weather events, were mentioned in the UK parliament.

Then came the Extinction Rebellion (XR).

For 10 days in April, tens of thousands of people committed acts of civil disobedience, including blocking traffic across the Thames, gluing themselves onto trains, graffiting the headquarters of oil giant Shell, and blockading the stock exchange.

And it apparently worked: The protests led to two separate parliamentary debates, and these were capped this week by the successful climate emergency motion.

The UK media has also mentioned climate change more in April than it has at any other time in the last five years - including during the Paris Agreement negotiations in 2016.

As Barasi points out, during April there's also been a rapid increase in the number of Google searches for climate change coming from the UK.

Interestingly, Australia saw a sharp spike in searches for climate change on March 14 - the day of the national climate strike. If we assume google searches are a good indicator of public attention, Australians hadn't been this engaged by climate change since 2010.

How did the protests work where others have failed?

But showing the protests have worked doesn't help explain why this happened now, in April 2019, after apparently failing every other time.

One theory is that the climate denial movement has run its course.

Richard Black, a former BBC environment correspondent and author of Denied: the Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, told the Guardian the BBC appears to have stopped giving air time to climate deniers to 'balance' the debate.

Mainstream media is now taking the issue seriously, he said: "The facts have changed. And in the end, if you want to be credible you have to go with the facts."

Public opinion also seems to be shifting.

Some have put that down to David Attenborough broadcasting a hard-hitting climate documentary, The Facts, on BBC One. Also, his eight-part Netflix series Our Planet, which conveys the heartbreaking realities of environmental collapse.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish student climate activist who initiated the school strike for climate movement last year, visited the UK over Easter; she made headlines and delivered another surge of public interest.

A poll published this week found that nearly 63 per cent of the British public supported the UK declaring a climate emergency and 76 per cent would vote differently to protect the planet against climate change.

According to the ABC's vote compass, the environment is rated as the number one issue by 29 per cent of respondents, a massive shift from just 9 per cent in 2016.

The latest Ipsos poll found 23 per cent of Australians rated the environment among their biggest worries this month compared with 14 per cent in July 2016.

It found anxiety about the environment was most pronounced among those aged under 25 but there has also been a marked rise in the number of older voters ranking it among their biggest worries.

The 2019 triple j What's Up In Your World survey of young people found climate change was the most important election issue.

Last year's survey asked about the most pressing issue affecting young people. That time, climate change languished fourth on the list: now it appears to be gaining momentum.