The fastest way to get Extinction Rebellion to stop is to listen to them

The people with the power to end the disruption are in government, writes Harry Cockburn

Activists closed Tower Bridge on Friday and suspended a giant banner reading ‘End Fossil Fuels Now’ (PA)

Extinction Rebellion are bringing parts of London to a halt again. On Monday, Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges were closed. On Tuesday, the group brought insurance market Lloyds of London to a halt. On Wednesday, it was a protest at BEIS. Tower Bridge was closed last Friday.

Meanwhile, the group, along with affiliated protest movement Just Stop Oil, are together blockading British oil terminals and have already been blamed for causing a squeeze on supplies.

But it is all completely unnecessary, and the people with the power to end the disruption are those in government.

Extinction Rebellion’s demands are not only mild and easy to put into practice, they are also in keeping with the UK’s own legally-binding net zero goals and have been underlined by a report from the world’s most respected panel of scientists.

The UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change said last week that the world must hit peak carbon emissions within three years if we don’t want to see catastrophic warming of more than 2C by the end of the century.

Rejecting fossil fuels also offers a clear, coherent path towards energy security faster than North Sea drilling or fracking can provide, with greater focus on renewables, energy efficiency and support for heat pumps.

The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said at the launch of the latest dire climate adaptation assessment: “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing production of fossil fuels.

“Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.”

Instead of heeding these warnings and reassuring people they are not taking a path of moral and economic madness, the UK government decided to do the exact opposite.

Just 48 hours after the IPCC’s report was released, the UK government unveiled its energy security strategy with major commitments that would ramp up emissions, including new oil and gas projects for the North Sea through to the middle of the century, with provisions for new fracking activity.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine and spiralling energy costs are providing a grim sense of urgency for coherent plans to drive prices down and secure our energy supplies.

It has been shown repeatedly that the government’s energy strategy will not address these concerns.

Furthermore, taking climate action is no longer regarded as a fringe concern. New research by the Carbon Brief website shows the extraordinarily rapid turnaround in how the issue is perceived.

So, if you are sick of seeing Extinction Rebellion on the streets and sick of disruption to transport systems and to major institutions, it is worth remembering that, first, these inconveniences pale in comparison to the impacts of the climate crisis such as the London floods and the deadly European floods last summer and, second, that the government has the ability to take action to stop this disruption now.