The Effectiveness of Climate Strikes – Savannah Collis
As many of you will know, climate change has been a prevalent topic in the news currently. Greta Thunberg has left education to lead protests, she has become the face of the climate change fight and her courage, determination and commitment is admirable however what are all these protests achieving, who’s responsibility is it to take action, will we see change?
Firstly to clear up the responsibility question; it is everyone’s responsibility to take action. Simple things like cutting down on meat consumption or recycling properly are things that only us individually can do. The government of course has much larger responsibilities and obligations to initiate the change we need. The government has the power and money that the people simply don’t, how they use this however is the frustrating part. It is with regret that I have to bring Brexit into the matter. Our MP’s are mostly invested In Brexit; which is partly understandable, the issue that’s torn the nation. Nevertheless, in a short amount of years from now it’s not going to matter whether we are a part of the European union when our climate is too hot to cope with. All world leaders’ need to step away from their comparatively trivial issues to help fight climate change and take their due responsibilities as leaders.
Has anything changed since the protests? Are they just an excuse for teens to miss school and have a bit of fun protesting for a cause that’s unacknowledged? Well the answers are, yes things have changed; and they haven’t, since the beginning of the protests. No they’re not an excuse for students to miss school and no the cause isn’t unacknowledged. The disruption caused by the protests has drawn the governments attention to the climate issue we are facing. In a Spring Statement (in March 2019), the ‘Future Homes Standard’ was introduced, it stated that ‘all new homes will be required to have a low carbon heating systems and world leading levels of energy efficiency by 2025.’ which is great if we had that much time but we don’t. In parliament in January £30 million was invested by the UK Climate Investments into ‘a dedicated African renewable energy company’.
Will change be seen? This is a very interpretational question, to some lots of change has happened and lots of change is yet to come on the contrary no change at all has been seen. In the UK particularly I personally don’t think much change will be seen unless some drastic changes are made, politically speaking; investment of attention in climate change has become a propaganda point for popularity. Politicians generally have appeared to show interest in the climate issue but no real action has been taken it, it’s all hypothetical “elect me and I will cut down Carbon emissions” or “I am interested in our current climate crisis, yes it’s a crisis, I’ll do something to help if you make me popular”. However this is not the case for all politicians, the climate crisis has received recognition; being mentioned in parliament roughly 16,749 times by Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP’s. Collectively these MP’s have referred to the climate change as an “emergency”, ”catastrophe” or “crisis” 339 times.
Initially, the responsibility lies in everyone’s hands, the public are relying on the government to come to the realisation of the climate crisis while some members of the government have already raised awareness of the issue. The demonstrations are effective in raising awareness by being featured on the news and in parliament. Changes are underway however more still need to be made. I urge you to think responsibly when it comes to what you can do to save our planet and I hope you make the right choices for the generations after you as the ones before did not. Keep up the fight against the climate.
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