On tonight's panel -
Grant Shapps, the Government's Transport Secretary, former Minister
and Chairman of the Conservative Party under David Cameron.
A Labour MP for nearly 10 years,
former Shadow Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, Lisa Nandy.
Rupert Read, Professor of Philosophy at East Anglia University,
former Green Party candidate and now spokesperson for climate
change campaigners Extinction Rebellion.
Journalist and breakfast host on talk radio, Julia Hartley-Brewer.
And businessmen and guest Dragon on the BBC's Dragons' Den,
Theo Paphitis.
APPLAUSE
Welcome very much to our panel, to our audience here
and, of course, to you at home.
Join in the conversation, you can argue along in the usual way,
#BBCQT, on Facebook, on Instagram and on Twitter.
We'd like to hear what you've got to say.
So, let's hear our first question tonight, which is from Sally Knight.
Should climate change activists be applauded or arrested?
Lisa.
Well, I really support what's happened in the last few weeks and
I don't say that lightly, but the reason I say it is because I've been
a member of Parliament now for nearly 10 years
and over that time, I've seen how this is an issue, the most
important issue of our time, that is always kicked into the long grass.
Because there's always something that is supposedly more
important, always something that is supposedly more pressing
and I think without those young people going out on climate strike,
without the protests that we're seeing in the streets,
this issue just quite simply would not be on the agenda,
but what really matters now is what happens next,
because there's a chance now
to build a really broad coalition that will keep that pressure up.
Why do we need to keep the pressure up?
Because we're not even on track to meet our net zero target by 2050.
The reason for that is actually Grant's department, transport, where
we're actually going backwards in terms of emissions, not forwards.
And I suppose the only thing I would say to the protesters,
many of whom I really admire so far,
is that you've got to take people with you on this journey.
There is no point in telling people in towns like Wigan
to get out of their cars when our trains and our buses have been
brought to a standstill for the last two years.
This has got to be a positive agenda about creating the clean
energy jobs in towns like mine,
jobs that were lost when the mines closed many years ago, about warmer
homes, about better futures for our young people
and about a better environment,
and if we make common cause with people who are trying to, to,
to improve the daily lives of ordinary people in this country,
I think this is a battle that we'll win, we'll start
to take action and we'll build a better Britain in the process.
APPLAUSE
Theo. What's your view?
Well, I think the argument is undeniable,
although I think there's a bloke across the pond that is denying
it's ever happening, but we'll put him to one side for the moment.
Because it's not very important here tonight.
But the reality is the argument is undeniable.
The method is ridiculous
because I've just come back from my company conference. Two days,
I had 500 colleagues there and I've got to tell you, climate change
was the number one question we had for discussion at that conference.
We've got so many things for our business,
everybody's tuned in on the environment, sustainability,
climate change and what our business is doing,
and in fact they even voted that now we should plant every...
this year, a tree for every colleague we hire
and that we already have.
That's over 4,000 trees for this year and they're saying
they'd rather have that spent out of our bonus pot.
That's how important it is, so we don't need people to get
superglue, stick it on somebody else's butt
and hang around there for two days, stopping them going to work,
stopping them going to a hospital, stopping them going through their
normal, everyday lives, where they work to put food on the table for
their children, a roof over their head and to lead a normal life.
That just is not acceptable.
Sally, what's your view? As you asked the question.
I think it's really interesting, Lisa, that you used
the word "protester," because I deliberately worded the question
"activist," which is suggesting that I support, absolutely support
the cause and it's absolutely right that this is highlighted
and that governments worldwide take notice.
But I agree with Theo that the methods...
I really don't applaud at all
and I think for normal people just trying to get to work,
do the right thing, it really is deplorable
and I just think there are better ways to grab headlines.
So, Rupert, what do you think when you hear that?
Because you want to take people with you.
Well, I think the first thing to say is, if there are better methods,
honestly, I'm all ears because I've been in this game for a long time.
I've been working in non-governmental organisations,
in the Green Party for many years, knocking on doors, etc,
and do you know what? None of it worked, right.
Earlier on this year, we're still on the same trajectory to
disaster as we have been for the past 20 years but then what happens?
In April, we had Extinction Rebellion
and the first glimmer of starting to change, we managed to push
the issue up the agenda when a thousand of us brave souls,
and it's because of them,
it's because of those 2,000 people now of ours who've been arrested.
You're deluded! Excuse me, let me just finish this point, it's key.
It's because of those 2,000 people that have been arrested,
yeah, that I have the privilege of being here on this panel this
evening at all, right, otherwise I wouldn't be here, yeah.
But look, what I do want to acknowledge is this,
there's a reason why the story hasn't worked until recently.
And the reason is that the problem feels too remote,
so, yeah, after April, a lot more people said, "We agree,
"climate change is an emergency."
But it still feels too remote to people,
it doesn't feel like an emergency.
So, you know, those of you who are there thinking, "Well,
"is it really quite as bad as they're saying?"
I get where you're coming from. I understand that.
I tried for 20 years in the old methods and the old story
and it doesn't work, so here's my message this evening.
We're changing up.
We're changing up in terms of our methods,
nonviolent civil disobedience, the same thing that succeeded for
the Suffragettes, for Martin Luther King, for Gandhi
and many others besides, and we're changing up with the message,
so my message to you tonight is forget about 2050,
forget about rising sea levels, forget about polar bears
and penguins, precious and beautiful though they are,
this is about us now.
This is about the fact that last summer,
the crops in this country were
failing as they were baked in the fields.
This is about the vulnerability of our food supply.
This is not even about our children or our grandchildren any more.
This is about the intense vulnerability of our whole society
to this catastrophe that is already descending on us.
That's why we're at London City Airport today,
showing some of that vulnerability.
That's why we need to be out there until that message gets through
and starts to really, really change.
OK, let's hear a little bit from the audience here.
The man in the denim jacket.
Obviously we all know that the environment is a huge issue.
I myself follow a plant-based diet because of it,
but it's interesting that you talk about the methods. For me,
a load of people dancing in the street, probably off their head
and, you know... No. ..dreadlocked, soap dodgers...
You may be maligning a whole group of people there,
I'd just like to say. There's no drugs or alcohol
at Extinction Rebellion events.
I think it's the wrong type of people who are putting out
this message. There is a real argument for the environment
and it's completely painting the wrong picture,
and as Theo said, it's stopping people going to work,
it's causing normal people problems and it shouldn't be.
It should be a problem that we all adopt
and we all change our regular lifestyles for and I think
when you see these people dancing in the street, it's not a protest,
it's just a field day, and I think it's really important that we
make this a proper issue and not make it look stupid.
Rupert, I know you want to come back in and I'll let you.
I'm just going to get round the audience a little bit.
Yes, you in the front, you wanted to say something.
I do worry about some of the younger people who are seeing this
and thinking it's an appropriate thing for them to do,
potentially then getting criminal records and then potentially harming
their future employment prospects by having a criminal record which then
means certain job opportunities aren't available to them.
Man in the classes.
One individual called Greta Thunberg, we know,
we understand her, she's actually garnered
a lot of support as an individual around the world and
whether you like her attitude or not, she's actually done that.
Whereas what we have now is our activists in London,
we're actually alienating people against them.
I think that's starting to destroy the argument
and they need to be very careful.
The woman in the yellow sweater here.
I was going to reference an article a few days ago
where you spoke about the need to perhaps refer to this
as an extermination event rather than an extinction event,
because that's too passive
and I wondered what the panel thought of that.
And do you support the action that's been taken by Extinction Rebellion?
SHE SIGHS I do. I do, yes, fundamentally.
With a big sigh. I do, yes.
I think it's sad that they're being arrested rather than applauded.
I think that's a waste of police time.
APPLAUSE
Rupert, I'll come back to you in a minute, just let me hear
a little bit from the rest of the panel. Julia.
Look, absolutely I think we should be tackling environmental issues,
moving towards renewable fuels, cleaning up our waste
and our oceans and looking after our planet,
but there is nothing in any of the science, nothing in any
of the IPCC reports that suggests we're heading towards a catastrophe,
a crisis, mass extermination or anything of the sort.
This is scaremongering of the worst kind.
Well, the UN says we have "12 years to limit global temperature
"rise to 1.5 degrees and urgent, unprecedented changes are needed."
Well, no, what it says is if, if we do actually want to try
and prevent a 1.5 degrees...there's a two thirds chance we can do that
if we do address those issues, but there's no, there's not
necessarily a catastrophe that results if we don't do that.
The Earth has been warmer than that,
but the key thing is what we have to do in order to achieve that.
What Extinction Rebellion are doing and what they want, which is very,
very different from what has been discussed by other climate
activists over the years, is the net zero global, of carbon
emissions by 2025 is achievable not by getting rid of diesel cars
or perhaps people having a bit of an extra tax on their flights
to Majorca on holiday,
we are talking about getting rid of all cars,
all buses, all trains, all central heating, all flights,
having state rationing of meat, this is what it will actually involve.
It's impossible to achieve that target otherwise.
This is about taking us back to a preindustrial age.
Now, we're told constantly this is a terrible thing,
industrialisation has been a terrible thing.
Industrialisation, the Industrial Revolution is the greatest thing
that's ever happened to mankind.
It has delivered longer, healthier, happier,
more fulfilling lives for billions more people than anything
else that has ever been achieved by our planet.
The best time to be alive is right now, apart from tomorrow.
Whatever the issues are regarding climate change, they will be
sold by technological innovation by the markets, by governments,
yes, getting together and by a sensible debate based on the facts.
What we've got with Extinction Rebellion, I'm afraid, is not
a sensible debate based on science or the facts. It is to all intents
and purposes a sort of quasi-religious death cult
and I for one think it's
absolutely insane that people are listening to their absurd demands.
Rupert...would you like to respond to that?
Quasi-religious death cult.
Well, look, I apologise to the young man for not having a nose ring
and I apologise for not being a part of any cult.
In fact, I take a lot of my prompting from the United Nations,
from the IPCC who repeatedly say in their most recent report
"to limit global overheat to 1.5 degrees,"
which is considered the threshold for danger,
"we need rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all
"aspects of society" and why we're back is to say, "Where's the action?
"Where's the action towards that goal?"
Today, those famous eco-extremists,
the International Monetary Fund said this,
"the risk of catastrophic and irreversible disaster is rising,
"implying potentially infinite costs of unmitigated climate change,
"including human extinction."
Now, if that's not a licence for the kind of thing that we're saying
and doing, I'm not sure what is. Greta Thunberg was mentioned.
I have the privilege of knowing Greta Thunberg
and I asked her in public when she was here in April to support
our first rebellion,
"What's your view of Extinction Rebellion, Greta?"
And her reply was very simple, she said, "I support it wholeheartedly."
And do you know what?
At the end of the day, this isn't about whether or not you feel
sort of warm towards Extinction Rebellion, we don't really matter.
What matters is if we succeed in drawing attention to the issue
and if we succeed in managing to start to get at last
the action we need to stop ourselves driving ourselves over a cliff,
that's what it's about.
But, Rupert, don't you understand, you're acting like numpties.
You're turning people AWAY from the great cause that we all believe in.
We're talking about it now, I've just explained the cause
and actually I'm getting a decent amount of applause here,
so I kind of think we're doing all right. Still numpties. Let's...
APPLAUSE
Grant, you're sitting here very quietly.
Well, as Lisa rightly pointed out
when she was asked the question at first, my department,
the transport department, actually is responsible for a lot of the CO2.
Here's the thing that's not in doubt.
We HAVE to get a grip of this. I have no doubt about it at all.
27% of the CO2 comes from transport, 90% of that is from vehicles
and there are some really easy things that we can do,
which is move, for example, towards electric cars,
electrification of the roads and that would be a very big first move.
I've got an electric car, it's fantastic, these are practical
steps we can take, but here's the thing I don't understand, Rupert.
We are living in the country,
the industrialised nation that's done more to move further
and faster to decarbonise than any other country in the world,
that's legislated to get to net zero, so rather than stopping people
from getting to work
and stopping people from meeting their hospital appointments,
go to a country which isn't doing any of these things
and protest there!
APPLAUSE
The man in the black sweater.
I just totally agree with what you've just said there.
Absolutely spot-on.
And instead of making it difficult for other people,
why don't you protest, like, peacefully
and protest outside the embassies
where they're not doing anything at all?
OK. The woman in the red sweater here. Yes, you.
I was in London today and at Charing Cross
and there was a whole line of people with, like, lead-type make-up
and wearing green and red, walking silently through the station.
And I made the presumption they were Extinction Rebellion
because they were all in the Trafalgar Square. They were, yeah.
I do applaud the sentiment behind it, however, it is
alienating a lot of people and for me personally, I do think that there
is a climate problem, I do think that we all need to do something,
however, for me, the person that's made the most impact on me
is Sir David Attenborough in the Blue Planet
when he said quite majestically, respectfully, the amount of plastic
that's in the ocean and that the whales
and the other creatures are swallowing, and for me,
that made a huge impact and it made me think
we all need to get together, all of us to do something small
to make an impact. And did it make you change your behaviour?
Out of interest. Yes, it did.
It made me take things seriously, because for him
to go on record to say that and the way he goes about saying it,
it made me pay attention and my nephew is six
and he watches the Blue Planet and I know that it will make
an impact on him and he is the future for us.
The man in the checked shirt.
I find it really incredible that, Grant, you can sit there
and say, let's look at other countries,
let's take some accountability here in the UK.
Lisa, I think what you said about public transport in northern
areas is so true and what I'd like to see is some
accountability from the Government around private car ownership
and taxing something that we know is incredibly dangerous
and investing that money into public transport, specifically
in northern regions, where systematically London's overfunded
and then northern regions are left where private car ownership
is a necessity.
The woman in the yellow sweater.
I was held up by the Extinction Rebellion protesters earlier
today and I was late picking my son up from school as a result
and he was in floods of tears, desperately upset
because I wasn't there when he expected me to be,
but in 20 years' time, he's not going to remember that.
What he will remember is if we fail to now on this emergency.
We can cope with a bit of disruption now if it has the effect,
if it's actually taking action, a bit of disruption is nothing.
And what's next, Rupert?
I mean, the plan is this campaign will go on for the next two...
Do you anticipate it lasting the full fortnight
and then what happens after that?
Whether it lasts a full fortnight,
that depends on how many of the audience come and join me
after tonight and take to the barricades.
Look, in terms of the things that have just been said,
a couple of key points to respond to, the net zero target that the
Government has legislated for - great.
That wouldn't have happened without us.
That was outside of the window of political possibility
before the April rebellion came along
and our rebellion changed the figures, changed the figures
completely in terms of how important people thought the issues were.
This is fact, this is just straight fact.
Look at the polls before and after the rebellion.
After the rebellion, people suddenly start saying,
"The environment is a more important issue than an immigration,
"more important than the economy."
The first time that's ever happened in this country.
That's down to us.
Now, in terms of the figures you gave us,
Grant, about how well this country is doing.
You know, the first demand of Extinction Rebellion is tell
the truth and I just so wish that you would start telling the truth.
Which figures were wrong? I wish...
The figures where you claim that we're doing better than all
the other countries, right?
We've decarbonised faster than any other G20... No, no.
Those figures... Gas emissions and greenhouse gases have
come down faster than any other G7 since 2010.
Only if you exclude from those figures
all the figures for air travel and sea travel
and for all the products that we buy from China...
Same category for every country... No, no.
That doesn't change it for our country because
it's an international... Excuse me, it does change it because actually
we fly a lot more in this country then people do in other countries.
In the States? No, not in the States but in Europe. Oh.
So, when you get the figures right, when you tell the truth,
we're not doing well at all.
Our carbon emissions have barely come down since 1990.
Those are the facts and I just so wish... It's not true. It's true,
that is the truth.
I've written on this, I so wish you would look into it.
I so wish you would start telling the truth. I have the numbers here.
In terms of the thing about other countries and saying,
"Oh, why don't you go and protest in China," whatever.
Our rebellion is worldwide, right?
What we started here is being exported all over the world.
A great British export.
It's completely peaceful, completely non-violent and as the
lady so rightly said, it's disruptive
but you want to see real disruption?
Crop failures, right.
Children not knowing whether they're going to have
a future at all, that's the real disruption.
Sorry, this is absolute nonsense. This is Malthus on crack cocaine.
This is the stuff that's been predicted,
this sort of nihilistic, the world is going to end stuff.
The IPCC...
The IPCC is not predicting any of that, there is nothing in the
science, nothing in the documents,
or in any of the IPCC's reports which is predicting any of that.
What this is, the tactics you're using, and you don't have aims,
in Extinction Rebellion, you have what you call demands,
and those demands you're trying to push through by bullying.
You've got the option to stand at the ballot box,
you had the cheek to talk about the suffragettes
and the Civil Rights movement in the United States.
Women didn't have the vote and neither did black people
in America, that's why they had to resort to that sort of action.
You have the ballot box.
Last time around in the European elections, under PR,
where Green Party isn't...
..isn't affected by the first-past-the-post system,
got 11.8% of the vote.
That's a massive increase on the last general election at 1.6%.
So, it just shows, if you want to persuade people at the ballot box...
Julia, I do stand at the ballot box and I say to you...
But to bully people... Can I finish?
You are absolutely wrong about this.
To bully people through protest and disruption,
that's what it is, it's just bullying.
I'm sorry, it's not bullying
to point out to people that this actually is
an international crisis which has to be taken much more seriously.
It's no good for Grant to sit here and say,
"Look at all the brilliant things we're doing," when his government
is the one that's slashed investment in solar, that effectively banned
new wind farms, subsidised diesel, the dirtiest fuel of all...
Your party is opposed to fracking, one of the cleanest energy forms.
Your party is opposed to fracking.
Hang on. Slashing transport funding...
Fracking would bring down carbon emissions, you are opposed to it.
We're in favour of giving people a right to decide, which
strikes me as... No, you're opposed to fracking.
..as frankly democratic, if you're
going to have fracking imposed on your area.
But let me say this to you as well -
this isn't just about the environment,
as absolutely critical as that is, this is about...
..Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, saying very, very
clearly, that climate change and our failure to tackle it is the biggest
threat to the global financial system.
This is people's pensions, life savings, people's livelihoods.
And if you don't care about the future...
Of course I do,
but this it, whenever you have this debate...
If you won't accept the evidence about that, at least accept...
But I do. ..that there are people in this room and at home who stand
to lose an awful lot if you carry on pretending...
This is it, there we go. ..that this is not real. This is it.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
This is the nonsense scaremongering that we have,
and instead of having a sensible debate
about the science and the facts
and what the economic and political costs are
of different forms of action to tackle the issue,
we just shout, "You just don't care about
"the children if you don't agree with me."
And that's not a sensible, political, grown-up debate.
You're ignoring the science. I'm not ignoring the science at all!
Can I...? Final word, then I've got to move on.
Gentlemen over here said we should move faster on cars, and we'd
already said we'd end the sale of petrol and diesel cars
by 2040, before any of the Extinction Rebellion action.
Last week, I talked about
investigating bringing that forward to 2035.
The gentleman here talks about Northern Rail, and we're putting
a huge multibillion package into building a lot more Northern Rail.
We've heard this before. I don't think this should be a political
issue in as much as across Parliament,
we've agreed to vote for this, but Lisa, I have to pick you up on your
solar claim, because 99% of all the solar capacity in this country
has been built since this government was in power,
so your fact is simply wrong.
And Rupert, just to finish off, you want us to be fact-based, we are
following the facts of the Committee on Climate Change...
You're lying with statistics, that's what you're doing.
So, the Committee on Climate Change are now wrong about it?
The Committee on Climate Change are telling you that we're actually
way, way off the pace and that your efforts on adaptation
look like you're Dad's Army.
In other words, you're a laughing stock. So, when we have a country...
That's what we say about you.
When we have a country which, for example, last year,
and you won't let these facts out for some reason,
last year, low-carbon production of
energy made up over 53% of our entire
production as a nation - if I listened to you, I'd believe
we were getting nowhere, whereas in fact this economy is decarbonising.
As I said before, rather than disrupting people's lives here,
go and protest in the countries where the carbon needs to be
cut at a much faster rate...
Take responsibility. ..where they don't have any plan in place.