Extinction Rebellion is on the right side of history, whatever you think of the group’s style

Editorial: Change requires persistence – so if some people are getting tired of endless climate protests, that means the young rebels are doing something right

The UK is reducing its carbon emissions almost as fast any developed nation. It also represents just 1 per cent of the global population. In the international fight against climate change, which is not being fought with anything like the urgency it should, its power is extremely limited.

Still, the Houses of Parliament, the building around which the climate change direct action group Extinction Rebellion has tried to build an effective barricade, has, for some years, been way ahead of the curve in the fight on climate change. Its parties are, to a great extent, on the same side.

So for protesters to shut down such a large swathe of the capital in an act of deliberate disruption might seem at best pointless and at worst counter-productive.

But there can be no doubt that in recent years, certainly since Donald Trump replaced Barack Obama in the White House, the urgent case for action on the climate crisis has had to be made from the bottom up. Greta Thunberg and the school strikes, and other large-scale exercises of direct action, have had a significant influence in driving climate change up the public agenda.

The fact is that lots of people, and indeed green-minded ones, feel like they have perhaps had enough of this kind of thing. Yet that itself is a sign of progress: change requires repetition. Messages must be hammered home. It is urgent that this movement succeeds.

Science is united on the risks we face and the urgency of action required. And yet, global emissions continue to rise. That is not so much a scandal as an act of mass suicide. Or rather, it is something worse: it is an older, more powerful generation destroying the life chances of a younger one.

You do not need to share the overall world view of Extinction Rebellion, which is fiercely political and not uncontroversial, to see that what the protesters are doing – not just in London, but all around the world – is, broadly speaking, the right thing to do.

The alternative is apathy. There is, frankly, far too much of that around, even in these febrile times. It is a highly destructive force.

(As an aside, it is interesting to note how those voices who appear most aggrieved by the disruption of climate protest are, for the most part, the same who claim that the disruptions of no-deal Brexit are nothing to worry about.)

If there is any chance at all of taming the climate whirlwind in the decades ahead, action will need to be fast and dramatic.

Perhaps it would be desirable if protest groups with broader values more in tune with mainstream British political culture were prepared to make the case for action with the same anger and attention-grabbing style as Extinction Rebellion. But they are not.

In the meantime, all of those who do their bit to hammer home the seriousness of the task at hand are on the right side of history. It may be that it’s already too late. If that’s the case, or indeed even if it isn’t, history will not pause to remember a few blocked bridges. It will only be concerned with the action that was taken, or wasn’t.

And those with power to take meaningful action are letting down those without.