On… Politics

Are our leaders suffering from eco-anxiety?

After a six month sabbatical, this week I’ve been back to Hope for the Future to complete my handover as Director and say goodbye to the team. Last week an upcoming medical test inspired a very personal take on climate change, but being back at Hope for the Future has got me thinking about politics again. So this week I’m looking at climate change through the lens of national politics, and in particular the benefits of taking a more personal approach to our leaders. 

The first MP I ever met about climate change was Nick Clegg. That was back in 2015, shortly after the general election that lost the Liberal Democrats the majority of their seats after forming a coalition with the Conservative Party.

Having seen the Houses of Parliament on television, I had high hopes for the location of my first ever MP meeting.

I had written to Nick asking to meet several weeks before hearing back from his office manager who called me on a Friday morning and invited me to meet them for fifteen minutes a few hours later.

Despite the short notice, I could make the meeting, but only because it was part of my day job having recently started out at Hope for the Future. One of our wonderful volunteers, Laura, also joined to hold my hand.

Watching MPs debate on television, crying out to each other from green leather seats in Parliament’s museum-like chambers, I naively expected a similarly grandiose setting for our meeting.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to sit opposite a real life Member of Parliament. The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, no less.

So I was surprised when we rounded the corner to find a small, run down building that had been converted into a dingy office. And then again when we were greeted by a member of staff wearing a bright pink tutu over their work clothes.

Perhaps it was a way of lightening the mood in the office—  Nick looked utterly dejected following the result of the election— I don’t know. I didn’t ask. 

One of our earliest volunteers Laura, has recently re-joined our staff team to coordinate Hope for the Future’s work in our newly opening regional office in the Northwest.

Within ten minutes we’d been assured that Nick was doing all he could for climate change, we’d had our picture taken with him, and we found ourselves back outside the office with our list of questions still folded neatly in my hand.

I had the feeling of having been dealt with expertly.

It wasn’t that I was discouraged by the Lib Dem’s track record on the environment, but by Nick’s refusal to engage with the conversation.

I wondered if perhaps it was just residue defeatism from the election result.

A few meetings with other MPs later, and I knew it wasn’t. These MPs, of all political persuasions, were scared to talk about climate change.

Defending Ourselves Against the Truth

Over the next year or so I accompanied tens of constituents across the UK to meet with their MPs and I began to see a common set of defense mechanisms that were used to keep climate change at arm’s length.

MPs that wouldn’t let their constituents get a word in edgeways.

MPs that were happy to sit back, let others do the talking, and happily avoid any questions if asked.

MPs that deliberately provoked their earnest visitors in order to derail the conversation.

MPs that were distracted by their phone, by the time, by talking about everything and anything except the issue at hand.

On more than one occassion it definitely seemed as though the MP was counting down the clock to the end of the meeting.

I also saw some of these defense mechanisms mirrored in the constituents’ behaviour.

Such a sense of urgency that they could barely listen. Such passion that the MP had been accused of letting the world burn before they had even sat down. Such knowledge of the issue that the MP was drowned in information they couldn’t hope to retain.  

As Hope for the Future’s team grew, others’ also confirmed the same prevalence of conversation breakdown with the same patterns of behaviour.

Our research later found that only one-third of people who lobbied their MP on climate change actually got their MP to go on and do anything about it. It wasn’t hard to see why.  

Breaking Through the Barriers

At Hope for the Future we got our heads down, reading as much as we could about the art of persuasion and testing it out in MP meetings across the country.

We soon found a set of techniques that worked remarkably well. Close to 100 percent of the people who had received our training managed to get their MP to take at least one tangible action on climate change as a result of the meeting.

Whilst there were lots of factors that helped these meetings to go well, the single biggest influence was actually incredibly simple.

It was the art of building a strong, working relationship.

It was knowing how to quickly build a rapport, breaking down stereotypes where differing political opinions existed and, most importantly, finding common ground.

Building a good rapport and a strong working relationship turned out to be one of the most important elements to successful MP lobbying.

If an MP cared about health we would talk about climate change through the lens of air pollution. If they had a background in international development we’d talk about the impacts overseas. If they were born and bred in their constituency we’d take a local angle- perhaps flooding, better cycling paths, or public transport.

The beauty of the approach was that we never failed to find something that got genuine interest from the MP. It was a starting point, from which we got to know the MP as a person. What made them tick, what they cared about, and what scared them. 

Using these techniques it wasn’t long before a constituent and MP of opposing political beliefs found themselves able to work together, and actually enjoying it.

As the relationship developed through a series of engagements we found that MPs were usually willing to increase the ambition of their commitments. And thus Hope for the Future became the national specialist in climate lobbying that it is today.

The Challenges of Elected Representation

One of the most helpful aspects of our research was directly interviewing MPs about their experiences of being lobbied about climate change. It gave us a particular insight into what might be holding an MP back from wanting to engage.

We learned, for example, that a lot of MPs simply didn’t know much about climate change.

Some MPs worked 17 hour days, six days a week and rarely saw their families, so they were preoccupied with managing immediate concerns and climate change had fallen through the net.

Often when those MPs met with climate campaigners they found themselves shutting down because they were intimidated by people who they perceived as experts. They didn’t want to look ignorant.

Others had poor previous experiences, such as being ambushed by large groups of protestors barging into their office or receiving threats online, so their defenses were up before the meeting had even begun.

Some were aware of local politics, knowing that they were likely to lose their seat, and their job, if they were seen to aggravate a particularly powerful group of supporters in the constituency. 

Many worried that they would be thought of as a ‘zealot’ by their parliamentary colleagues if they came out in support of radical climate action.

But there was one barrier to action that MPs almost never brought up with us.

It was something so obvious that their avoidance of talking about it in and of itself betrayed a great deal; the terror of knowing climate change is happening, and that it falls on their shoulders to do something about it.

Most of them didn’t even know where to start.

Like all of us, MPs are on their own journey of understanding climate change and with so many other immediate pressures, they are in need of a helping hand.

Eco-Anxiety Amongst our Politicians

In my previous post On… Denial, I explored how climate denial is a form of eco-anxiety. Some of us may find ourselves feeling immobilised by hopelessness and depression, others may avoid acknowledging it’s happening altogether.

Very few of our current elected representatives will now outright deny that climate change is happening. But denial finds its way in through by other means.

It’s seen in the refusal to engage in conversations about climate change, but also in the avoidance of mentioning climate change in relevant debates in Parliament, in the pushing of responsibility back onto consumers to ‘make the right choice’, in the blaming of other countries for their failure to act first.

I believe that’s why putting MPs at ease by creating a spirit of trust has been so effective for Hope for the Future in breaking down their barriers to action. The vast majority of MPs knew it was the right thing to do, they just needed help in overcoming their fears about taking action which had acted as barriers to their first steps.

The constituents Hope for the Future works with learn the skills of helping to remove many of those barriers for their MP, and they get very good results in doing so.

Why Politics Matters

It’s been wonderful to see the impact of this work, but securing the level of support needed to tackle climate change still remains a major challenge.

The UK is not on track to meet its own environmental targets, and this month the United Nations announced that globally we are set to miss every single target to safeguard biodiversity and halt climate change. 

You or I might be able to cut our meat consumption, stop flying, or change our energy supplier, but we don’t have time for everyone to choose to make those changes. Besides, those choices are not easily available to everyone.

Trying to figure out all the alternatives in order to live an ethically conscious life can become a fulltime job that not everyone has the time or money to do.

And even for those for whom these choices are readily available, the general understanding of why those changes are so important is still lacking.

We need policy change because it drives cultural change, just as we saw when the ban on drink driving radically and almost overnight changed alcohol consumption among drivers.  

But for the scale of policy changes needed, MPs will require assurance that a critical mass of the public is behind them. And that failure to act is to risk the loss of that support.

It needs to become politically risker not to act than it is to act.

Knowledge of the climate emergency in of itself will not be enough to persuade our leaders to act. 

The substantiative impacts of climate change will be for the government several years down the line to deal with. So unless we can put climate change firmly onto the political agenda, this is an issue that will keep getting pushed back until it’s too late.

Getting Politically Active

Today might not be a day when you feel able to respond to a call to take political action on climate change.

Perhaps today, just carving out a few minutes to read this blog is enough, and for that I am very grateful.

And if your heart sinks when you think about ‘political action’ because you don’t consider yourself a politically minded person, or because it already feels like a battle to keep on top of everything else going on, that is more than fair enough. 

For that reason, I’ve put the three suggestions for taking political action (with 10 minute, 1 day, and 1 week as rough time options) at the end of the blog. It’s there if you feel ready to take a look, and I hope you will feel inspired to do so.

This is too important for us to leave this to our politicians in the hope that they will wake up soon.

When I started with Hope for the Future, I didn’t even know who my MP was. To the best of my knowledge, I had never written to one or met one.

It was perhaps that inexperience that allowed me to see lobbying from a different angle. I felt nervous, and it helped me to see that the MPs that weren’t responding well to lobbying were probably struggling with some difficulties too.

You never know what might happen when you get involved in something new, and there couldn’t be anything more worthy of your time.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned campaigner or new to politics, the climate movement needs every single one of us who are willing.

And so to finish, here are my three suggestions for getting involved in political action on climate change...

1. Make a Commitment

(10 mins plus)

You can make a commitment to vote for the candidates with the best environmental credentials at the next elections, both locally and nationally. And, crucially, in less than ten minutes, you can tell those candidates why you will be making that choice.

The Commitment is a new organisation working collaboratively across the climate change sector to help politicians know that climate change matters to the electorate.

Using their website you can commit to voting with a healthy planet at the heart of your decision, and give a short explanation of why this matters to you.

This is why making The Commitment is a cut above simply signing petitions (although don’t stop doing that if you do already!). MPs consistently report that the personal messages of their constituents, demonstrating that they have properly read the information and given it some of their own time, makes all the difference. At Hope for the Future we have seen time and again that this is the case.

The Commitment will present all the commitments from your area to your elected representatives, making the case for stronger climate action and then report back to you on progress made.

When the time comes, you yourself will choose which candidate you believe has the best environmental credentials. 

2. Lobby your MP

(One day plus)

If you are able to give a couple more hours to get politically involved in climate change, then you can sign The Commitment and also go one step further asking to meet with your MP.

This is where Hope for the Future can help you, in both preparing for the meeting and following up with your MP afterwards. Face to face MP meetings have just started back up again but you can also meet your MP online, so now is a good time to make contact.

If you would like Hope for the Future’s help, you can get the process started by asking for a tailored lobbying strategy. The Hope for the Future team will research your MP and your local area, taking into account any specific issues you would like to raise, and put together a lobbying strategy with ideas about what to raise with your MP, and what you can ask them to do about it.

From there you can receive Hope for the Future’s lobbying training, and a member of the team can even accompany you for the meeting if you would like.

3. Direct Action

(One week plus)

You will, no doubt, have heard of Extinction Rebellion. The approach of ‘XR’ is very different from the approach I’ve advocated for here.

XR’s approach is to break through Parliament’s silence on climate change through direct action. This involves some shock tactics, such as bringing cities to a halt or protesting nude. Many members of XR have also been arrested for their demonstrations.

The beauty of XR’s approach is that it is forcing a conversation about climate change. Politicians cannot stay silent when citizens are willing to go to prison for the cause and London has ground to a halt.

XR’s demonstrations launched climate change onto the political agenda last year, innpart leading to the Government’s agreement to hold a Citizen’s Assembly, which is an incredible first step to establishing widespread political support for climate action.

A Citizen’s Assembly is a process by which randomly selected members of the public are chosen to represent the public. They are given information about a particular issue, such as climate change, and come to make a series of recommendations to enable governments to make policies that are deeply democratic. (You can find out more about the first ever climate citizen’s assembly here).

A more confrontational approach will not be for everyone- I certainly would not recommend it for a meeting with your MP- but direct action is another important piece in the jigsaw puzzle of building the political will to tackle climate change.

Sometimes, like all of us, MP’s just need a push to get over their fears of taking action.

About Me

I’m Jo, formerly the founder Director of national climate change charity, Hope for the Future. I am currently researching eco-anxiety and how we can build emotional resilience in our response to the climate emergency.

Welcome to Climate.Emergence- a place to emotionally process what on earth is happening to us and our planet.