Civil disobedience against climate change is social work

Harm caused to the environment is a human rights issue, says Emma Vincent - and to ignore it is to ignore our own professional values
Tim Hewes climate protester about to be arrested
Rev Tim Hewes, of Extinction Rebellion, was arrested for blocking Whitehall in 2019. Photo: John Cameron

In April last year, I attended one of the largest climate rallies ever seen in London. Four days of climate-related talks, workshops, family-friendly activities, discussions, petition-writing, letter-sending, government-office-picketing, and, of course, protest marches, were held outside the Houses of Parliament. 

Nearly 100,000 people attended over the course of the weekend. The rally, hosted by Extinction Rebellion, and supported by around 200 organisations including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and NHS Staff Voices, plus a number of high-profile climate activists and public figures, was peaceful, community-building, informative and thought-provoking. 

The atmosphere was urgent, but hopeful. The numbers of people travelling from all over the UK to this event showed the depth of feeling and support given by ordinary citizens, and their willingness to devote their time to taking positive action on the climate emergency. 

The result? Very little. With virtually no coverage by mainstream media, the mass protest did not require the government to take any notice of the event or its demands. 

We were largely ignored, and a valuable lesson from history was re-learned: authorised marches with permission from police and mayors do not pressure the government to change. A protest is not really a protest unless it is seen and heard.

Civil resistance is democracy

This is why activist groups throughout history have adopted tactics of public disruption. Non-violent civil resistance aims to push the status quo just enough to cause some disruption, to get heard, but not enough to cause any real or lasting damage. 

Of course, movements around the world which have brought real change have not passed by without a huge amount of public disruption. Women’s suffrage in Britain, civil rights in the US, and the independence movement in India – to name the most famous – often went beyond the peaceful to employ violence before their cause was addressed. 

None of them achieved their goal without arrests, and none had public opinion on their side. In this light, peaceful protest by walking in a road or delaying a sporting event appears tame indeed. 

As with the ceasefire marches for Gaza, our state and media are very keen to make compassionate voices of concern look radical, irrational and irresponsible, when the truth is that any other means of democratic appeal are becoming more and more restricted and are too slow in bringing about the necessary changes.

To put it simply, life is at risk all over the world from human-induced climate change. Despite real concern over environmental damage demanding attention since the 70s and a UN treaty agreed in 1992, the UK government still fails to treat the issue as the emergency it is. Granting new fossil fuel licenses each year and pushing back deadlines for carbon neutrality goes against all scientific advice.

Speaking up on this issue in resistance to the government is not an extreme action, in the scheme of things, it is measured and sensible. But, as always, change is not politically popular, and the necessary long-term measures have too long-term benefits for vote-hungry politicians to focus on. 

So, pressure on governments by civil resistance is the tactic being increasingly adopted around the world. When faced with being ignored or disliked, what’s the better option in an emergency?

Climate change is a human rights issue

You don’t have to be moved by nature and wildlife decay to take action. Every day, in my role as an adults’ social worker, I see how vulnerable people are struggling with energy and fuel costs. 

Not being able to afford home heating, having to pay extortionate costs for carers’ fuel allowances, not having access to a reliable bus service: these are, fundamentally, climate issues.

Our government’s continued reliance on fossil fuels at the expense of investing in renewables puts our energy security and affordability at risk.

For children and those with respiratory difficulties, carbon emissions are already a serious threat to health, and have caused deaths coroners are starting to rule as directly due to harmful air pollution. 

The government is not only failing to meet its own targets on this, existing targets are well below the World Health Organisation’s guidelines.

Further afield, the struggle is more desperate and widespread, and this will get ever closer to home if big change doesn’t come soon. Forced migration, exploitation, food, fuel and water poverty are all effects of climate destruction. And with all these, already vulnerable groups are the worst affected.

The vulnerable, the poor, and the young – the people, in other words, it is social care’s direct responsibility to protect. But how are we to protect them? Where in the Care Act is an adult’s environment mentioned as a key factor contributing to their wellbeing?

 It would be interesting to see whether the Children Act, far more vague in defining ‘significant harm’, could be used for child protection in this respect. Afterall, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 – the most widely ratified treaty in history – does give children the right to ‘a clean environment’; 33 years later, after campaigns around the world, the UN for the first time declared that a clean, healthy environment is a fundamental human right for all.  

But neither of these are yet incorporated into UK law. Crucial steps, but not taken far enough.  

And that, I believe, is how our day-to-day role as social workers is limited. Policies are not there at an individual level for us to act on. 

We can’t safeguard a population under Section 42 from the harm suffered by the slow deterioration of our environment. That level of harm, in part brought by government negligence, is a human rights issue, and one for which the UK does not yet have any legislation. 

Social work values

Respect and promote human rights; promote social justice; confront issues of inequality; report exploitation: these are professional standards as set by Social Work England. 

Though these values are embedded in our day-to-day work, we need to expand our reflective critical thinking to the broader picture too. We have a privileged role to advocate for those more vulnerable, and we need to extend our advocacy to vulnerable populations as a whole: by campaigning and protesting in any way we are able. Because if we only address issues on the individual level, without addressing the environment individuals are living in, we are not addressing the cause of so many problems. We are missing a key part of people’s wellbeing, and a key part of our role.

Options for action

  • Environmental Rights Bill UK – a bill to make the right to a healthy environment legally binding in the UK. Backed by charities including Wildlife and Countryside Link, RSPB, ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth. Support the charities, demand your MP supports the bill, and vote for an MP who does
  • Green banking – visit bank.green to see if your bank is being used to fund the climate crisis, and switch to a bank which doesn’t
  • Non-violent direct action – Protest with groups such as Just Stop Oil: a civil resistance organisation part of an international network of people pressuring their governments to take urgent action
  • Chris Packham’s legal case against Rishi Sunak – a legislative review questioning the legality of the PM’s decision to delay key climate targets. Visit Packham v. Sunak on CrowdJustice.com to support

Emma Vincent is a newly-qualified social worker for adults with learning disabilities in Nottinghamshire