We will not persuade. We will not explain. We will not listen. We know best and we will force you to comply. This, I’m sorry to say, is how the government’s climate policy works. Or rather, how it doesn’t. Because nothing could be better calculated to alienate the people you need to reach than climate authoritarianism.

Three astonishing things are happening simultaneously. One is the government’s utterly baffling failure to communicate with us on this existential issue. Where are the public information videos? Where are the televised emergency briefings on climate breakdown, like the emergency briefings on Covid-19?

This is the reasonable demand of the National Emergency Briefing campaign, whose film is now being shown in more than 1,000 cinemas and other venues in the UK: a remarkable achievement. Why are scientists, activists and journalists – faint voices in the storm – being left to explain this defining issue and the societal transformation we need? The great majority accept a call for action only when it comes from government. When it tells us “this is our national purpose and we want you to be part of it”, people tend to heed the call.

That is what happened when the government belatedly responded to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Despite the deep distrust of Boris Johnson’s administration, despite the prime minister’s own fecklessness, we came together to take responsibility (even if he didn’t). This is what happened when the government rallied the nation against the threat of Nazi invasion and bombing. Yet, faced with the current emergency, successive governments act as if no one needs to be mobilised, despite the great societal changes we need........

© The Guardian