We were told to ‘stay home’ during Covid – where’s the Tories’ climate crisis slogan?

“Keep Britain tidy”, “clunk, click, every trip”, “protect and survive”. Whatever our ages, we can all look back, sometimes with fondness, sometimes incredulity, at one public education campaign or another.

During the Second World War we were extolled to “dig for victory”, “make do and mend” and “keep calm and carry on”. In the 1980s, it was “Aids: Don’t die of ignorance”, and in the 1990s, the anti-flu drive to “catch it, bin it, kill it”.  Most recently, the appeal to “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” has become ingrained in the national psyche.

Love them or hate them, such crusades have been around now for more than a century, and have become the go-to means through which a government seeks to inform and educate the public about a particular risk or safety issue. All the more strange then that there has been not a whisper in response to the greatest threat to the British public since the emergence of our nation. I speak, of course, of global heating and the associated breakdown of our once stable climate.

While carbon emissions continue to climb remorselessly, and temperatures follow in step; as countries across the world, including the UK, are battered by ever more violent extreme weather, there has been not a murmur from the British government about what the public can do to help address the threat.

Even as they prepare to host the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, Boris and co. appear to have next to no interest in engaging with the public in any serious way to promote behavioural change in the face of a peril that may yet prove to be existential.

As the recent IPCC report made shockingly clear, there is effectively no chance now of the world dodging the onset of dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown. Even achieving net zero carbon by 2050 is not going to help. We all have to face the fact that the world is going to be a harsh place for those who come after us.

This doesn’t mean it is too late to act. Far from it. We can still stop bad becoming even worse, and there is plenty we can do as individuals, but we need help and guidance from the centre – from our government. It beggars belief that none has been forthcoming.

Even should this change, the government’s vacillation during its handling of the Covid crisis doesn’t build much confidence that a Boris-led climate education crusade would fare better. The first rule of any such campaign is that it must engage, but simply engaging is not enough. If poorly thought out, a campaign can engage but make things worse.

Psychological studies have revealed that the factors determining whether or not a public education campaign is successful are complex and manifold, but one thing that is agreed upon is that there is no mileage in scaring the bejesus out of people, so that – like rabbits caught in a car’s headlights – they do nothing at all.

Instead, research shows, campaigns need to be carefully crafted to encourage, cajole and even shame individuals into making the behavioural changes needed. The messages presented must be consistent, utilise all media channels and should never patronise. Critically, they have to be designed so as to be noticed, persuasive and remembered.

One thing that can speedily derail any campaign is mixed messaging. And this is where we arrive at the gist of why the Tories have shown no interest in even attempting to make us all greener. How can we be urged to drive less one minute and implored to buy the newest SUV the next? Or encouraged to fly just once a year, but at the same time bombarded with ads promoting plane seats at budget prices? The answer according to this government is that we can’t. Nothing, in other words, can be allowed to get in the way of unfettered, free-market capitalism.

This is nonsense of course, and something will have to give if we are ever to transition to a green society and economy. So please, yes, let’s see the double-page spreads encouraging us to limit our flights, and the escalator posters telling us to switch to a green energy tariff. Let’s have the banners on the sides of buses extolling us to leave the car at home, and the radio and TV shorts petitioning us to cut down on meat. We need these urgently.

But only if, at the same time, there is a blanket ban on the high-carbon products responsible for the climate emergency in the first place. Some may think this harsh and punitive, but our children and their children will thank us for it.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical & climate hazards at UCL, and was a contributor to the 2012 IPCC SREX report on climate change and extreme events. His debut novel, Skyseed – an eco-thriller about climate engineering gone wrong – is published by The Book Guild