By Asif Husain-Naviatti

Published 5th May 2023, 06:00 BST

The perpetrator was evidently targeting the petroleum industry and the visible Just Stop Oil slogan tee-shirt succinctly delivered a broad opinion in seconds that, according to this activist, the industry and oil itself is harmful. The events were widely reported and would have been noted far beyond UK shores as snooker’s global appeal is on the increase. It is watched avidly in Europe, parts of North America and these days even in populous Asian countries. But was the right message conveyed clearly and effectively?

One unmistakeable conclusion is that frustration on climate inaction is immense. Activism, which draws attention to this frustration, is becoming more prevalent. Mona Lisa would agree.

There are studies on this. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace tracks global climate protests and fully expects them to increase. Analysis published in The Lancet Planetary Health shows that a perceived lack of government actions across ten countries of the study is a major source of concerns among 16 to 25 year olds.

A Just Stop Oil protester after jumping on the table and throwing orange powder. PIC: PA

Activists often point to the failure of international negotiations, such as the annual Conference of the Parties (COP), this year to be convened in Abu Dhabi.

There is a troubling disconnect between the international discourse on climate change and the experience of reality on the ground.

Exactly how do annual international pledges at COP conferences translate into public policies at national or local level, and to what extent does any of this result in the actual reversal of climate change? Most of us don’t know. Even where climate policies are implemented and taking effect, recognisable change is excruciatingly slow and expectedly so.

The average person on the street needs to see an immediate impact on their everyday lives. On the other side of the world, it can be a matter of survival.

The complexities inherent in climate change, ranging from environmental systems to the functioning or even transition of economies, from changes in societal norms and practices to geopolitical upheaval, and extending even to a fractious international security, are overwhelming to the vast majority.

Add this to widely known, but poorly understood, mid-century climate targets and two common reactions result. To some, it is a stymying, which engenders lack of action or even ambivalence. To others, it conjures up frantic images of ticking time bombs. Skipping hastily to the final conclusion – Just Stop Oil – we find ourselves at the Crucible covered in orange.

Activism is a well-recognised and necessary component of democratic societies and an important means of ensuring progressive change.

It is challenging, holds societies and politicians to account and acts an enabler to otherwise powerless voices. This, and not the mere right to do and say as we please, is the basis of the freedom of speech we enjoy in modern societies.

It can be peaceful. Mahatma Gandhi’s brand of nonviolent protest successfully drew attention to injustice, gained worldwide attention and elicited the sympathy needed to invoke change.

Did recent events at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield achieve a similar outcome? Probably not. It undoubtedly drew attention, arguably focused more on the spectacle of orange powder on green baize than on climate action.

‘Just Stop Oil’ is perhaps a soundbite too far in front of an audience whose immediate attention was on a snooker match they had just paid to see. Thoughts of oil would, at least in part, have concerned the cost of petrol on the drive home; a cost derived from upheavals in the global energy market brought about by geopolitical insecurity. The television audience was simply perplexed.

The few seconds that it took for the protest to unfold echoed the instantaneous perceptive leap put forward as a conclusive solution, which in fact will take years to achieve in even the most organised of climate implementation scenarios. The soundbite moment did little to educate and the action was just gratuitous and annoying.

If it had any effect, it was to reduce one of the most momentous issues of our times to a moment of colourful insanity.

The groans and jeering in the Crucible audience said it all. In an instant, this ridiculous stunt drained the serious credibility of over a hundred years of scientific study and hard-won progress in the minds of many of its witnesses.

Asif Husain-Naviatti, originally from Rotherham, has over 25 years of experience at the UN, World Bank and other international organisations on sustainable development.

The ridiculous Just Stop Oil stunt at the snooker harmed the fight against climate change - Asif Husain-Naviatti