Until recently, the climate change message was a study in reasoned, intellectual persuasion.
Despite the immense stakes, we heard calm, composed warnings from Sir David Attenborough about the urgency of tackling global warming, backed up by measured arguments from environmental scientists. Suited, middle-class Extinction Rebellionists were just starting to articulate their case, in the same way they might behave back at the office later that day.
But the mood music has changed dramatically, as those weaving their way last week to an industry briefing through a volatile crowd of angry XR protesters in Trafalgar Square agreed.
“We need to do something really quickly to turn this around in our favour,” said one seasoned energy executive at the table – a view met with universal backing.
Yet therein lies the challenge for utilities who know they have a strong case to make on their decarbonisation agendas, environmental programmes, benefits-sharing and support for the most vulnerable in society but are dogged by legacy image issues, a generally hostile consumer media and an increasingly suspicious public whose buy-in they simply must now secure.
Cutting through that dichotomy, acrimony and noise won’t be easy – and the sector’s message must now be spot on.
The business secretary’s recent pronouncement that activists were “protesting on the wrong streets, in the wrong city – the wrong country”, while justified in light of the UK’s emissions record, did little to reverse the swell of compulsive fury over climate change.
And all this before we even consider the Committee on Climate Change chair’s letter to the Treasury secretary this week, which describes “the key challenge” for the department’s transition review. Namely, who will pay for net zero, and how it can be funded in a way that distributes costs fairly and avoids a gilets jaunes-style backlash here?
Plugging away at making industry’s case seems the only answer, in the hope that sooner or later the public will recognise it as now being part of the climate solution, not the problem.
Sitting just a stone’s throw from the protests, my sources agreed there had never been a better opportunity to get that message out, to join forces with the public, to garner a sense of civic engagement, even, around decarbonisation.
But the payment piece will be critical. The last thing this already fractured nation needs is more division.