Massive Attack’s Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja has called on the government to do more to ensure carbon emissions targets are met.
The ‘Unfinished Symphony’ group – also including Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall and Adrian ‘Tricky’ Thaws – previously shared data with The Tyndall Centre For Climate Change Research organisation to show how their gigs are impacting the environment.
They commissioned a report on emissions in the music industry from the University of Manchester, which urges the government to “support the rate of adaption” required to meet the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees to achieve a climate-neutral world.
According to Louder Than War, the 56-year-old musician said: “Where’s the industrial plan for the scale of the transformation that’s required for the UK economy and society? It doesn’t seem to exist. The live music industry, especially after Brexit, is so important to national identity and self-esteem. It’s one of the few areas you could describe as genuinely world-class and has a vast social and economic value, as well-reported, generating over £4.6bn for the economy every year and employing thousands of dedicated people. But where is the government planning to support the rate of adaption we’re going to need to hit compatibility with [the Paris Agreement]? It doesn’t seem to exist. The data [from the report] is not surprising, it’s the strategy that’s missing here.”
The band decided to take action, instead of just acknowledging the “climate catastrophe”.
Speaking in 2019, when the report was first commissioned, he said: “We looked at our last tour and thought, you know, we’ve allocated x amount of money based on the calculation of the carbon we produced in the tour in 2018.
“And then it was like, are we just going to go on another offset, or should we do something a little bit more interesting and radical? The proposition to go to [the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester] was suggested to us and we thought that would be a good thing to do, because how many times have we sat in an interview and said we would love to do something but we don’t know what to do?
“And we’re messaging the fact that there’s a climate catastrophe out there but we don’t know what to do about it.”
Massive Attack vowed to make changes to how they tour, such as travelling by train instead of plane where possible, and making their sets more transportable.
And Professor Carly McLachlan, who led the research, has insisted it’s a case of getting on with the measures required to meet the targets because all the information on how to do it is out there.
She said: “We’ve been met with a lot of enthusiasm in the sector and lots of [artists] are already doing lots of it. When people make a lot of those adaptations it starts to become normal practice, for example, to think about routing a tour from a carbon point of view.
“Basically, as is the case with much climate action, we actually know what we need to do, we just need to get on with doing it.”
It comes after Coldplay previously insisted they wouldn’t be hitting the road until their live runs are sustainable.