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The climate hunger striker who was starved for more than five consecutive weeks outside parliament has claimed that he didn’t expect ministers not to listen to his demands and could even be allowed to die.
Angus Rose had stated that he would not eat until Greg Hands (the energy minister) arranged for Sir Patrick VallanceBoris Johnson, the Cop26 climate summit’s chief scientist, will give the briefing on climate change he gave to him to the media and politicians.
After 37 days of mounting fears of harm to the long-term or even death, he finally relented after Caroline Lucas (Green MP) arranged a briefing of the all-party parliamentary committee on climate change for MPs. Rose had originally asked Vallance to address a parliament committee rather than a briefing of cabinet via televised. He was pleased with the outcome, he said..
After his strike ended, he had lost 17kg. He was now having difficulty standing and protested outside parliament every morning.
“Before I started the hunger strike, I thought my odds were, no, they wouldn’t let me die,” Rose said. “But … in spite of the warnings being that I had lost a significant percentage of my body weight, that left me in a very high-risk category.
“People in a state of starvation who lose more than 16% of the body mass encounter rapidly deteriorating health … and that’s what some health experts were saying: that I was at very high risk.”
Rose and Hands met during Rose’s hunger strike. They corresponded. Rose had previously told The Guardian that Hands insisted that his demand could not be met and had urged Rose to reconsider his protest several times.
Government sources told the Guardian at the time that ministers felt they could not give in to Rose’s demand, since to do so would encourage others to take similarly risky actions. Meanwhile, Rose’s supporters feared he could suffer sudden heart failure after starving himself for so long.
“It’s an interesting question,” Rose said. “Would they have? Would they have left you there for another week just to see what happened? I don’t know.”
Rose acknowledged that the outcome of Rose’s strike was a compromise but said it was similar to the compromise accepted by Guillermo Fernandez (the Swiss hunger striker) from which he had taken inspiration.
“He was pressurising the environment minister, all of the pressure was put on her head,” Rose said. “And in my case, all of my pressure was put on Greg Hands. And in both cases, they didn’t agree to the demand, and in both cases there was an alternate solution.
“My goal was to get the briefing by whatever means, although the way I saw it up until it was secured, I wasn’t going to back down until Greg agreed to the demand.
“Over the 37 days there was only less than half an hour when I sat back and contemplated and reflected on the enormity of the situation ahead of me, and that wasn’t fun.
“The way I tried to handle that was just on a day-to-day basis, and over the last 10 days or so, in particular, I got quite a bit weaker, and it started impacting my thinking, my memory. But I was still just doing one day at a time, and I wasn’t going to stop until my demand was met.
“Yes, it is, I suppose, a bit of a compromise. But I couldn’t say no to the briefing [that] has been secured.”
Rose said he felt the “vast majority” of the public he met in his five weeks standing outside parliament supported his aims. Rose had around 40 people who supported him in lobbying politicians and arranging letters from scientists and doctors to back his request.
Many encouraged him to resign towards the end. But not all. “I had a friend who was prepared to bring me from hospital in a wheelchair back to be in front of the houses of parliament if I collapsed,” Rose said.
“And I was like, wow, I really didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect [that] because it’s so extreme, you know? Who would have been prepared to do that?”
Rose is part of a growing number of climate hunger strikers. As well as Fernandez, last year a group of youths staged a shorter hunger strike outside the White House in the US; in the UK, climate activist Emma Smart refused food when she was jailed for protesting with Insulate Britain; Rose himself joined climate hunger strikers in 2019 in the aftermath of Extinction Rebellion’s protests.
Rose said that climate hunger strikers are increasing in number and she was concerned about their future. Wynn Bruce’s self-immolation in Washington last week, were part of a “rising tide” of increasingly desperate activism.
“People will be taking increasingly desperate measures because the government’s actions and its policies aren’t consistent with maintaining a habitable planet on which to live,” Rose said.
“This country is currently aiming for world that is two and a half to three degrees warmer. Forget about one and half. Forget about 2. The current policies and actions will see us looking at a world that’s two and a half to three degrees warmer.
“So yeah, there these are desperate actions, but they are consistent with the risks.”
