Robert Del Naja, a founding member of Massive Attack, has criticised the music industry’s response to climate change.
No stranger to activism, Del Naja has often been critical of the UK’s government policies as well as international concerns. He has voiced his support for organisations like Reprieve, which campaign for human rights, War Child, a charity that supports children affected by war, and the Occupy movement, which focuses on social inequality. Since 2018, Massive Attack has been supporting the climate change organisation Extinction Rebellion.
In 2019, Del Naja announced that Massive Attack had partnered with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, based at the University of Manchester. Their research seeks to explore the impact the music industry has on climate change, calculating the carbon footprint of touring. This involves incorporating factors like production, merchandising and travel, with the goal to outline a decarbonisation roadmap that other touring musicians can adhere to.
To support their work with the Tyndall Centre, Massive Attack announced a low carbon gig which was originally set to take place in 2020, postponed because of COVID-19. Professor Carly McLachlan, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said of the event:
“The climate emergency requires rapid shifts from theory to practice. The Liverpool event offers a great opportunity to bring together the different organisations needed to really reshape the impact of live music events”.
Despite Del Naja’s attempt to rally fellow musicians for the cause, he is frustrated at the lack of meaningful action on environmental issues, instead of seeing empty gestures from others. Speaking to the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee, Del Naja said “The industry seems to have been locked in a cycle of green pledges and carbon calculations, while emission rates remain really high”. He doesn’t think that artists stopping touring altogether is a proper solution to the problem, criticising Coldplay’s decision to pause touring until concerts are carbon-neutral. He stated: “Culture is important, it brings everyone together. The best way is to look for solutions collectively”.
One solution that Massive Attack has implemented themselves is to tour by train. During their US tour, they managed to reduce their carbon footprint by as much as 50%.
To raise awareness of their campaign for climate change, Massive Attack released a conceptual audio-visual project called ‘Eutopia,’ with each track on the EP discussing a political issue. The first track is ‘#CLIMATEEMERGENCY‘, which features arguments in support of global system change from Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
