Radiohead: Us missing gig may save planet

RADIOHEAD frontman Thom Yorke was in Brussels yesterday urging Europe to unite against climate change.

The 39-year-old rocker was launching Friends Of The Earth’s Big Ask Europe campaign to get political leaders to commit to yearly targets to reduce their country’s CO2 emissions.

Here, Thom explains how you can help keep up the pressure and reveals what his band are doing – including not playing Glastonbury this year.

WE launched the Big Ask campaign in 2005, when the environment wasn’t such a popular subject.

Now there is a new thing we should be doing every week. But there is only so much we can do as individuals without legislation.

We are starting with 17 countries around Europe.

We want them to commit to year-on-year reduction targets for cutting CO2 emissions.

In the UK, the Climate Change Bill is going through Parliament, making us the first country to set legally binding targets for greenhouse gases.

It’s going to and from the Commons and the Lords but it should become law in the summer. Then, if the Government doesn’t meet the target, they could be taken to court by environmental groups. It would be very embarrassing for them.

Friends Of The Earth are amazed at how swiftly progress has been made in the UK. Taking this across Europe is really exciting

And Gordon Brown should be happy because British business cannot then complain about unfair competition.

We should be pleased the UK is leading the way. But the negative side is the choices the Government are making day-to-day in subjects such as aviation and nuclear power.

We are going forward but Gordon Brown keeps taking steps back at the same time.

Today, Mr Brown is meeting with environmental groups including Friends Of The Earth. I hope he comes out having included aviation in this Bill. It would be a very strange Bill without it.

Governments have to take responsibility.

But if people want to make a difference they should write to their MP.

When we launched The Big Ask three years ago, I thought we should be bashing walls down. But writing to MPs had the most impact.

As for Radiohead, I am trying to build a system under my house that heats it naturally from the ground. One of the conditions of the band carrying on touring is that we do everything we can to minimise our impact on the environment.

That has included buying two lots of equipment and keeping one in Europe and one in America so we never have to fly our kit around the world again.

Another big one is shipping stuff rather than flying it. We also use new technology for our lighting rig. One of the interesting things we discovered is how people get to our big shows. A lot of the time people are driving with one or two people in a car and that’s an ecological disaster.

What we’re trying to do now is only play in areas that have a public transport infrastructure in place.

So that rules out Glastonbury for this year. Maybe we can work out a plan for the future. They’re probably sick of the sight of us anyway.

I was exhausted in Brussels yesterday morning. I was really nervous and hardly slept last night.

It’s not like playing a gig — that’s just normal. This is a really big deal.

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