The Climate Crisis: Is Breaking the Law Justifiable?

Environmental protest group Just Stop Oil hit the headlines again last Wednesday after disrupting play twice at the Wimbledon tennis tournament in the United Kingdom, as they called for the government to stop all new oil, gas and coal projects. Protests over the environment have been on the rise in the country, with the group having also taken action at the World Snooker Championship and the rugby union Premiership final.

Public disturbances, whether interrupting sporting matches, halting traffic or vandalizing art, have prompted an array of responses from the public. But what is the perspective of those abroad: is breaking the law ever acceptable for the sake of protecting the environment? According to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey, a majority of people across the polled countries would say it is not.

As the following chart shows, respondents in Mexico (41 percent) were most supportive of taking illicit action if needed in order to protect the environment out of the surveyed countries, followed by France (38 percent) and Brazil (34 percent). Germans were the least supportive of breaking the rules out of the selected countries (26 percent). In the UK, roughly a third of people would support it.