After the 2019 Fridays for Future climate protests, there has been a significantly reduction in mass climate demonstrations. Instead, smaller groups have turned to direct action, often through disruptive or provocative acts such as painting art works.
Probably the most prominent example of direct action climate groups is Extinction Rebellion (XR), active in the UK and several other countries. Formed in 2018, before the Fridays for Future protests, they have shown resilience in the face of declining public participation in climate demonstrations.
Just Stop Oil is a radical offshoot or wing of Extinction Rebellion. They have made headlines by disrupting sports events and oil industry targets.
Letzte Generation (The Last Generation), active in Germany, Italy and Austria, is a more recent direct action group. They have blocked roads and thrown food at paintings (but without damaging them).
Suffragettes movement
The climate movement has similarities to the campaign in the 19th and early 20th centuries to give voting rights to women. The women’s campaign started with meetings and non-violent protests, but after decades of opposition from the establishment, many women moved to civil disobedience, damaging buildings and using other forms of defiance. Helped by the First World War, the suffragists and suffragettes were ultimately successful, with country after country agreeing to voting rights for women.
Inevitably, the disruptive climate protests have attracted much criticism from governments, the media houses and most political parties.
Canning Town station blunder
A significant early XR protest in Canning Town station in London saw XR activists attempting to forcibly remove commuters from a train. Commuters fought back, and the result was a public relations disaster for XR, allowing their opponents to brand them as middle class elitists trying to impose their values on ordinary working people. XR issued an apology after the incident.
According to Wikipedia, Letzte Generation has also met with vocal opposition, including “expressions of outrage and threats of violence.”
Success in Germany
But direct action has met with some success: in Germany. The mayor of Hanover announced in June 2023 that he supports some of environmental protest group Letzte Generation’s demands. Leaders in a few other towns have followed suit.
In Marburg, protesters had been gluing themselves to the road, disrupting traffic almost daily for one week. The SPD mayor took the decision to meet with them to find out what they wanted, and to see how far the town could accommodate their demands.
The positive response from the Marburg mayor was because two of the demands had considerable public support. These were the return of the nationwide €9 public transport ticket, and municipal control over speed limits.
Harsh response from governments
Governments have started used harsh tactics to counter direct action climate groups.
The Australian government has enacted draconian anti-protest laws aimed at climate activists. There are high fines and severe prison sentences for those convicted. The UK also plans to extend its legislation to create new offenses aimed at climate protests.
In May, 1500 protesters in the Netherlands were arrested for walking on a major highway to protest against fossil fuel subsidies. And in Germany, the police carried out raids and arrested several members of Letzte Generation for disrupting transport and allegedly trying to sabotage an oil pipeline.
The French government, ignoring the Republic’s claimed celebration of liberty, has recently banned Soulèvements de la Terre (“Uprisings of the Earth”). The movement had in March 2023 organized a large demonstration against a mega-reservoir project in the west of the country.
Debate about direct tactics
There has been debate within the climate movement about direct action, and whether it helps or hinders the battle to win supporters to the movement. XR’s experience at Canning Road was a warning that direct action can backfire. And in January 2023, The British arm of the XR announced it would halt acts of public disruption and focus on building the number is its supporters and using persuasion rather than confrontation.
But what little research has been done suggests that even if people disagree with disruptive methods, the message often gets through. The suffragettes endured ridicule and opposition from many quarters for their more militant actions. But this did not stop the wider campaign for women’s voting rights from succeeding.
Historical success for direct action
Success for the women’s campaign for voting rights would have taken much longer had it not been for the wide support that it enjoyed. In the UK, the non-militant National Union of Women Suffrage Societies had a mass membership of over 100000.
For the climate movement, mass public support is even more important. Unlike the call for women to be able to vote, an effective response to the climate crisis will directly hurt powerful economic and political interests. Only a sustained mass movement will bring about change quickly enough to avoid the global catastrophe we are now facing.