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The most dynamic social protest in the west in the later 1970s tended to be environmental campaigns, which mounted some major direct action protests against nuclear power. By the 1980s environmental groups like Greenpeace were also taking direct action against nuclear tests, and green protests often overlapped with peace activism. These protests also developed new styles of informal democratic organization for mass demonstrations. Green resistance to logging, dams, motorways, toxic dumps and other environmental hazards mounted during the 1980s and 1990s and continues today in various contexts. Uprooting genetically modified crops was widespread in the early 2000s. Opposition to ‘fracking’ (releasing gas from shale) has become a key issue in the second decade of the 21st century. An overarching threat to the global environment is the impact of climate change, and promoting means of limiting change and resisting economic activities which accelerate climate change has become central to green thinking and campaigning.

Green activists have taken up nonviolent direct action with daring and imagination, greatly extending the range of tactics used. Some greens have also used forms of sabotage (ecotage), raising questions about the limits of nonviolence. But, alongside direct action, environmental campaigners have also developed sophisticated lobbying techniques, some have moved towards closer cooperation with corporations and governments, and others have developed green political parties to fight local, national and (where relevant) EU elections. As in many movements, greens are divided over strategy, so moderate (‘realistic’) approaches are opposed by the more radical groups. The ideological range stretches from ‘deep ecologists’ to people protecting local neighbourhoods. Direct action against roads and airports, for example, is often undertaken by committed environmentalists, but many may also be supported by local residents trying to minimise disruption to their locality. Opposition to nuclear energy and the dangers of radiation leaks was a focus for many green s in the 1970s, but growing concern about climate change has meant that some green advocates now see nuclear energy as less dangerous than more immediately destructive forms of energy releasing CFCs. However, the destructive impact of the earthquake and tsunami on the Fukushima Dalichi reactor in March 2011 aroused widespread fears about the extent of radioactive fallout inside Japan, and reminded others of the potential hazards of nuclear power. The Japanese government’s decision in March 2014 to restart two nuclear reactors (all had been closed down in the aftermath of the accident) led to protests.

Environmental concerns have not of course been confined to developed states. Many countries in the Global South have been exposed to devastating pollution through the activities of irresponsible corporations – oil pollution created by Shell in the Niger delta over decades, and the release of poisonous gas from the explosion of the United Carbide Bhopal chemical plant in India with deadly results – are two well known examples. There are many others, for example pollution of the Peruvian Amazon by oil companies for over 40 years, a danger increased since the Peruvian government made three quarters of the rain forest available to corporations for drilling in 2008. Many local and indigenous communities are engaged in bitter struggles to preserve their land, livelihood and way of life from logging, mining, oil drilling or, more recently, widespread commercial planting for biofuels. (For references to resistance to multinationals engaged in mining, logging and oil drilling see A.4.a. and A.4.b, and for some indigenous campaigns see B.2.a. and B.2.b.)
Development of environmental protest can sometimes be a prelude to more widespread resistance in politically repressive regimes, both because individuals may be mobilized by specific environmental issues and because focusing on pollution etc. is a less direct challenge to the regime than specific political opposition. There was a rise in environmental awareness and protest in the Soviet bloc during the 1970s and 1980s, sometimes linked to nationalist discontent (as in the Baltic states); and green protest is one strand in the opposition to Putin today (see Vol. 1). There have also been many environmental protests in China since the 1990s, where the regime has gradually become more responsive to environmental concerns, increasing penalties for industrial pollution in amendments to an environmental protection law in April 2014. Even in less authoritarian regimes, wider political dissatisfaction may be sparked by a specific green issue, as happened in Turkey in June 2013, when protest to save Gezi Park in Istanbul developed into a major movement (see H.1.c.). Warnings and analyses of possible environmental disaster by scientists have become increasingly common since the ground-breaking book by Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962. Green theorists and activists have also developed new interpretations of economics – exploring sustainable development, political thought, philosophy and spirituality. These literatures are not covered here.

Relevant periodicals: The Ecologist has long been a useful source of information on green issues and campaigns; in September 2014 it merged with Resurgence, which had adopted a nonviolent green agenda, to form: Resurgence and Ecologist. Environmental campaigns are also covered by movement periodicals such as Peace News and New Internationalist.

Online sources are now numerous: see for example, Earth Tribe Activist News, Reporting the Environmental Movement: http://www.earthtribe.co
For the many green campaigns involving indigenous peoples see: Survival International: http://www.survivalinternational.org

Extractivism In Latin America, Action Fund of Latin America, 2016, pp. 59

This report by the feminist civil society body, Urgent Action Fund of Latin America and the Caribbean, focuses on the role of women in protecting and defending nature, and warns of increasing risks to their lives and environment. The report discusses ‘the extractive model’ and the social-environmental conflicts it creates, and also the disturbing militarization and violations of women’s rights, including those defending their environment. The report outlines proposals made by women for defence of territory, and also stresses the diversity of the approaches, organizations and activities developed by Latin American women.

Bahro, Rudolf, Building the Green Movement, Philadelphia PA, New Society Publishers, 1986, pp. 219

Collection of writings (from Nov. 1982 to June 1985) by former East German dissident and radical ecologist. Covers issue such as North-South relations, the peace movement and the crucial role of communes in rebuilding an ecologically sound society. Includes his statement on resigning from the German Greens, claiming that they ‘have identified themselves -critically- with the industrial system and its administration’.

Branagan, Marty, Global Warming, Militarism and Nonviolence: The Art of Active Resistance, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2013, pp. 272

Explores high carbon footprint of military defence, argues for an alternative nonviolent defence, and advocates ‘active resistance’ of kind pioneered by Australian environmentalists.

Caretta, Martina ; Zaragocin, Sofia, Women’s resistance against the extractive industry: embodied and water dimensions, Human Geography, Vol. 13, issue 1, 2020

This is a special issue on women’s organized resistance to the extraction of natural resources that has a damaging impact on their lives and environment. Articles cover movements in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and also Ghana, focusing on the importance of water as a vital resource, and also on women’s embodied experience of suffering from water pollution and scarcity. The articles also discuss gendered critiques of extraction.

Carmin, JoAnn ; Balser, Deborah B., Selecting Repertoires of Action in Environmental Movements: An Interpretative Approach, Organization and Environment, Vol. 15, issue 4, 2002, pp. 365-386

Compares North American Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

Carter, Neil, The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, (2nd edn), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 432

Part I covers environmental philosophy and green political thought; Part II Green parties and NGOs; Part III policy making at international, national and local levels. This is a textbook, which gives guidance on other sources.

Dalton, Russell, The Green Rainbow: Environmental Groups in Western Europe, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 305

Examines development of Green movement in Western democracies. Argues that environmental interest groups are important new participants in the contemporary political process and that, if the movement is politically successful ‘it may at least partially reshape the style and structure of democratic processes in these countries’.

Doherty, Brian, Green Parties, Nonviolence and Political Obligation, In Doherty, Brian ; de Geus, Marius , Democracy and Green Political Thought London, Routledge, , 1996, pp. 36-55

Discusses role of nonviolence in Green thought (and in original policy of German Greens) and case for nonviolent protest.

Dryzek, John S. ; Downes, David ; Hunold, Christian ; Schlosberg, David ; Abstract, Hans-Kristian Hernes, Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Norway, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 238

Comparative study of successes and failures of four environmental movements since 1970, exploring implications of inclusion and exclusion from political process.

Fazzi, Dario, The Nuclear Freeze Generation: The Early 1980s Anti-nuclear Movement between ‘Carter’s Vietnam’ and ‘Euroshima’ , In in Andresen, Knud and Bart van der Steen (eds) A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s, London, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 145-158

In the early 1980s, there were mass protests across the Western world with varied goals, for example to support different models of economic development, promote anti-militarism and non-violence, or redefine urban and social spaces. Many, however, saw safeguarding the environment as their primary goal and identified nuclear energy as their main target. The authors investigate the movement for as afer environment and how it mobilized large sections of society and provided people with new tools of civic expression.

Flam, Helena, States and Anti-Nuclear Movements, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1994, pp. 427

Deals with the anti-nuclear power movements and government responses to them and their demands in eight West European states – Austria, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and West Germany.

Hart, Lindsay, In Defence of Radical Direct Action: Reflections on Civil Disobedience, Sabotage and Nonviolence, In Parkis, Jan ; Bowen, James , Twenty-First Century Anarchism: Unorthodox Ideas for a New Millennium London, Cassell, , 1997, pp. 41-59

Defends new forms of radical direct action, including ‘ecotage’, arguing that violence should be measured by harm inflicted, not use of physical force.

Jancar-Webster, Barbara, Environmental Action in Eastern Europe: Response to Crisis, Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1993, pp. 256

Jensen, Derrick ; Keith, Lierre, Earth at Risk: Building a Resistance Movement, Crescent City CA, Flashpoint Press, 2012, pp. 288

Jimenez, Manuel, Southern European Environmental Movements in Comparative Perspective, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 51, issue 1 (July), 2008, pp. 1627-1647

Kalland, Arne ; Persoon, Gerard, Environmental Movements in Asia, London and New York, Routledge, 1999, pp. 297

Includes campaigns against logging, tree plantations, factories and tourist facilities and in defence of nature reserves. Argues environmentalism in Asia has a local focus and is often a form of cultural and political protests where overt political opposition is too dangerous.

Kedzior, Sya Buryn ; Leonard, Liam, Occupy the Earth: Global Environmental Movements, Bingley, Emerald Publishing Group, 2014, pp. 275

Covers range of environmental campaigns in different parts of the world, including Ireland, France, Israel, Japan, India and Indonesia.

Mauch, Christof ; Stoltzfus, Nathan ; Weiner, Douglas R., Shades of Green: Environmental Activism Round the Globe, Lanham MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 2006, pp. 240

Explores impact of political, economic, cultural and religious conditions on environmental activism.

McCormick, John, The Global Environmental Movement: Reclaiming Paradise, London, Bellhaven, 1989, pp. 259

Despite its title, this is not primarily about protest, but the international /state context in which protest occurs, stressing the UN and international agreements.

Rootes, Christopher, Environmental Movements: Local, National and Global, London, Routledge, 1999, pp. 328

Primary emphasis on sociological analysis of how environmental movements change, with statistics on participation in them. Chapters on Germany, Spain and Southern Europe and the USA. Derek Wall writes on ‘Mobilizing Earth First!’ in Britain. Jeff Haynes, ‘Power, Politics and Environmental Movements in the Third World’ (pp. 222-42) includes specific references to the Chipko, Narmada and Ogoniland movements, as well as other forms of environmental action in Kenya and the role of the WTO.

Shiva, Vandana, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, London, Zed Press, 1988, pp. 244

(also Southgate Press 2010 and Kali/Women Unlimited 2011).
An eco/feminist argument about the special role of women in preserving the environment.

Taylor, Bron Raymond, Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism, Albany NY, State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 422

Wapner, Paul, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics, Albany NY, State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 252

Analysis of the roles of different types of transnational organizations and their impact on environmental ‘discourse’, including Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife fund. Chapter 3 is specifically on Greenpeace, direct action and changing attitudes. See also: Wapner, Paul , Politics beyond the State: Environmental Action and World Civic Politics World Politics, 1995, pp. 311-340 .

Willow, Anna, Understanding ExtrACTIVISM. Culture and Power in Natural Resource Disputes, London and New York, Routledge, 2019, pp. 312

The author analyzes the nature and power of extractive industries,  their impact on local people, and how they prompt active resistance in North and Latin America. The book covers a wide range of extractive industries, including logging, hydroelectric dams, mining, and oil and natural gas.

Akula, Vikram, Grassroots Environmental Resistance in India, In Taylor, Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism (C.1.a. General and International Studies), Albany NY, State University of New York Press, pp. 127-145

Discusses early resistance in 19th and 20th centuries and contemporary campaigns against destruction of forests, dams, pollution and over-fishing of seas, and mining. Akula also describes Jharkand separatist ‘tribal’ struggle to own their historic land and promote sustainable use of resources.

Alonso, Angela ; Costa, Valeriano ; Maciel, Deborah, Environmental Activism in Brazil: The rise of a Social Movement, In Thompson, Lisa ; Tapscott, Chris V., Citizenship and Social Movements: Perspectives from the Global South London, Zed Books, , 2010,

Arce, Moises, The political consequences of mobilization against resource extraction, Mobilization: An Internal Quarterly, Vol. 21, issue 4, 2016, pp. 469-483

Peru has had significant economic growth due to extraction of natural resources, but there have also been many protests about this extraction. Noting the weaknesses of many such environmental and indigenous protests, the author draws on fieldwork and interviews to outline the kind of mobilization likely to prevent extraction, and also to have positive social effects. He argues that the movement in Peru has significant implications for other developing countries relying on resource extraction.

Broom, Fiona, Lessons from the Thirst Economy, New Internationalist, 2017, pp. 30-32

Discusses major crisis of water scarcity in India, due not only to climate change (failures of monsoons since 2012) but commercial exploitation of water sources, which leaves small farmers and citizens without water supplies and often reliant on tankers run by 'water mafia'. The government still tends to favour dams rather than localised measures to preserve water, and political pressures promote crops such as sugar cane in unsuitably environments. The author also notes an example of local good practice. The women's organization, the Mann Deshi Foundation, has in last few years promoted rehabilitation of streams and the local river in a semi-desert area of Maharashtra, before creating a reservoir which was handed over to the local village council.

Connors, Libby ; Hutton, Drew, A History of the Australian Environmental Movement, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 324

Survey from early concerns about conservation through the ‘second wave’ 1945-72, and the campaigns of 1973-83 up to the subsequent professionalization of the movement. Chapter 4 ‘Taking to the Streets’ covers ‘green bans’ and the anti-uranium campaigns; ‘Taking to the Bush’ looks at direct action on a number of issues, culminating in the 1982 blockade of the Franklin Dam; and Chapter 6 ‘Fighting for Wilderness’ assesses further protests around Australia. Chapter 8 considers the role of the Green Party.

Doyle, Timothy, Direct Action in Environmental Conflict in Australia: A Re-examination of Non-violent Action, Regional Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 28, 1994, pp. 1-13

Fagan, Adam, Environment and Democracy in the Czech Republic: The Environmental Movement in the Transition Process, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 2004, pp. 200

General analysis of movement in 1990s and case studies of individual environmental organizations.

Gould, Kenneth ; Schnaiberg, Allan ; Weinberg, Adam, Local Environmental Struggles: Citizen Activism in the Treadmill of Production, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 239

A study of community power and regional planning on the environment, based on US case studies.

Hayes, Graeme, Environmental Protest and the State in France, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2002, pp. 246

Hicks, Barbara, Environmental Politics in Poland: A Social Movement between Regime and Opposition, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996, pp. 263

Jimenez, Manuel, The Environmental Movement in Spain. A Growing Source of Contention, (Special Issue on ‘New and Alternative Movements in Spain), South European Society and Politics, Vol. 12, issue 3, 2007, pp. 359-378

Jing, Jun, Environmental Protest in Rural China, In Perry; Selden, Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (C. II.1.d. China Since 1990), London, Routledge, pp. 198-214

Discusses protest through letters, petitions, law suits and sometimes demonstrations and sabotage, against pollution, soil erosion, contaminated water, etc.

Kimber, Richard ; Richardson, J.J., Campaigning for the Environment, London, Routledge, 1974, pp. 238

Case studies of a range of environmental conflicts in Britain over urban development, water supply, power lines, M4 motorway, juggernaut lorries, the Cublington airport campaign, and the genesis of the Clean Air Act. Focus on pressure groups.

Pellgrini, Lorenzo ; Arsel, Murat, Oil and Conflict in the Ecuadorian Amazon: An Exploration of Motives and Objectives, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, issue 106, 2018, pp. 209-218

The authors draw on data on conflicts over oil production in the Ecuadorian Amazon to argue that not all these movements are primarily motivated by environmental concerns. The note the variety of motives involved. These varied motives also affect how these movements influence policy.

Raftopoulos, Malayna ; Morley, Joanna, Ecocide in the Amazon: the contested politics of environmental rights in Brazil, The International Journal of Human Rights, 2020

This article uses the 2019 fires in the Brazilian Amazon as a starting point to consider the political conflicts over environmental rights in Brazil. The authors argue that the concept of ecocide provides a useful focus for examining the social and ecological consequences of President Bolsonaro’s ‘extractive imperialism’. They also stress the failure of international bodies to prevent continuing destruction of the natural environment.

See also Devine, Jennifer (2020) ‘The Political Forest in the Era of Green Neoliberalism’ in Antipode, Vol. 52, issue 4, pp. 911-927. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12624

Seel, Benjamin ; Patterson, Matthew ; Doherty, Brian, Direct Action in British Environmentalism, London, Routledge, 2000, pp. 223

Essays include a survey of British environmentalism 1988-97 in the changing political context, assessments of different types of environmental activity and role of the media. Brian Doherty, ‘Manufacturing Vulnerability: Protest Camp Tactics’ looks at evolution of nonviolent direct action tactics and transnational influences. There is some discussion of the incidence of violence and media (mis)perceptions.

Shabecoff, Philip, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement, (revised edition), Washington DC, Island Press, 2003, pp. 352

History stretching back to origins of the republic, covering key individuals, NGOs and governmental responses.

Shiva, Vandana, Politics and the Ecology of Survival, London and Tokyo, Sage Publications and UN University Press, 1991, pp. 365

Analysis by expert on issues of ecology, development and the role of women in conflicts over natural resources in India; includes references to Appiko protests to save forests and satyagraha against mining.

Yang, Guobin, Environmental NGOs and Institutional Dynamics in China, China Quarterly, Vol. 181, issue March, 2005, pp. 46-66

Argues environmental NGOs becoming more visible in Chinese environmental politics and seizing opportunities offered by the media, internet and international NGOs. Author concludes environmental NGOs both sites and agents of democratic change.

Brown, Michael ; May, John, The Greenpeace Story, London, Dorling Kindersley, 1989, pp. 160

Covers voyages to challenge nuclear testing at Amchitka Island, Alaska and at Mururoa Atoll, but also the voyages protesting against nuclear waste disposal and pollution, and to protect marine mammals.

Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, New York, Crown Publications, Random House, 1993, pp. 95

By a founder of Earth First!

Hunter, Robert, The Greenpeace Chronicle, London, Pan Books, 1980, pp. 448

(Published in USA as Warriors of the Rainbow: A Chronicle of the Greenpeace Movement, New York, Rhinehart and Winston, 1978)
The story of Greenpeace from its emergence in the 1970s to the time of the book’s publication. Autobiographical account by a founder member of Greenpeace International.

Lee, Martha F., Earth First! Environmental Apocalypse, Syracuse NJ, Syracuse University Press, 1995, pp. 221

Study of the militant US movement founded in 1980, which split between what the author terms ‘millenarian’ and ‘apocalyptic’ wings, the former seeking to educate others and the latter trying to save biodiversity before it is too late.

Maathai, Wangaari, Unbowed: A Memoir, Vintage, 2006, pp. 338

(also published as: Unbowed: My Autobiography, Anchor 2008)

By prominent Kenyan woman who promoted mass planting of trees by women at grassroots level through the Green Belt Movement (founded in 1977) to reverse effects of deforestation. She also undertook vigils and fasts for human rights under the dictatorship of President Moi. See also her book: Maathai, Wangaari , The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experiences [1985] New York, Lantern Books, , 2004, pp. 117

McKibben, Bill, The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life, New York, Henry Holt/Times Books, 2008, pp. 442

Anthology of 44 essays by noted writer and activist on green issues, including climate change (with some more personal reflections).

Radical History Network, London Greenpeace: A History of Ideas, Protests and Campaigns (1971-2005), Radical History Network, 29/10/2009,

Concise outline of campaigns by group distinct from the better known international organization. See also: Vidal, McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial (A.4.c. Food and Drink Multinationals) for their epic struggle against McDonald’s.

Weyler, Rex, Greenpeace: An Insider’s Account, London, Pan Macmillan, 2004, pp. 600

By a founder of Greenpeace International, focusing on the 1970s.

Zakin, Susan, Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First and the Environmental Movement, Tucson AZ, Arizona University Press, 2002, pp. 483

Account by sympathetic environmental journalist of evolution of Earth First! and its tactics of guerrilla theatre and direct action.

Brown, Alexander, Power struggles: strategies and tactics of the anti-nuclear movement in contemporary Tokyo, Vol. Doctor of Philosophy, University of Wollongong, 2015, pp. 283

Explores the strategy and tactics of the anti-nuclear energy movement in Tokyo developed in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, points to the existing dissatisfaction with both the nuclear industry, and the decaying institutions of Japan’s capitalist developmental state, as the foundations upon which the anti-nuclear energy movement has become the longest social movement in Japan.

Chiavacci, David ; Obinger, Julia, Social Movements and Political Activism in Contemporary Japan: Re-emerging from Invisibility, Oxon and New York, Routledge, 2018, pp. 212

This book explores social movements and forms of political activism in contemporary Japan, arguing that the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident led to a resurgence in social and protest movements and inaugurated a new era of civic engagement. Re-examines older and recent forms of activism in Japan, as well as provides studies of specific movements that developed after Fukushima. The book considers structural challenges that activists face in contemporary Japan, and how the newly developing movements have been shaped by the neo-conservative policies of the Japanese government. The authors also considers how the Japanese experience adds to our understanding of how social movements work, and whether it might challenge prevailing theoretical frameworks.

Dalquist, Stephanie, Timeline: A chronology of public opinion on nuclear power in the United States and United Kingdom, 2004, pp. 35

Describes the history of the atom in the US and the UK; the combination of civilian/military use and how people and movement developed an understanding of the risks associated with nuclear power since the 1960s.

Falk, Jim, Global Fission: The Battle over Nuclear Power, Melbourne VIC, Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 410

Analyses anti-nuclear struggles globally, with particular attention to how each movement relates to the state promoting nuclear power.

Fauzan, Achmad ; Schiller, Jim, After Fukushima: The rise of resistance to nuclear energy in Indonesia, Essen, Germany, German Asia Foundation, 2011, pp. 35

Evaluates the worldwide impact of the Fukushima disaster in Japan and provides an account of the dynamics of the anti-nuclear power movement in Indonesia.

Gyorgy, Anna, No Nukes: Everyone’s Guide to Nuclear Power, Cambridge MA, South End Press, 1979, pp. 478

Includes large section on the transnational movement against nuclear power.

Hioe, Brian, Ten thousands protests against nuclear power, visits by Tsai and Lai at demonstration, New Bloom, 27/04/2019,

Gives an account of massive anti-nuclear protests that took place in Taiwan, one year before the election in the country, to protest against calls by nuclear proponents to extend the operating permits for several reactors that were due to expire. 

To learn about anti-nuclear march in Taiwan, commemorating the Fukushima incident in Japan, in previous years see also https://newbloommag.net/2017/03/12/2017-anti-nuclear-march/https://thediplomat.com/2016/10/orchid-islands-nuclear-fate/; https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2016-03-12/71061https://newbloommag.net/2015/03/16/fukushima-four-years-on-in-taiwan-and-japan/; https://newbloommag.net/2015/01/30/anti-nuclear-activism-in-taiwan-and-japan/ and  https://thediplomat.com/2014/04/taiwan-rocked-by-anti-nuclear-protests/.

Joppke, Christian, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1993, pp. 307

Netkin, Dorothy ; Pollak, Michael, The Atom Besieged: Antinuclear Movements in France and Germany, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1982, pp. 235

Examines the political contexts, nature of the movements against nuclear power and their tactics, and government responses.

Newnham, Tom, Peace Squadron: The Sharp end of Nuclear Protest in New Zealand, Auckland N.Z., Graphic Publications, 1986, pp. 60

Account of ‘nuclear-free-zone’ protesters who blocked nuclear-power vessels from entering port with ships, boats and canoes.

Opp, Karl-Dieter ; Roehl, Wolfgang, Repression, Micromobilization and Political Protest, Social Forces, Vol. 69, issue 2 (Dec), 1990, pp. 521-547

Uses experiences of West Germany anti-nuclear energy movement to discuss how repression impacts on protest.

Price, Jerome, The Antinuclear Movement, (Revised edition 1989), Boston MA, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 207

General analysis of evolution of movement in the US and the groups and organizations involved. Chapter 4 examines direct action groups and their protests.

Rudig, Wolfgang, Anti-Nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy, Harlow, Longman, 1990, pp. 466

Touraine, Alain, Anti-Nuclear Protest: The Opposition to Nuclear Energy in France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 202

Translation and abridgement of La prophetie anti-nucleaire.

Translations: French
Wasser, Miriam, Timeline: The 52-year history of the Pilgrim nuclear plant, WBUR, 29/05/2019,

Article and audio defining important moments of the history of the Pilgrim nuclear energy plant, located in Plymouth, Massachusetts, from 1967, when it was built by the Boston Edison Company, up to 2019, when it shut down thanks to year of anti-nuclear activism and legal fighting against re-licensing the plant.

See also https://medium.com/binj-reports/pilgrims-50-years-of-anti-nuclear-mass-an-oral-history-8ea2a4624610

Welsh, Ian, Mobilising Modernity: The Nuclear Moment, London, Routledge, 2000, pp. 256

See especially chapter 6 ‘The Moment of Direct Action’ and chapter 7 ‘Networking: Direct Action and Collective Refusal’.

Welsh, Ian, Anti-Nuclear Movements: Failed Projects or Heralds of a Direct Action Milieu?, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 6, issue 3, 2001

Argues that these movements should be seen as a process of ‘capacity building’.

Protecting the 'Lungs of West Africa', Conversation with Alfred Brownell, Liberian environmental lawyers recorded by Veronique Mistiaen, New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 54-56

Brownell has been involved in a seven year campaign which succeeded in protecting half a million acres of Liberia's tropical rainforest from the Southeast Asia-based Golden Veroleum company, which had been granted t the right by the government to clear and use the land to grow palm oil. He took up the cause of the indigenous community in Sinoe County whose forests and cultural sites were being destroyed by the company. The article outlines how the campaign succeeded and Brownell's wider role in creating the Alliance for Rural Democracy throughout Liberia to work for environmental justice. He had been forced by death threats to move with his family to the USA.

Mistiaen, Veronique, Protecting the "Lungs of West Africa", New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 54-56

Brownell took up the case of indigenous people living in the rainforest against abusive violence and imprisonment for resisting the destruction of their environment and cultural monuments by the Southeast Asian agro-industrial company Golden Veroleum (GVL) planning to grow palm oil. Brownell's seven-year campaign invoked help from global NGOs to support a complaint to the Roundtable on sustainable Palm Oil, which froze GVL's expansion. He succeeded in saving over half a million acres of rainforest, but he had to flee to the US. He has also established a rural network - the Alliance for Rural Democracy - throughout Liberia to work form environmental justice.

Mistiaen, Veronique, Protecting the 'Lungs of West Africa', July-Aug 2019, New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 54-56

Conversation with Alfred Brownell, Liberian environmental lawyers recorded by Veronique Mistiaen. Brownell has been involved in a seven year campaign which succeeded in protecting half a million acres of Liberia's tropical rainforest from the Southeast Asia-based Golden Veroleum company, which had been granted the right by the government to clear and use the land to grow palm oil. He took up the cause of the indigenous community in Sinoe County whose forests and cultural sites were being destroyed by the company. The article outlines how the campaign succeeded and Brownell's wider role in creating the Alliance for Rural Democracy throughout Liberia to work for environmental justice. He had been forced by death threats to move with his family to the USA.

Ramachandra, Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalayas, expanded edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 244

Emphasizes local roots of movement. including development of ‘non-secessionist regionalism’ in Uttarakhand. The epilogue, written in 1998, adds historical perspective on the movement’s achievements and reports on-going struggles. Seeks to offer ‘corrective’ to romanticized western and ecofeminist interpretations.

Walter, Emily, From Disobedience to Obedient Consumerism: Influences of Market-based Activism and Eco-Certification on Forest Governance, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol. 14, issue 2-3, 2003, pp. 531-536

Reports on anti-logging campaign in British Columbia, Canada, in 1980s and 1990s and discusses shift from pressurizing state to directly confronting lumber camps. Critiques approach leading to establishment of global regulatory body, the Forest Security Council, but supports offering ‘carrot’ of ‘certification’ in combination with ‘stick’ of campaigning for a boycott.

Watts, Jonathan, Yes. We. Canopy: Can alliances between indigenous people and young climate activists help to save the Amazon?, Guardian Weekly, 22/11/2019, pp. 15-17

Account of preparation by indigenous communities to resist the destruction of the rainforest by farmers, miners and loggers backed by far right President Jair Bolsonaro. The article focuses on the discussions, held in the small riverine community Manolito in Terro do Meio, between indigenous people and international activists, including Extinction Rebellion UK organisers, Belgian activists in the School Strike and from the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot. Watts outlines the wider Brazilian context, and discusses how international participants revised their ideas and campaigning plans as a result of the meeting, which was named 'Amazon: Centro do Mundo'.

Watts, Jonathan, Yes. We. Canopy: Can alliances between indigenous people and young climate activists help to save the Amazon?, Guardian Weekly, 22/11/2019, pp. 15-17

Account of preparation by indigenous communities to resist the destruction of the rainforest by farmers, miners and loggers backed by far right President Jair Bolsonaro. The article focuses on the discussions, held in the small riverine community Manolito in Terro do Meio, between indigenous people and international activists, including Extinction Rebellion UK organisers, Belgian activists in the School Strike and from the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot. Watts outlines the wider Brazilian context, and discusses how international participants revised their ideas and campaigning plans as a result of the meeting, which was named 'Amazon: Centro do Mundo'.

Weber, Thomas, Hugging the Trees: The Story of the Chipko Movement, [1981], New Delhi, Penguin, 1989, pp. 175

Traces development of the ‘tree hugging’ movement to protect Himalayan forests, stresses the importance of the Gandhian style legacy in the strategy and tactics of the movement, discusses the role of women and profiles the leading men.

For information about the nonviolent direct action organization, San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN) founded in 1985, see: http://www.ran.org

Bratman, Eve Z., Contradictions of Green Development, Human Rights and Environmental Norms in light of Belo Monte Dam activities, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 46, issue 2 (May), 2014, pp. 261-289

Harbison, Rob, Cambodia: indigenous protests repel dam builders - so far, The Ecologist, 28/07/2014,

Hirsch, Philip, The Politics of Environment: Opposition and Legitimacy, In Hewison, Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation (E. II.10.a. Demanding Democracy 1973 and 1992), London, Routledge, pp. 179-194

Examines growing significance of environmental movement in Thailand since the success in stopping proposed dam in 1988.

Jumbala, Prudhisan ; Mitprasat, Maneerat, Non-governmental Development Organisations: Empowerment and the Environment, In Hewison, Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation (E. II.10.a. Demanding Democracy 1973 and 1992), London, Routledge, pp. 195-216

Analysis of two case studies in Thailand: the Raindrops Association encouraging villagers to resuscitate the natural environment; and the opposition to planned Kaeng Krung Dam.

Khagram, Sanjeev, Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2004, pp. 288

Focused particularly on the controversy over the major Narmada River dam projects, but also provides comparative perspective by considering dam projects in Brazil, China, Indonesia, South Africa and Lesotho, where the World Bank and other lenders were persuaded to withdraw funding.

Khagram, Sanjeev ; Riker, James V. ; Sikkink, Kathryn, Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks and Norms, Minneapolis MN, University of Minnesota Press, 2002

See also: Khagram, ‘Restructuring the Global Politics of Development: The Case of India’s Narmada Valley Dams’, pp. 206-30; and Smitu, Kothari, ‘Globalization, Global Alliances and the Narmada Movement’, pp. 231-44.

Lakhani, Nina, Who Killed Berta Caceres? Dams, Death Squads and an Indigenous Defender's Battle for the Planet, London, Verso, 2020, pp. 336 pb

Journalist Nina Lakhani draws on numerous interviews, including with Caceras herself, legal files and corporate records to recount the years of environmental protest by this indigenous Honduran activist, who received the Goldman Prize in 2015 for her successful campaign to halt the hydroelectric dam being built on a river sacred to her people, and was assassinated in 2016. She had been under threat for years, and many colleagues had been killed or forced into exile. Lakhani attended the trial of Caceres' killers in 2018, when employees of the dam Company and state security were implicated in the murder by hired gunmen. But the trial failed to reveal who had ordered and paid for the assassination.

Mistiaen, Veronique, Saving Rivers, Saving Lives, New Internationalist, 2020, pp. 46-47

Interview with Peter Lallang, campaigning in Sarawak to defend its biodiverse rainf orest and indigenous people against the Malaysian government's plans for megadams. He briefly describes the Save Rivers campaign that included river flotillas in towns and rural areas and a two-year blockade to stop dam building. The campaign also made international links with the Green Party in Australia to lobby parliamentarians about links to a Tasmanian company, and also top renewable energy experts at the University of California, who provided alternative energy proposals for the region. After five years the Malaysian government agreed to cancel the dam, but campaigners fear it may revive the project.

Routledge, Paul, Voices of the Dammed: Discourse Resistance amidst Erasure in the Narmada Valley, India, Political Geography, Vol. 22, issue 3, 2002, pp. 343-370

Roy, Arundhati, The Greater Good, Bombay, India Book Distributors, 1999, pp. 76

Commentary by Booker-winning novelist and prominent Narvada Dam activist on struggle against the Sardar Sarovar Dam and the wider implications of government policy on building dams. Also available in various forms on the internet.

Watts, Jonathan, Hydroelectric is not Clean Energy - it is Mixed with our Blood, The Guardian, 05/10/2017, pp. 29-28

This article covers a major struggle for indigenous rights and environmental protection in Brazil, opposing construction of 49 dams on the Tapajos river and its tributaries to generate electricity and to create a canal to a major new container port. The scheme is backed by the Brazilian government and includes finance and engineering from Chinese and European companies, and would provide power to soya growers and mining companies.  It threatens the home of the Munduruku tribes and an area of pristine rainforest. The protesters gained a partial victory in 2016 when the Brazilian environmental agency suspended the license for one dam, but the local people fear renewed pressure.

Some major campaigns against mining or drilling for oil and its polluting effects (for example in the Niger Delta and on the west coast of Ireland) are covered in resistance to multinational corporations under A.4.a. and b. For brief articles on the impact of gold mining , see New Internationalist (Sept. 2014, issue 475) ‘Gold The Big Story’, esp. Olivera, Roxana, ‘Churning up the Cloud Forest’, p. 17, and Boyd, Stephanie, 'The Myth of Ethical Gold', pp. 18-19. People living in large cities also often face various forms of pollution from industrial development and refineries. One example of sustained popular resistance to various threats is the South Durban Community Environment Alliance (SDCEA) founded in 1996: http://www.sdcea.co.za. For an account of one of their campaigns, see: ‘South African Environmental Justice Struggles against “Toxic” Petrochemical Industries in South Durban: The Enger Refinery Case’: http://www.umich.edu

Beynon, Huw ; Cox, Andrew ; Hudson, Ray, Digging Up Trouble: The Environment, Protest and Opencast Mining, London, Rivers Oram, 1999, pp. 288

General analysis of impact of opencast (strip) mining which spread in Britain in the 1980s. Chapter 7 ‘Changing Patterns of Protest’ (pp. 167-206) looks at the collaboration between the National Union of Miners’ Support Groups and environmental groups to oppose mines creating pollution, and examines the turn from conventional protest to direct action.

Broadbent, Jeffrey, Environmental Politics in Japan: Networks of Power and Protest, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 418

Examines dilemma of growth versus environmentalism, and how Japan has resolved it, with focus on how anti-pollution protests 1960s-1973 changed government policy , using the movement in one prefecture as a case study.

Dunlop, Tessa, Rosia Montana and Romania’s Decade Long “Gold War”, BBC News, 03/09/2012,

See also: Earthworks ‘No Dirty Gold: Rosia Montana’: http://nodirtygold.earthworksaction.org; Solly, Richard ‘Festival of Resistance to Romanian Gold Mine’, London Mining Network, 18 Aug . 2014: http://londonminingnetwork.org
Sources for 15 year long local resistance in Romania to open-pit gold mine (which would use cyanide), proposed by Toronto-based Gabriel Resources, and for the evolution of government policy and legal challenges. The mine became a focus of national resistance in September 2013. The local opponents propose that the site should become a UNESCO heritage area (the open cast mine would destroy the original Roman gold mine) and a centre for farming.

McKean, Margaret A., Environmental Protest and Citizen Politics, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1981, pp. 291

Study of ‘Citizens’ movements’ against industrial pollution.

Strangio, Paul, No Toxic Dump: A Triumph for Grassroots Democracy and Environmental Justice, Sydney NSW, Pluto Press, 2001, pp. 217

An Australian case study.

Szasz, Andrew, Ecopopulism: Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice, Minneapolis MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1994, pp. 216

Traces how a movement developed in the US out of official debate and television coverage into the formation of thousands of neighbourhood groups, and over a decade the establishment of strong civic organizations tackling different toxic threats.

See also:

Paul Dekar, The Australian No Uranium Mining Campaign, (B.2.a. In West), The important Jabiluka campaign, which brought together aboriginal and environmental activists, is also referenced under B.2.a.
Subhankar Banerjee, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point, (B.2.a. In West), on resistance in Arctic Alaska

Many governments see the technology of fracking (releasing gas from shale) as a promising source of relatively cheap energy created within their own territories, and so reducing their dependence on importing oil or gas. Fracking has already made a considerable difference to energy supplies within the USA. However, many local communities are bitterly opposed to the potentially dangerous and polluting process of fracking taking place near where they live. Environmentalists are, in addition, deeply concerned about the impact of widespread fracking on climate change. So there has been a developing world wide resistance to fracking in 2013-14.

Castle, Ben, The Global Movement against Fracking : Lessons from Bulgaria, the UK and New York State, The Democracy Center, Climate Campaign Profiles, 2012, pp. -12

Chivers, Danny, The Frack Files, New Internationalist, 04/12/2013, pp. 12-28

Report on development of fracking, its technology and implications, and the widespread resistance to it around the world. Larger coalitions of opposition listed at end.

Duhamel, Philippe, Civil resistance as deterrent to fracking, OpenDemocracy.net, 26/09/2013,

Translations: Spanish
Lucian, Vesalon ; Remus, Cretan, ”We are not the Wild West...”: Anti-Fracking Protests in Romania, Environmental Politics, Vol. 24, issue 2, 2015

Sweeney, Sean ; Skinner, Lara, Global Shale Gas and the Anti-Fracking Movement. Developing Union Perspectives and Approaches, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUEDF), in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, 2014, pp. 28

Willow, Anna J. ; Wylie, Sara, Energy, Environment, Engagement: Encounters with Hydraulic Fracking, Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 21, issue 12-17, 2014, pp. 222-348

Wright, Marita, Making it Personal: How Anti-Fracking Organizations Frame Their Messages, Columbia University Journal of Politics and Society, Vol. 24, 2013, pp. 105-123

The ZAD and No TAV: Territorial Struggles and the making of a New Political Intelligence, Translated from the French by Kristin Ross, Mauvaise Troupe Collective, 2018, pp. 240

Account of two major struggles by local people in conjunction with a wide range of external activists to defend their local territory: 1. against building a new airport near Nantes in France by ZAD (Zones a Defendre) and 2. against a high-speeed rail line (Treno ad Alta Velocita) in northern Italy by No TAV. The resistance has developed into alternative forms of social and economic organization within the defended territories. The book discusses the role of different strategies and tactics, and how to maintain alliances between diverse groups through dialogue.

See also: Jordan, John, 'Battle of the ZAD', Red Pepper, Jun-Jul 2018, pp. 24-29

Apter, David E. ; Sawa, Nagayo, Against the State: Politics and Social Protest in Japan, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 271

Analysis of major campaign by agricultural community against loss of land for Narita airport.

Burgmann, Verity ; Burgmann, M., Green Bans, Red Union: Environmentalism and the New South Wales Builders’ Labourers Federation, Sydney NSW, University of New South Wales Press, 1998

On the initiation of ‘green bans’ – work bans by unions to prevent redevelopment of working class neighbourhoods and destruction of historic buildings and urban green spaces in Sydney. Between 1971 and 1974 42 separate bans were imposed and linked unionists with middle class conservationists. See also: Mundey, Jack , Green Bans and Beyond Sydney NSW, Angus and Robertson, , 1981

Doherty, Brian, Paving the Way: The Rise of Direct Action against British Road Building, Political Studies, Vol. 47, 1999, pp. 275-291

Merrick, Battle for the Trees: Three Months of Responsible Ancestry, Leeds, Godhaven Ink, 1996, pp. 132

Account of three months struggle against Newbury bypass.

Roddewig, Richard J., Green Bans: The Birth of Australian Environmental Politics, Montclair NJ, Allanheld, Osmun, 1976, pp. 180

Compares Australian and US environmental activism in relation to their political and social context.

Tamlit, Ali, The Heathrow 13: the Resistance against a Third Runway, ROAR, 22/02/2016,

Tamlit writes as one of the 13 activists, giving a brief account of the occupation of a runway at Heathrow using locks and chains, and of the trial where the defendants pleaded 'necessity' to prevent local harm and harm caused by climate change. He also provides a summary history of the development of a broad anti-aviation campaign from 2000 against, the creation of Plane Stupid in 2005 which became a direct action network, and the Climate Camp at Heathrow.

See also: Mortimer, Caroline, 'Plane Stupid Climate Change Activists Block Heathrow Runway in Protest at Airport Expansion', Independent, 13 July 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/heathrow-protest-live-plane-stupid-climate-change-activists-block-runway-in-protest-at-airport-10384280.html

Tamlit, Ali, The Heathrow 13: the Resistance against a Third Runway, ROAR, 22/02/2016,

Tamlit writes as one of the 13 activists, giving a brief account of the occupation of a runway at Heathrow using locks and chains, and of the trial where the defendants pleaded 'necessity' to prevent local harm and harm caused by climate change. He also provides a summary history of the development of a broad anti-aviation campaign from 2000 against, the creation of Plane Stupid in 2005, which became a direct action network, and the Climate Camp at Heathrow.

See also: Mortimer, Caroline, 'Plane Stupid Climate Change Activists Block Heathrow Runway in Protest at Airport Expansion', Independent, 13 July 2015 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/heathrow-protest-live-plane-stupid-climate-change-activists-block-runway-in-protest-at-airport-10384280.html

Wall, Derek, Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement, London, Routledge, 1999, pp. 219

Welsh, Ian ; McLeish, Phil, The European Road to Nowhere: Anarchism and Direct Action against the UK Roads Programme, Anarchist Studies, Vol. 4, issue 1, 1996, pp. 27-44

Many scientists and environmentalists have been aware for decades that the impact of human activity on climate change needs to be modified, if we are to avoid a dangerous rise in global temperature. The scientific case, and the urgent need for further investigation, was widely recognized by the end of the 1970s: the World Climate Research Programme was launched in 1979. But despite pressure from scientists, some governments (partly because of economic fears) refused to respond. and powerful corporations (most notably oil companies) sought to undermine or demolish the scientific findings and resisted any change. Nevertheless, during the next three decades some political progress was made through international conferences and agreements. Environmental campaigning against fossil fuels, to save forests and for international agreements increased, and hotter summers, droughts, floods and melting ice caps impinged on public consciousness.  Finally, in 2015 the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris reached an Agreement by almost all developed and developing countries to cooperate in trying to keep the overall rise in global temperature well below 2 degrees centigrade (2.0C), and to aim at only a 1.5C increase.

By 2018-19 public campaigning on climate change round the world had become front-page news. The economic arguments for adjusting creatively to limiting climate change, and various technological solutions (which were becoming more viable) gained prominence, and influenced some governments. However, the recent rise of right wing populist leaders and parties that reject the importance of international cooperation, and deride much scientific evidence on climate change, created new obstacles.    

Today's environmental movement is often traced to the first Earth Day in April 1970, when marches, demonstrations and teach-ins took place, especially in the US. Green concerns have since been pursued by a very wide range of organizations, activists, and local communities and around the world, focusing on diverse threats to the environment. Many indigenous peoples have also been prominent in resisting threats to their lands, environment and lifestyles and have often in recent decades been supported by environmentalists - though occasionally (as has happened in Australia) indigenous economic priorities and environmentalist policies may conflict. Climate change now embraces many earlier environmental issues, such as saving the earth's remaining major forests and other wooded areas from logging, burning, and various forms of agricultural and industrial exploitation. Preventing climate change is linked as well to opposing coal mining, oil production and pipelines - and the newer process of fracking shale for oil and gas - that (in addition to their very damaging local impacts) produce fuels that emit greenhouse gases destructive to the planet.  Limiting climate change is also linked to preventing major roads and airports, which encourage increasing traffic and flights. (This issue was highlighted in the UK when government plans to go ahead with creating a third runway at Heathrow airport - opposed for many years by environmentalists - were ruled illegal by the court of appeal in March 2020, on the grounds the plans did not take sufficiently into account the government's own commitment to the target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which is enshrined in law.) 

One major environmental issue in recent decades that does not overlap with resisting climate change - and may even have a role in preventing it – is nuclear energy. The dangers of immediate accidental pollution posed by nuclear power plants remain very real (as the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters demonstrated); and hazards from the very long term storing of depleted nuclear materials remain. But environmentalists and experts are divided on whether reliance on nuclear power is necessary as part of an immediate strategy of transforming energy supplies. (Policy on nuclear energy is also linked to the quite distinct but crucial issue of nuclear weapons proliferation.) 

Two other central environmental problems, which have gained in urgency, are increasing desertification (especially in Africa and Asia), and the rapid decline in biodiversity. Both these calamities, although they have a number of causes, are connected to, and exacerbated by, climate change, which alters the natural environment. The scale of the threat to biodiversity (and food production in the future) was stressed in the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report in May 2019, which estimated a 47% decline in natural ecosystems and that 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.   

All three of these issues - climate, desertification and protecting biodiversity - were internationally recognized in 1992 at the UN Rio Earth Summit, and enshrined in UN Framework Conventions. Progress on protecting biodiversity among the 196 signatories to the 1992 UN Convention has been limited to agreement in principle on 20 conservation targets in 2010, and the scheduling of a meeting in Kunming, China to develop an overall strategy that will take place from 17-30 May 2021. Most global progress - though very far from sufficient - has in fact been made on tackling climate change.

The Scientific and Political Background: the 1950s to the Montreal Protocol on the Ozone Layer, 1987

General scientific awareness that the earth's climate is warming, and that this is likely to have very serious environmental consequences, began to emerge in the 1950s and 1960s. There have been major alterations in the climate in the distant past (leading for example to the destruction of the dinosaurs), and more minor but significant changes in past centuries. The 'little ice age' (which led to the spreading of glaciers, and freezing of lakes and rivers in winter in parts of the world), is generally dated from the 14th to the mid-19th century. Climatologists have also noted the short term fluctuations caused by the El Nino effect (the warming of sea surface temperatures every few years in the tropical eastern Pacific) and the La Nina effect which denotes a cooling due to lower than average sea surface temperature there.

Natural changes in the climate are distinct from the possible direct adverse impact of human activity on global warming. Scientific interest in the possible human impact due to a 'greenhouse effect' began in the 19th century, but sustained study dates from the 1950s. The International Geophysical Year launched in 1957 by the International Council for Science mobilized scientists from almost 70 countries in research to understand the system of the earth. One important result of continuing significance was that the American scientist Charles D. Keeling established how to measure CO2 levels in the atmosphere. An immediate issue for scientific debate (and potential for public confusion) was why from 1940 to the late 1960s there had been a worldwide cooling of average surface air temperature of 0.2C.  The impact of several volcanic eruptions, and the role of some industrially produced chemicals, which began to be phased out under Clean Air Acts in the 1960s, are two suggested causes. 

Some scientists focused on the long term warming effect of greenhouse gases. Roger Revelle had drawn attention in 1958 to the danger that carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by human activity might not (as earlier thought) be quickly absorbed by the oceans. During the 1970s there was a significant increase in scientific research into climate change internationally, and the first World Climate Conference bringing together research on the physical basis of climate change was held in 1979. The Villach Conference in 1985, a major international meeting in Austria on the greenhouse effect involving key researchers from a range of disciplines, found that a number of gases, including methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide, as well as CO2, could promote global warming. The Conference called on policy makers to take action.  

The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) - one of the sponsors of the conference - then promoted the plan for an international convention on climate change. The result was the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a governmental agreement to limit emission of ozone-destroying gases. The growing hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole was, research indicated, a primary cause of the gradually shifting direction of the southern jet stream, which affected storm tracks and rainfall over South America, East Africa and Australia. 

The Montreal agreement has had an important impact on the phasing out of ozone destroying chemicals (used for example in aerosols and refrigerators), which may have enabled some reparation of the damage to the ozone layer. A paper published in the eminent scientific journal Nature in early 2020 noted that satellite imaging in September 2019 showed the ozone hole had shrunk back to its 1982 level. (This news was shortly followed in April 2020 by a reported opening up of a large hole in the ozone layer over the artic, which closed again within a few weeks. The Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service indicated the hole had been caused by unusual weather patterns over the arctic)

UN Frameworks Agreed, despite Political and Corporate Resistance: Rio Convention 1992 and Kyoto Protocol 1997

Since the late 1980s a number of scientific sceptics have strongly challenged the growing body of scientific research on climate change, and especially the role of human activity. Some sceptics could be seen as voicing genuinely scientific concerns about the reliability of data or the possibility of alternative explanations - such as changes in solar activity - for apparent evidence of warming. But scientific findings on climate change have become highly politicized, because accepting them required major economic and social changes that challenge business interests, social behaviour and some political ideologies. Corporations most affected by the findings, notably the oil industry, began to commission their own scientific research. The US-led Global Climate coalition was created in 1989 to pressure governments to resist policy change based on predictions of global warming. Some right wing politicians in the west (most importantly Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in the USA) impeded international scientific and political cooperation in addressing climate change. 

The issue also highlighted divergent economic interests of highly developed countries (which have been creating environmental problems through industrialization over the past two centuries), and many less developed countries (many exploited in the past by the west) still trying to improve their basic living standards. China, seeking from the 1980s to become a major economic power, was prominent at first in refusing to modify its policies, such as extensive use of coal, or accept international constraints, although it did join international negotiations on climate change. China also claimed to represent the interests of developing countries.  

Nevertheless, scientific and political progress in understanding and addressing the human causes of climate change has been achieved, despite setbacks. One important development was the creation by the UN in 1988 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), whose reports have helped to establish the reality and urgency of climate change. The UN 1992 Rio de Janeiro Conference produced (as noted earlier) the Framework Convention on Climate Change with 154 signatories, though the US blocked demands for significant action. At the follow-up second meeting of the signatories to the Convention in 1996 the US (with Bill Clinton now the President) agreed for the first time to the principle of legally binding emissions targets. But the US delegation stressed that developing countries must begin to play a positive role.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreed on targets for greenhouse gas emissions by industrialized countries, but allowed governments and corporations to meet their targets partly by trading emissions permits and creating 'carbon sinks', for example new forests, to absorb emissions. Outstanding decisions about detailed rules to implement cutting emissions were deferred to later conferences. The US signed the Protocol, but the US Senate voted 95-0 on a presumptive resolution opposing the Protocol, so it was never even submitted to the Senate for ratification.

Disputes over Kyoto Protocol, Undermining of Climate Science and Failure at Copenhagen 1997

Political and corporate resistance to government action to combat climate change continued. Although the anti-climate change pressure group Global Climate Coalition collapsed in the light of the growing evidence on global warming, oil companies continued to obstruct progress, as did some governments. Follow-up conferences to clarify the rules and commitments under the Kyoto Protocol held in Buenos Aires in 1998 and in The Hague in November 2000 (where the US and EU clashed), failed to agree. George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, citing damage to the US economy. Other nations decided to proceed without the US and finally agreed the detail of the Protocol at Marrakesh in November 2001. Japan, European countries and others ratified the Protocol. But the Australian government under climate sceptic John Howard, despite having achieved exceptionally favourable targets at Kyoto, refused to ratify it - and only did so (under a new government) in 2007. Russia refused to decide immediately; but President Putin eventually announced Russian support in 2004 and ratified the deal, and enabled the Protocol to come into effect in February 2005. The first phase for achieving emissions targets ended in 2012.  

The European Union played an active part in supporting the Kyoto Protocol process. Another inter-governmental body that has been surprisingly successful in pressing for action to limit climate change is the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), whose members face extinction through rising sea levels due to global warming. Formed at the end of the 1980s, at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992AOSIS had well over 30 members and were able to get their special problems recognized. (By 2019 there were 15 members from the Pacific Ocean, 16 Caribbean states, and 8 - including the Maldives, Mauritius, the Seychelles and Singapore - from the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Members included a few low-lying coastal countries such as Belize and Guyana.)   

Technological progress in making effective use of solar energy and wind power had by the 21st century made the phasing out of fossil fuels more realistic. Moreover, the economic argument for avoiding serious global warming had also become stronger, especially as the scientific evidence of rising temperatures, and rapidly melting ice in Greenland and the Antarctic as well as in the Arctic, had become more alarming. The UK government commissioned the 2006 Stern Report, which argued that it would be more costly to have to manage the impact of climate change than to take effective measures to prevent it. Public awareness of the issue had also been raised, for example by US Senator Al Gore's 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth (though this also prompted criticisms). Environmental campaigners had also begun to mobilize more specifically round climate change as a key issue: the Global Climate Campaign started to coordinate international protests in 2005.

Rising public concern and governmental willingness to consider serious action on climate change also provoked, however, a backlash from climate sceptics and further scientific controversy. One controversial issue was whether there really had been a steep rise in global temperature in the latter part of the 20th century, compared with the average northern hemisphere temperature (deduced from a range of factors including tree rings, corals, ice cores and published records) in the previous 1000 years. This dispute centred on a 'hockey stick' graph developed by Michael Mann and colleagues in a 1999 paper, which was used in the 2001 IPPC Report.  After well publicized debunking of the graph, especially in the USA, including interventions from Congress, the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006 concluded that the findings of a steep rise in global warming were generally sound. Researchers also found there were not convincing evidence for one possible non-human cause of the temperature rise, changes in solar energy. 

The second controversy - 'climate gate' - arose in 2009, after publication of hacked emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) supplying data to the IPCC. These often informal communications, going back over years, included discussion of how to present data convincingly. The emails were widely used to discredit all the research, with headlines alleging data manipulation and silencing of critics. The IPCC insisted the data in its reports were based on peer-reviewed research and further reviews by experts and governments. An official UK enquiry into the affair defended the rigour and honesty of the UEA scientists and refuted claims that they had subverted peer review or stifled criticism, but did find that they should have been more willing to provide information about their research and act with more transparency. Further scientific analyses of the data on the earth's temperature, in response to the 'climate gate' row, confirmed the UEA data.    

The hacking of climate scientists' emails took place just ahead of the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Despite a large gathering of world leaders, Copenhagen failed to produce any significant commitments to preventing climate change. Blame for this stalemate was assigned by some delegates and demonstrators to the highly industrialized countries for failing to accept their primary culpability or to respond to just demands from developing nations. China was blamed by others for prioritizing its own economic interests and blocking any precise commitments. Though China had been rapidly developing alternative energy sources, it still relied heavily on coal. Copenhagen was the focus for sustained lobbying by many established environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, and prompted marches and rallies in up to 70 countries coordinated by the Global Climate Campaign. Indigenous peoples from around the world (who had met in Alaska in 2009 to agree a common policy on climate change) highlighted their demands at Copenhagen.  

Worsening Global Warming Predictions and Mixed Political Responses: Doha 2012, Paris 2015 and Madrid 2019

Political and corporate resistance to government action to combat climate change continued. Although the anti-climate change pressure group Global Climate Coalition collapsed in the light of the growing evidence on global warming, oil companies continued to obstruct progress, as did some governments. Follow-up conferences to clarify the rules and commitments under the Kyoto Protocol held in Buenos Aires in 1998 and in The Hague in November 2000 (where the US and EU clashed), failed to agree. George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, citing damage to the US economy. Other nations decided to proceed without the US and finally agreed the detail of the Protocol at Marrakesh in November 2001. Japan, European countries and others ratified the Protocol. But the Australian government under climate sceptic John Howard, despite having achieved exceptionally favourable targets at Kyoto, refused to ratify it - and only did so (under a new government) in 2007. Russia refused to decide immediately; but President Putin eventually announced Russian support in 2004 and ratified the deal, and enabled the Protocol to come into effect in February 2005. The first phase for achieving emissions targets ended in 2012.  

The European Union played an active part in supporting the Kyoto Protocol process. Another inter-governmental body that has been surprisingly successful in pressing for action to limit climate change is the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), whose members face extinction through rising sea levels due to global warming. Formed at the end of the 1980s, at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992AOSIS had well over 30 members and were able to get their special problems recognized. (By 2019 there were 15 members from the Pacific Ocean, 16 Caribbean states, and 8 - including the Maldives, Mauritius, the Seychelles and Singapore - from the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Members included a few low-lying coastal countries such as Belize and Guyana.)   

Technological progress in making effective use of solar energy and wind power had by the 21st century made the phasing out of fossil fuels more realistic. Moreover, the economic argument for avoiding serious global warming had also become stronger, especially as the scientific evidence of rising temperatures, and rapidly melting ice in Greenland and the Antarctic as well as in the Arctic, had become more alarming. The UK government commissioned the 2006 Stern Report, which argued that it would be more costly to have to manage the impact of climate change than to take effective measures to prevent it. Public awareness of the issue had also been raised, for example by US Senator Al Gore's 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth (though this also prompted criticisms). Environmental campaigners had also begun to mobilize more specifically round climate change as a key issue: the Global Climate Campaign started to coordinate international protests in 2005.

Rising public concern and governmental willingness to consider serious action on climate change also provoked, however, a backlash from climate sceptics and further scientific controversy. One controversial issue was whether there really had been a steep rise in global temperature in the latter part of the 20th century, compared with the average northern hemisphere temperature (deduced from a range of factors including tree rings, corals, ice cores and published records) in the previous 1000 years. This dispute centred on a 'hockey stick' graph developed by Michael Mann and colleagues in a 1999 paper, which was used in the 2001 IPPC Report.  After well publicized debunking of the graph, especially in the USA, including interventions from Congress, the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006 concluded that the findings of a steep rise in global warming were generally sound. Researchers also found there were not convincing evidence for one possible non-human cause of the temperature rise, changes in solar energy. 

The second controversy - 'climate gate' - arose in 2009, after publication of hacked emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) supplying data to the IPCC. These often informal communications, going back over years, included discussion of how to present data convincingly. The emails were widely used to discredit all the research, with headlines alleging data manipulation and silencing of critics. The IPCC insisted the data in its reports were based on peer-reviewed research and further reviews by experts and governments. An official UK enquiry into the affair defended the rigour and honesty of the UEA scientists and refuted claims that they had subverted peer review or stifled criticism, but did find that they should have been more willing to provide information about their research and act with more transparency. Further scientific analyses of the data on the earth's temperature, in response to the 'climate gate' row, confirmed the UEA data.    

The hacking of climate scientists' emails took place just ahead of the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Despite a large gathering of world leaders, Copenhagen failed to produce any significant commitments to preventing climate change. Blame for this stalemate was assigned by some delegates and demonstrators to the highly industrialized countries for failing to accept their primary culpability or to respond to just demands from developing nations. China was blamed by others for prioritizing its own economic interests and blocking any precise commitments. Though China had been rapidly developing alternative energy sources, it still relied heavily on coal. Copenhagen was the focus for sustained lobbying by many established environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, and prompted marches and rallies in up to 70 countries coordinated by the Global Climate Campaign. Indigenous peoples from around the world (who had met in Alaska in 2009 to agree a common policy on climate change) highlighted their demands at Copenhagen.   One immediate response to the Copenhagen debacle came from the Bolivian President, Evo Morales - Bolivia had taken a prominent part in the climate negotiations for the first time at Copenhagen. Bolivia hosted a conference that brought together 15,000 from 125 countries for the People's World Conference on Climate Change, including many indigenous groups and climate activists and several heads of state. The focus was on promoting climate justice - Morales in his opening address commented that: 'the main cause of climate change is capitalism'. (Morales' own economic policies have, however, been criticised: see entries under C.3.c.ii below)

A UN conference to promote the next phase of the Kyoto process took place in Doha, Qatar in December 2012, where signatories agreed targets for the second phase (2013-20), though the Canadian government pulled out of the Protocol at that stage. The Doha Amendment, signed by 192 countries established a second phase, 2013-2020, during which industrialized countries committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But its coming into force depended on at least three quarters of the parties accepting new commitments. The EU Climate and Energy Package in 2013 set the target of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels.   

A breakthrough at the international level was achieved in 2015 at the end of the UN Climate Change Conference, with the signing of the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature below 2.0C above pre-industrial levels in this century and to aim at the target of 1.5C. The Agreement brought together both industrialized and developing countries, and recognized the special needs of the latter as well as of countries most vulnerable to climate change. It stressed the role of a global response and appropriate financial and technological frameworks. Almost all countries pledged to set their own targets and report on progress. Paris also brought together the US government under President Obama and the Chinese government (the two entered into an earlier bilateral agreement in late 2014) in a major commitment to combat climate change. (China had overtaken the USA as the main emitter of CO2 in 2006, but had also made rapid progress in developing nuclear energy and solar and wind power) However, the Paris Agreement left it open to countries to determine the nature of their contributions to limiting emissions, though it specified that parties should report regularly both on their emissions and on their implementation efforts. 

The urgent need for governments and key sectors of the economy to adopt constructive policies was underlined by new scientific evidence of potentially catastrophic global warming. Researchers warned in 2015 that the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet might be irreversible. The IPCC reported in 2019 that global warming was increasing droughts, soil erosion and wildfires in tropical countries and reducing crop yields, whilst thawing permafrost near the poles. As a result many parts of the world could become uninhabitable: the report estimated that without urgent action in the next 12 years global catastrophe would be unavoidable. The changes required included not only cutting emissions from fossil fuels and an end to deforestation, but major changes in current agriculture based on intensive farming, high use of chemical fertiliser and emissions from large herds of cattle. Thirdly, a study in Nature in December 2019, based on research by 96 polar scientists from 50 international bodies, indicated that Greenland's ice sheet was melting seven times faster than in the 1990s and would, unless the trend was reversed, result in an estimated 100 million people around the world being flooded annually by the end of this century.

Awareness of the scientific evidence added urgency to two UN conferences on climate change in 2019. The Climate Session of the General Assembly in New York in September 2019 ended with 65 countries and the European Union committing themselves to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 (i.e. to take compensating action for any carbon emissions they released).  Another 59 delegations promised to announce their new commitments shortly. India's Prime Minister did promise a fivefold increase in renewable energy, but he did not promise to reduce state financing for coal; and he also refused to commit to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Russia also refused to do so. China, which by 2019 emitted almost a third of the world's carbon dioxide (despite cutting the role of coal in its own energy supply from 72 per cent in 2005 to 59 per cent in 2018), and which had inserted the concept of 'ecological civilization' into its constitution, also refused to accept the 2050 net-zero goal. The US government under President Trump, a climate change sceptic, predictably refused as well.  (Trump was committed to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which he would be legally entitled to do if he won a second term as president in November 2020.)

The UN Climate Conference in Madrid in December 2019 failed to agree any new targets. Given the opposition of major powers (apart from the EU bloc) to taking any - or sufficient - action to prevent climate change, and given the rise of nationalist populist movements and governments rejecting the scientific evidence (notably the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil), this failure was unsurprising. After being extended by two days the Madrid conference (officially the 25th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, dubbed 'COP 25') agreed only to reiterate the Paris goals. Many countries had not updated their plans to meet these goals when they came to Madrid, and significant emitters of CO2, such as oil-producing Saudi Arabia and coal-producing Australia, actively obstructed any agreement to go beyond Paris. The aim of improving the rules governing global carbon markets (where rich countries buy carbon credits from the poor when they organize carbon capture projects) was sabotaged in particular by Brazil, and deferred to talks in 2020. The coalition of least developed countries, generally the most vulnerable to climate change, had pressed for progress at Madrid and left disillusioned. New evidence publicized during the conference showed emissions had risen by 4 per cent since the Paris agreement, and that the world needed to cut emissions by 7 per cent each year for the next decade to avoid disastrous warming.

The next UN Climate Conference, COP 26, was scheduled for late 2020, to be hosted by the UK government in Glasgow. However, the global impact of Covid-19 prompted the UN to defer the conference to a later date. The possible upsides of the pandemic were that the drastic drop in business activity, tourism and travel provided some breathing space in the rise in carbon emissions, and raised serious questions about the organization of the global economy and the role of global supply chains.

Political and Economic Initiatives, Growing Public Awareness and Multiplying Protests

Some signs of hope for limiting climate change have, however, emerged, even in the USA. The impact of Trump's rejection of the scientific evidence, and his support for greater use of oil and coal, is diminished by two factors.  One is the significant drop in the price of renewable energy sources, which encourages switching to use of them. The other is the political role of those individual US states and cities where the governments have been, and are still, committed to combat climate change, and are developing new climate-change policies. The US in 2019 was responsible for about 15 per cent of global emissions, i.e. about half those of China. Many businesses around the world are beginning to see the potential of developing new carbon-free technologies (for example electric cars) and recognize the dangers of climate change. Over 80 major companies adopted the goal of net-zero emissions in 2019, although they were generally responsible for low greenhouse gas emissions. 

Business activity is, however, still a major contributor to climate change. Companies developing fossil fuels, despite declaring commitment to promote technologies which reduce emissions and their damage to the environment, also maintained they would continue to develop new sources of oil and gas. Moreover a March 2020 report by US environmentalists, Banking on Climate Change, found that the 35 leading investment banks had since the Paris Agreement in 2015 provided 255 billion dollars for extracting oil, gas and coal.    

Public awareness of climate change and other environmental issues has certainly increased and had some impact on governments and industry.  David Attenborough's BBC television series on the marine environment 'The Blue Planet' in 2017, and his role as a celebrated film maker over many decades covering different species and environments, have made him a prominent and influential advocate of the dangers of climate change to all aspects of our planet. Climate change has also moved up the news agenda to feature prominently on many mainstream media, although this has been partially undermined by the prevalence of conspiracy theories and misleading or untrue scientific claims circulating on social media and actively propagated by the far right. 

Nevertheless, the direct experience in many countries in recent years of devastating floods, hurricanes, droughts and forest fires has also raised awareness. For example the US states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Indiana suffered particularly in May-June 2019 from weeks of storms and flooding dams and rivers that destroyed millions of hectares of farmland. They also experienced a near record number of tornadoes. India was reported in July 2019 to be suffering from its worst water crisis ever, as its sixth largest city, Chennai (with a population of 10 million) had strictly rationed water for two months, and it was predicted 21 cities could run out of ground water in 2020. Natural catastrophes have, of course, occurred in the past; but their frequency, scale and intensity now can be credibly linked to global warming. The 2019 fires in the Amazon (where they were partially ignited deliberately to clear the land, and governments, in Bolivia as well as Brazil, were slow to try to put them out) created widespread popular alarm and anger. In Australia forest fires are an annual occurrence, but the bush fires that raged for five months in 2019-20 were on an unprecedented scale, destroying thousands of homes, enveloping cities in toxic smoke, decimating the wildlife and killing 33 people.                

The election of Trump in 2016 prompted a widespread rise in social activism in the US, including the People's Climate March in April 2017 in Washington and 300 other cities. (The first Climate March took place in New York in 2014 to coincide with a UN Climate meeting.) The youthful Sunrise Movement developed out of earlier US green campaigning groups in 2017 to promote a Green New Deal. Popular protests about climate change also reached greater intensity around the world in 2018-19 with the birth of two major movements. The first is the school strike movement sparked by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who in August 2018 sat down outside the Swedish parliament with a homemade placard: School Strike for the Climate. The school protests have spread rapidly, taken up first in The Hague and then Canberra and across Australia, they extended to the rest of Europe, and went global on 15 March 2019. Greta Thunberg herself has travelled widely (by train and sailing boat) and addressed UN conferences on climate change. 

The second major movement is Extinction Rebellion (XR) launched in the UK to organize nonviolent obstruction of daily economic activity creating climate change - for example through blockading key areas of cities such as London. A second goal is to bring pressure on the government when mass arrests fill the police cells, jails and the courts. Police announced over 1,000 arrests at the Extinction Rebellion blockades in London by 22 April 2019.

Initial public response to the mass protests was quite often positive, despite disruption to people's work and lives, though some initiatives (such as trying to block tube trains in the rush hour in London) prompted anger among commuters and wider criticism about the appropriateness of the target. XR has spread rapidly to other countries. Its policy goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025. The high profile of climate concerns and activism in the UK was reflected in the annual Glastonbury music festival in the summer of 2019, when David Attenborough appeared on the stage to speak, as did a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and a representative of Greenpeace.

The Covid-19 pandemic that spread round the world from January 2020, and the government response of locking down their population and restricting all public gatherings, put a stop to many planned protests, including the global marking of the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day on 22 April 2020.  Earth Day was however marked by global digital intercommunication. The impact of and response to the virus did, however, open up possibilities for re-organizing aspects of work, transport and public life in the future, with more emphasis on communication technologies, but also a greater emphasis on the role of the local community and economy.

There has in recent years already been increasing debate about the kinds of socio-economic change, alterations in personal life styles (such as ceasing to fly, or adopting a vegan diet) and the political measures at local, regional, national and international levels that are needed to prevent disastrous climate change. These proposals range from radical reconstruction of the global capitalist economic model dominant since the 1980s, and fundamental changes in agricultural production and energy use, to attempts to reform current practices, with a strong emphasis on new technologies. 

One important political initiative for change is the Green New Deal, introduced simultaneously in the House by newly elected Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and in the Senate by Ed Markey on 7 February 2019. The Green New Deal is supported as a general approach by many Democrats. Several contenders for the presidential nomination put forward their own versions. In essence the aim is to combine a more just social programme with economic policies designed to ensure net zero US emissions by 2050: phasing out coal and oil, major investment in alternative technologies linked to the mass creation of 'green' jobs, and economic assistance for communities hit by this policy shift. The Green New Deal concept has, however, multiple origins and a much wider global resonance, suggesting a coherent strategy for tackling climate change linked to social justice issues, but open to varying interpretations and degrees of radicalism. Several books with that title are listed in the bibliography below.  

COP 26 in Glasgow: Environmental, Technological and Political Context

The delayed 26th Conference of the Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 26) began in Glasgow on 31 October 2021. The purpose of COP 26 was to follow up the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set a target of trying not to exceed a 1.5 centigrade rise in global temperature over pre-industrial levels by 2050. Individual governments were asked to set national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to indicate the changes in energy policy and other aspects of the economy which would enable these national targets to be fulfilled.  Over 120 heads of state came to Glasgow. Although the serious work is done by national delegations, heads of state can strengthen international commitment and enhance the long-term importance of the event.

Holding this conference encouraged many (but not all) governments to set targets and frame appropriate policies, and raised media awareness of climate issues. Moreover in 2021 unprecedented high temperatures in many parts of the world, including the far north of Canada and Siberia, and devastating fires, droughts, hurricanes and floods demonstrated the urgency of decisive government action. The IPCC Report published in August 2021 underlined the scientific evidence for the extent of green house gas emissions (2.400 billion tonnes of carbon diooxide since 1850) and how much damage had already been done. The Report was less cautious than the IPCC had been earlier in setting out the scientific evidence, and its findings were underlined by the research and responses of other climate experts.

Days before COP 26 began a new study of world forests included in the 257 UNESCO world heritage sites was published, and reported that although these had generally played a crucial role in carbon capture, 10 of them had become emitters of greenhouse gases as a result of logging, agriculture and fires. New research also found that oceans, which have been major absorbers of green house gases, have, as a result of climate change, speeded up their reactions and may soon be unable to fulfil this function.

The conference had, however, also been preceded by accelerating advances in new technologies to take the place of oil and coal in the economy and a major fall in the costs of green energy from solar and wind power. These developments also indicated the greater willingness of many businesses to take advantage of them, and of some financial bodies to invest in them. Over 450 global companies had signed up to the 2015 Paris agreement and private sector investment in green technology outstripped investment in fossil fuels. However, environmentalists queried the tendency to replace the role of fossil fuels in existing forms of transport such as air travel and private cars, noted potentially harmful effects of some new technologies such as undue reliance on certain mineral resources, and criticized the emphasis n expensive and technologically difficult approaches such as carbon capture, as opposed to promoting life style changes. Moreover, Global Witness, after scanning the lists of delegates to COP 26, revealed during the conference that there were over 500 representatives of fossil fuel companies, more than any national delegation.

The political context of the Glasgow Conference, despite evidence of a greater sense of urgency among some governments and public opinion, raised doubts about its prospects of real success.  Greenpeace International leaked documents from the IPCC proceedings, which showed governments of Saudi Arabia, Japan, India and Australia tried to water down the scientific evidence on fossil fuels raising the global temperature. All these governments also initially decided not to be represented at Glasgow by heads of state, though the Australian and Indian prime ministers subsequently changed their minds. The anti-environmentalist Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil (which is the sixth largest emitter of greenhouse gases) stayed away to highlight his opposition to any policy that sought to reduce emissions, including by less meat eating, and was joined by the President of Argentina, another major beef exporter. President Putin, who has only slightly moderated his scepticism about climate change, also decided to stay away. Russia is the second largest producer of gas, and the Russian economy and political leverage depend heavily on oil and on gas exports.

The position of China, now by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is complex. Although President Xi Jinping decided not to attend Glasgow in person (he had not travelled much even inside China since the outbreak of Covid-19) he has espoused a policy of 'ecological civilization', China has made significant advances in green technology, and the government presided over Part One of the UN Biodiversity Conference in October 2021, stressing China's historic environmental credentials and the role of biodiversity in its culture, and will host the Conference in China in 2022. However, China's economy is still partly reliant on coal at home (and due to the current energy crisis is opening more coal mines) and promotes coal mines abroad. The government has nevertheless committed to stop funding coal mining abroad, and to reach peak emissions by 2030, and to be carbon neutral by 2060.

The most important positive factor was that Joe Biden's election as US President in November 2020 meant that Trump's proposed withdrawal from the UN climate agreements was prevented, and instead the Administration was strongly committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (the US is responsible for the second largest amount of emissions) and Biden was promoting an ambitious national programme to switch to green energy. However he was still trying to get his programme through Congress.

The extent to which even the more constructive governments on climate action were failing to meet the scientific challenge was underlined by the UN report issued a week before COP 26 started, which found that the pledges made by governments up to that point would the earth was heading towards a potentially catastrophic 2.7 degrees of global warming.

Outcomes of the Conference

During the two first days of the conference, attended by heads of state, two potentially very significant commitments were announced: to end deforestation and to cut methane gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. The Forestry Agreement, supported by over 100 countries, promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, and was backed by pledges of 8.75 billion government funding to protect and restore forests, and by 5.3 billion private investment promised by CEOs from more than 30 financial institutions. If the agreement does result in effective action it would have major importance, but there are grounds for considerable skepticism. A similar agreement reached in 2014 has not resulted in any serious action, even in countries where governments do have some commitment to preventing disastrous climate change. Moreover, the signatories to the new agreement include Brazil, where President Bolsonaro has actively encouraged destruction of the Amazon rainforest to benefit the economy since his election in 2018 - although a future government may return to Brazil's earlier support for climate change measures. Another signatory is Indonesia, where there has been devastating deforestation in order to produce palm oil. Moreover, promises of funds from governments who regularly fall short on their promises of funds for international causes, and from financial institutions, which have funded fossil fuel activities for decades, do not inspire great confidence.   

The pledge on methane gas emissions, promoted by the US and EU, is intended to end such emissions from leaking from fossil fuel activities and infrastructure. Although methane has to date been responsible for only 39 per cent of the rise in global warming, and lasts less long in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, methane levels have risen sharply since 2007. In the short term an end to emissions would be very significant and easier to achieve than a rapid decrease in carbon dioxide. The most obvious gap in this agreement is that major methane emitters, China, India and Russia, have not signed up. Russia in particular is well known for its leaking fossil fuel infrastructure and also has large reserves of methane trapped under the permafrost in Siberia, where higher temperatures will probably lead to its release into the atmosphere.

A third commitment in the first week was a pledge by 40 countries to start phasing out the greatest source of carbon emissions: coal. This had not been specified at previous COPs. Even Vietnam and Poland, both heavily reliant on coal, signed up. Some countries also promised to stop financing overseas coal production. But China, India and Australia did not sign this pledge.

These three initiatives were incorporated into the final text of the COP, which was negotiated in detail in the second week in the quest for unanimity required by the UN process. The important question of finance to help poorer countries and those most vulnerable to climate change was also haggled over. After an agreed final draft was submitted to delegates on the final day of the conference. China and India caused a last minute crisis by insisting on watering down the commitment to 'phase out coal' to 'phase down' coal. Angry representatives of small island states facing destruction from rising sea levels reluctantly agreed in order not to jeopardise the whole agreement.

Assessments of COP 26 and its potential to keep down the extent of global warming varied considerably. Analysts calculate that even if national pledges reaffirmed at Glasgow were delivered the increase in global warming would be 2.4C by 2021. At best it could be claimed that COP 26 just about kept hope of not exceeding 1.5 degrees warming alive and that agreements on forestry, methane and even coal were a step forward, but only if governments honoured their pledges. Optimistic claims relied heavily on pressurizing governments to make progress by the scheduling of a follow-up conference to monitor degrees of implementation to be held in 2022.

Resisting Damage to the Climate and Environment 2020-2021

There are two strands of climate activism: long term opposition to corporations and government policies that raise the levels of greenhouse gas emissions (and often inflict other forms of environmental damage); and mobilizing directly to influence the outcome of UN Conferences. Both approaches range from working through political and legal institutions to various forms of radical protest.  In the run-up to COP 26 media reports of various types of activism increased.

Campaigners have turned to the courts quite often to try to achieve environmental goals. Six young campaigners took the 27 EU governments and six others to the Court of Human Rights in early 2020 for their failure to reduce the greenhouse gases destroying the planet. But governmental bodies are also using the law to try to resist climate change. One significant development in the US was an increase in the number of law suits brought against corporations by cities and states experiencing rising sea levels, depletion of fish stocks or flooding, seeking reparations for measures to reduce the damage. Minnesota is also suing Exxon for deception and fraud and for promoting misleading information about climate science. Legal proceedings are also being brought elsewhere. Norwegian cities have taken their government to the EU Court for its heavy reliance on oil and gas exports, and a Dutch court ordered Shell to cut its contribution to global emissions by 45% by 2030.

Legal proceedings tend, however, to be very slow. Moreover, some fossil fuel companies are also using the law courts to penalize governments that have adopted climate friendly policies. For example, after the Netherlands government closed five power stations, three companies accepted the compensation offered, but two sued the government. One route for companies has been to sue under the Energy Charter Treaty for large sums in compensation for loss of earnings. A significant way to undermine fossil fuel companies - especially the most intransigent - is to withdraw investment in them by pension funds and social institutions. This goal has been pursued by campaigners such as Make My Money Matter, as has the associated tactic of pressing for election of new board members with a green agenda in some companies.

Many of the most committed opponents of climate change, however, are the individuals and local communities - often indigenous peoples - who campaign against and resist mining and oil production and threats to forests and water sources. The award of the Goldman Prize for the environment in June 2021 highlighted this form of activism, giving the award to Japanese anti-coal activist Kimiko Hirahat, as welll as to Liz Chicaje Churay from the indigenous Bora in Peru, who led a campaign for her people's land to become a national park to preserve the Amazon rainforest on it and many rare species. The prize was also awarded to a Vietnamese man active in protecting pangolins and so maintaining biodiversity.

Climate activists who had been largely diverted to online protest during the Covid lock downs began to engage again in public demonstrations in the summer and autumn of 2021. In the UK Extinction Rebellion, after a debate about the diminishing  returns of mass blockades, organized two weeks of protest centred on the policy demand for an end to fossil fuel development, and largely limited blockades to the City of London, though Oxford Circus, a central shopping area and traffic hub the Science Museum (because it has accepted several grants from fossil fuel companies) were included.  A more extensive strategy of blocking motorways was, however, adopted by a new group, Insulate Britain, calling for rapid insulation of all homes.

Protests also re-emerged in other countries: in Switzerland, for example, there were ceremonies to mark and publicize the end of a glacier. A much more ambitious campaign was launched in Namibia and Botswana, where campaigners are attempting to block a Canadian company, Recon Africa, which has begun preliminary drilling for oil and gas in the Kvango area of Namibia. The company plans to drill in the whole Okavango Delta, so threatening the lives and livelihoods of not only 200,000 local people in the area of initial exploration, but up to a million people in the Delta as a whole, which includes northern Botswana.  The drilling, and associated pipelines and roads would also be disastrous for the very diverse wild life in Okavango, currently protected by national parks. Indeed, campaigners warn that the developments, including use of chemicals for fracking, are likely to contaminate the water supply, which could be wholly disastrous, quite apart from the climate implications. Environmental organizations throughout Africa, and globally, have mobilized to stop the drilling, lobbying Namibia's Assembly and raising the demand in protests in Vancouver, Windhoek and Pretoria and other cities in June 2021.     

International environmental NGOs attended the COP 26 conference to listen, lobby delegates, brief journalists and increase pressure on governments to be more ambitious in their commitments. Former Irish president and Chair of The Elders, Mary Robinson, commented publicly on the failure of the host government, the UK, to commit to ending any future development of coal or oil - the government was still envisaging opening up a new coking coal mine to promote steel production, and a new oil well in the North Sea.   

Radical protest movements also descended on Glasgow to underscore the urgency of major action to combat further climate change. The student movement, Fridays for the Future, sparked by Greta Thunberg, held a large march of school children through the city on Friday, 12 November, in the first week of the conference, backed by demonstrations in other parts of the world. Extinction Rebellion also moved up to Glasgow and undertook selective blockages.

This bibliography is divided into four sections. 1.'The Scientific, Political and Economic Context of Climate Change' lists some sources on the scientific evidence and disputes, materials relating to national and international politics surrounding climate change, and also some of the economic debates. 2. The second section on 'Averting Climate Change' provides some sources indicating the ideological and technological diversity of different responses advocated to tackle climate change, or to prevent or mitigate some of its effects. 3. The third section covers active public campaigning, including mass protests at UN Climate Summits, lobbying national governments, electoral politics, promoting 'ecocide' as a crime under international law, campaigns for divestment from fossil fuel companies, and various forms of non violent direct action and civil disobedience, to prevent disastrous global warming. 4. The fourth section includes post-2015 climate-related campaigns: against fossil fuel production. including the especially polluting tar sands and fracking of shale, and fossil fuel. pipelines. (References for earlier campaigns can be found under Vol. 2. A.4.a. and 4.b. and C.2.d and 2.e.) 

Other environmental campaigns, for example to preserve forests from destruction and a wide range of commercial exploitation, and to prevent airport expansion and motorways, are also - in addition to urgent fears about local pollution and the undermining of communal rights - very closely linked to preventing climate change. Campaigns of this type have been launched by environmental protesters and indigenous peoples (see Vol. 2. B.2.b.) for decades. Post 2015 references on these campaigns have been added to Vol. 2. C. 2.b. and 2.f. respectively.

The Big Story: Oceans. 'Who Owns the Sea?', Sept-Oct 2019, New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 16-26

Covers issues of both climate change and biodiversity: loss of fish stocks, plastic pollution and role of oceans as climate regulators, and dangers of planned seabed mining. These issues are framed by a legal and political analysis of the Law of the Sea, the role of the International Seabed Authority and the negotiations between 190 countries in the Intergovernmental Conference on the Protection of Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, intended to lead to a new Global Ocean Treaty.   

There are a number of timelines on the evolving scientific research and the political context of climate change:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15874560 (1712-2013)

Sources for the evolving scientific understanding of climate change include:

IPCC Reports (comprehensive assessment reports, special reports on specific issues and methodology reports); there are also summaries for policy makers. The IPCC releases very much shorter summaries to the press.

NASA provides climate change and global warming information on its website: climate.nasa.org

The Scientific American carries material on the science and politics relating to climate change. www.scientificamerican.com

The New Scientist provides accessible news reports and analyses on scientific issues, including climate change. https://newscientist.com

Special issue on climate change, The Economist, 21/09/2019,

Issue focusing on climate change: Contains an analysis of rising carbon dioxide emissions, articles on the role of China and Russia, forest fires in Indonesia, flood prevention plans in low lying Asian cities, and the climate diplomacy of small island states.

Briefing: The Rising Seas: Higher Tide, The Economist, 17/08/2019, pp. 16-19

Notes that two thirds of then world's large cities in 140 countries are close to the sea, that a billion people live only 10 metres above sea level. and that scientific reports show that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating. Discusses different estimates of rising sea levels and the inadequacies of engineering measures to create adopted by many countries.   

Dessler, Andrew ; Parson, Edward, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 282

This is the third, substantially revised and updated, edition of the volume first published in 2005 and reissued in a 2nd edition in 2009, by two US professors, specialists in atmospheric sciences and environmental law respectively. It explores climate change as a new type of environmental problem, the interplay of science and politics, the policy debates about climate change and possible approaches to tackling the problem. The book is designed to be suitable for undergraduate courses. 

Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It, Emmaus, PA, Rodale Press, 2006, pp. 191 (pb)

This book was published in conjunction with the showing of Gore's influential climate change film, with the aim of making climate change research accessible through charts, graphs and illustrations, and the inclusion of personal stories.

Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It, Emmaus, PA, Rodale Press, 2006, pp. 191 (pb)

This book was published in conjunction with the showing of Gore's influential climate change film, with the aim of making climate change research accessible through charts, graphs and illustrations, and the inclusion of personal stories.

Kolbert, Elizabeth, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, London, Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 336

Kolbert, a former New York Times journalist, sets the current crisis in the context of five mass extinctions over the last half a billion years. She draws on the scientific findings of geologists, botanists and marine biologists to track 12 species which have become extinct, or are on the point of extinction, and raises basic questions about the impact and role of the human species.   

Pittock, Barrie, Climate Change: The Science, Impacts and Solutions, 2nd edition, London, Routledge, 0, pp. 350 (pb)

Pittock, a well known Australian climate scientist, examines the scientific evidence for climate change, including new evidence in the 2007 Fourth IPCC Assessment Report of the rapid melting of arctic sea ice. He also covers the possibilities of investment in renewable technologies, and examines the role of the (in 2009) recently elected Australian government.

Rich, Nathaniel, Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change, London , Picador, 2019, pp. 256

Rich, an essayist and contributor to the New York Times Magazine, focuses on the period 1979 - 1990 and the role of the US, which in 1979 emitted more carbon dioxide per head than any other industrialized country and had the political leverage to bring about international change. He charts efforts by environmentalists and scientists to make climate change a global political issue, and the roles of Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. Bush (who argued for action on climate change in 1988, but, influenced by his sceptical chief scientist and internal pressure, failed to deliver on his promise).

Stern, Nicholas, Why Are We Waiting?: The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate-Change. Lionel Robbins Lectures, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2016, pp. 448 (pb)

Economist Nicholas Stern led research for the British government on the economic costs of tackling climate change and implications for the global economy and compared these costs with those resulting from unchecked global carbon emissions. His 700 page highly technical report of 2006 concluded that cutting carbon emissions would be very significantly less economically harmful than the impact of unchecked emissions. This book, published 10 years later, warns that the risks and costs of global warming are more serious than he estimated in 2006, and argues strongly for a comprehensive low-carbon transition. 

See also: Kahn, Brian '10 Years on, Climate Economists Reflect on Stern Review', Climate CO Central, 28 October 2016 (Climate Central describes itself as an independent body of scientists and journalists focusing on climate change).

Taylor, Matthew ; Watts, Jonathan, Special Issue, Guardian Weekly, 18/10/2019, pp. 11-16

A Special Investigation by Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts on the role of fossil fuel companies in promoting the climate crisis. Includes list of the 'top five global polluters': Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; Chevron, US; Gazprom, Russia; ExxonMobil, US; National Iranian Oil Co.

Wallace-Wells, David, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, New York, Random House, 2019, pp. 384

The author, an editor of NewYork magazine, writes not as a long term environmentalist, but an observer of the mounting evidence (such as the California forest fires of 2017) of the disastrous impact of global warming already being experienced. He also examines the implications of (on present trends quite likely) increase of 3C over pre-industrial levels, and how a 7C rise would make much of the equatorial region uninhabitable. This is primarily a call to action rather than a programme for effective action. An edited extract appeared in the Guardian Weekly, 8 Feb. 2019, pp.34-9.    

A comprehensive list of sources on combating climate change, including all the legal, economic and technological possibilities, energy policy, reforestation, land management and agriculture, flood defences and other issues would require a separate bibliography. The sources listed below touch on a range of approaches, with an emphasis on recently published books and articles, and the more radical political, economic and environmental analyses and programmes.

'Habitable Earth': The Big Story, Climate Justice, May-June 2019, New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 15-37

Examines a range of technical issues relating to reaching carbon zero emissions targets, but focuses primarily on different forms of campaigning.  These include Buddhist temples disinvesting from fossil fuels in Japan, and the often effective use of the law in Latin America, as well as examples of direct action. There is also a brief account of the Costa Rican government's programme to be carbon neutral by 2050.

A European Green Deal: Striving to be the first climate-neutral continent, Brussels, European Commission , 2019

The EU Commission presented its plan for updating its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in December 2019. The goal of net zero emissions by 2050 was to be given legal force by a climate law in 2020, and its target for 2030 was a 50-55" cut (lifting its previous 40" target). The plan links these targets to a call for a new growth strategy, decoupled from resource use, and sets out a time line and more detailed aims.

See also: Simon, Frederic, 'The EU releases its Green Deal. Here are the key points' 12 Dec. 2019:  https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/12/12/eu-releases-green-deal-key-...

Special Issue, Summer 2019, Red Pepper, 2019, pp. 35-45

A series of articles exploring the implications of a Green New Deal. These include the importance of the international implications; climate change as a form of systemic racism; and an 'Open letter to Extinction Rebellion' from the grass roots collective Wretched of the Earth.

Angel, James, Energy Democracy in UK and Spain: from ideas to practice, Brussels, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Buro, 2016

Report on a workshop organized by Global Justice Now, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Brussels Office and the Transnational Institute to develop the concept of 'energy democracy' agreed by the German climate justice movement at the 2012 Climate Camp in Lausitz. The aim is to ensure access for all to non-polluting energy, entailing an end to fossil fuel us e, democratizing the means of production and rethinking energy consumption.  The workshop noted that since 2012 many communal, municipal, worker and movement initiatives were making the concept a reality: for example in Bristol in S.W. England, with a co-operatively owned solar generation project and a new publicly owned municipal supply company

See also: 'Just Transition and Energy Democracy: a civil service trade union perspective, PCS pamphlet, adopted at PCS conference May 2017. (It was also being promoted in translation by the Portuguese Climate Jobs campaign.)

Argues for public ownership and democratic control of energy supplies, and for the creation of a National Climate Service (proposed by the One Million Climate Jobs campaign, launched by the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group (CACCTU).

See also:

Greener Jobs Alliance: www.greenerjobsalliance.co.uk;

Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) a global trade union community for energy democracy coordinated in New York in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, New York office.

https://energydemocracy.us/

Barkham, Patrick, Can planting billions of trees save the planet?, The Guardian, 19/06/2019, pp. 10-11

Barkham notes the major potential value of reforestation to limit global warming and preserve biodiversity as well as local economic benefits. But he also stresses the dangers of ignoring the importance of planting local species or relying on technologies that may require minerals under old forests. His article focuses on the role of the 'TreeSisters' charity founded in 2014, which funds tree planting in India, Nepal, Brazil, Kenya, Cameroon and Madagascar. In Madagascar the focus is partly on replanting lost mangroves (providing multiple environmental benefits).

Berners-Lee, Mike, There is No Planet B - A Handbook for the Make or Break Years, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 288

Berners-Lee, from the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University, starts by summarizing the arguments for the urgent need to stop using fossil fuels and by assessing the climate science. He then examines a wide range of issues involved in transforming energy policy, transport, food supply, business models, and technological possibilities, providing important detail on, for example, the implications of alternative technology choices for fuel.

Cummins, Ronnie, Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Climate, Farming, Food and a Green New Deal, White River Junction, VT, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2020, pp. 208 (pb)

Cummins is the founder of the US Organic Consumers Association and involved in international environmental activism. His book focuses primarily on changing agriculture and on a renewable fuel policy.

D'Alisa, Giacomo ; Demaria, Federico ; Kallis, Giogios, Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, London, Routledge , 2014, pp. 220 (pb)

The book challenges the prevailing focus of public debate on economic growth and argues for democratic political action to reduce consumption and production with the goals of social justice and ecological sustainability. Parts 1 and 2 cover a wide range of theoretical issues, Part 3 looks at 'The Action" exploring different approaches and policies.

Hale, Stephen, The New Politics of Climate Change: Why We are Failing and How We Will Succeed, Environmental Politics, Vol. 19, issue 2, 2019, pp. 255-275

Argues that governments, businesses and individuals acting alone cannot secure effective policies on curbing climate change, what is needed is mobilization by the 'third sector'. Hale suggests success depends on 'national leadership by a diverse coalition of groups; action at community level; a mass movement 'living differently and demanding more, and mobilization across borders'.

Hoffman, Julian, Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places, London, Hamish Hamilton, 2019, pp. 416

Hoffman documents the struggles of local communities in the UK to save irreplaceable woods, marshes and other rare and beautiful habitats from roads, airports and industrial development. He stresses the historical, cultural and communal importance of these sites as well as their ecological value, and the grounds for hope provided by successful local campaigns.

Klein, Naomi, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, New York and London, Simon and Schuster / Allen Lane, 2014, pp. 566

Well known critic of neoliberal globalization analyses its impact on climate change, argues against the adequacy of technical fixes and for fundamental social change. She also examines the developments in the environmental movement and suggests how campaigns against fracking and tar sands are front lines in the struggle against climate change.

Translations: Spanish
Klein, Naomi, On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal, London, Penguin, 2020, pp. 310 (pb)

Klein enters the current debate about a Green New Deal in the context of the US Presidential and Congressional elections, and deploys her analytical and persuasive skills to argue for its necessity and to examine the policies and approaches required. 

Lewis, Simon ; Maslin, Mark, The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene, London , Penguin, 2018, pp. 480 (pb)

The authors are proponents of the theory that there is a geological epoch, which can be defined by the irreversible impact of human activity. The early stages of human development, from hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, had some environmental impact. But Lewis and Maslin trace the beginnings of a decisive human impact on the planet to the 16th-17th centuries when western colonialism, linked to the rise of global capitalism, began to transform the Americas, followed by the industrial revolution and the growth in population and consumption. The book concludes by calling for a new stage in human development involving radical economic change (away from profit-driven ownership of energy and food supplies), linked to comprehensive technological changes and much closer global cooperation. Two goals they set out are a re-wilding of half the planet and a universal basic income.

Mbile, Peter ; Atangana, Alain ; Mbenda, Rosette, Women and landscape restoration: a preliminary assessment of women led restoration activities in Cameroon, Environment, Development and Sustainability 21, 2019, pp. 2891-2911

The authors note that the Cameroon government had announced the goal of restoring 12 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 and had applied for support from the Bonn Challenge and AFR100 initiatives. They argue that women, who constitute over 60% of the rural workforce in Central Africa, have a crucial role to play, and examine some forms of restoration so far undertaken by women’s groups in Cameroon.

Monk, Ray ; Salmon, Ruth Buckley, How to Get to Net Zero, 7-13 Feb 2020, New Statesman, 2020, pp. 33-37

After surveying the scope of the problems caused by climate change, the article provides a useful critique of the UK government's approach to fulfilling its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, drawing on points made by the UK Committee on Climate Change (the independent statutory body set up in 2008 under the Climate Change Act). The authors conclude that so far the government has failed to make definite plans for housing and heating, industrial emissions, carbon capture and storage, agriculture, aviation and shipping. The article notes also the excessive reliance on electric vehicles to solve road transport emissions, as this could create a dangerous demand for relatively rare minerals like cobalt and lead to new ecological problems. The authors point to the potential of hydrogen fuel cells, but they also argue for simply reducing car use.  

Pettifor, Ann, The Case for the Green New Deal, London, Verso Books , 2019, pp. 208

Ann Pettifor developed the concept of a Green New Deal as a global and systemic approach with a group of fellow economists in 2008, but environmental issues were overshadowed in the financial crisis. She argues the political and economic case for urgent restructuring of government and the economy to try to save the planet, drawing on the example of Roosevelt's New Deal during the 1930s Great Depression to show how government can constructively tackle the impact of global crises. She also sets out to show what global and national changes are necessary and how they might be brought about.

Pollin, Robert, De-Growth vs a Green New Deal, July-Aug 2018, New Left Review, issue 112, 2018

Pollin compares two radically different approaches to political and economic change to meet climate change, referring to the book Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (listed above) as representative of degrowth theories. He makes clear his own priorities are to secure massive investment in green energy and rapid progress in ending use of fossil fuels, rather than broad theorising about economic growth, or its opposite.

Seabrook, Jeremy, What We Cannot Avoid, Sep-Oct 2019, New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 49-52

Seabrook argues that the great ideological divide today is not between capital and labour but between those (on the left as well as the right) who defend global industrial society and those who are trying to protect the (diminishing) resources of the planet. Later he reframes the basic split as 'between planetarism and parochialism'. He attacks mainstream political constructs of 'realism' and urges a rethinking of the real meaning of wealth, sufficiency and poverty.

Watson, Julia, Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism, Los Angeles, CA, Taschen, 2020, pp. 420

This book by a landscape architect explores how local solutions to particular environmental problems, often adopted in remote parts of the planet by indigenous peoples, have a much wider relevance today, and might be alternatives to western technological solutions that can have their own destructive implications. (TEK here means traditional ecological knowledge.) Watson has compiled 18 case studies, split into the separate categories of mountains, forests, deserts and wetlands, based on 10 years of travelling and interviewing anthropologists and scientists as well as indigenous peoples. She records, for example, how traditional methods of rice growing on hill slopes in Bali have proved more lastingly productive than the 1970s 'Green Revolution' based on pesticides and fertiliser, which in a few seasons led to declining yield, a degraded soil and return of the pests.

Top 8 Climate Change Campaigns of 2018, Greenhouse PR, 13/12/2018,

Greenhouse was established in 2006 to 'use the power of communications to drive positive social and environmental change.’ This report covers eight diverse 2018 campaigns which Greenhouse participated in. These include international media campaigns to pressure world major insurance companies to stop insurers covering coal mines and power plants, and promoting ethical banking. It also includes campaigns on environmentally aware farming methods. 

Environmental NGOs at a Crossroads?, Environmental Politics, Vol. 27, issue 6, 2018

This issue is focused on the roles of long established environmental NGOs (ENGOs), which often act as lobbying and advocacy groups seeking to influence government policy, and the potential of more radical campaigning groups. The introduction examines the implications of both approaches, as well as possible relations between ENGOs and protest movements. Other articles explore the role, strength and weaknesses of specific organizations, such as Friends of the Earth, and the problems as well as the benefits of transnational mobilization (as at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit). Topics covered include: an assessment of the effectiveness of transferring the US model of using the law to promote public interest environmental concerns to a European setting; the expansion of ENGOs in France; and a discussion of how to avoid conflicts of interest between indigenous peoples (concerned about economic opportunities) and environmental activists in Australia. 

Meet 15 Women Leading the Fight Against Climate Change, Time, 12/09/2019,

This article notes the disproportionate impact on women of climate change in many parts of the world and the recognition of this fact in the UN Paris Agreement, which called for empowerment of women in climate talks. It also points to the prominence of women in the struggle to limit climate change, and selects 15 women from round the world playing varied roles, including Greta Thunberg.

Women, Girls and Non-Binary Leaders are Demonstrating the Kind of Leadership Our World So Badly Needs, The Elders, 06/12/2019,

The writer, educator and environmentalist Katharine Wilkinson illustrates the need for climate leadership that is 'more conventionally feminine and more faithfully feminist'.

Indigenous activists on tackling the climate crisis: ‘We have done more than any government’ - Video, The Guardian, 04/11/2021,

The Guardian spoke to six young indigenous activists from the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chad, Alaska, Sweden, Indonesia and Australia about what they think about COP 26.

Askanius, Tina ; Uldam, Julie, Online Social Media for Radical Politics: Climate Change Activism on You Tube, International Journal of Electronic Governance, Vol. 4, issue 2, 2011

Discusses evolution of alternative media campaigning from the 15th UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, December 2009.

Brecher, Jeremy, Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual, Oakland, CA, pm Press, 2017, pp. 128

The author is an activist who sees the potential for a global movement to prevent disastrous climate change by forcing corporations and governments to adopt more radical policies, focusing in particular on ending use of fossil fuels. He gives examples of action from many parts of the world. But his primary emphasis is on developing a strategy (including civil disobedience) for activists in the USA, stressing the need to undermine support for fossil fuel industries but also to build parallel institutions such as popular assemblies.

Cohen, Ilana ; al., et, As Protests Rage Over George Floyd’s Death, Climate Activists Embrace Racial Justice, Inside Climate News, 03?06/2020,

Highlights the establishment of joint effort between racial justice movements and climate justice movements in the United States in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.

Doyle, Julie, Climate Action and Environmental Activism: The Role of Environmental NGOs and Grassroots Movements in the Global Politics of Climate Change, In in Tammy Boyce and Austin Lewes, eds., Climate Change and the Media, New York, Peter Lang, pp. 103-116

Grant, Zack, The Green Wave, Interview with German Greens-also available in German, International Politics and Society, 16/04/2019,

Refers to study by the interviewees of Green parties in 32 countries, and asks about their geographical spread (primarily Europe and Latin America), but much weaker in Eastern Europe than in most West European countries. The interview discusses the reasons for the varying electoral support and success of Green parties and also the impact of the weakening of mainstream parties and political polarisation to both the left and the right. 

Howard, Emma, The Rise and Rise of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement, The Guardian, 19/05/2019,

Reports that since US climate activist Bill McKibben and 350.org launched the divestment in fossil fuels campaign in 2012, over 220 institutions such as universities, local authorities and pension funds, have divested from some fossil fuels. So have foundations, notably the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund in 2014. The 'Fossil Free' campaign was launched in the UK in 2013, and grew more rapidly than earlier divestment campaigns against the tobacco industry and apartheid in South Africa. Howard also hails divestment by the World Council of Churches in 2014 and reports that the UN body coordinating agreement on climate change backed divestment in March 2015.

See also: Carlyle, Gabriel, 'Ducks, Direct Action and Investment', Peace News, June-July 2018, p.17.

Account of second Fossil Free UK national gathering, including examples of some campaigning and organizing experiences revealed there. The article also provides background on the rapidly growing global movement and the 880 institutions that had by then committed to some divestment from fossil fuels.

Hunter, Daniel, The Climate Resistance Handbook - or, I was part of a climate action. Now what?, 350.org, 2019, pp. 66

Hunter, who is the global training manager of the international climate action group 350.org discusses the difference between a campaign based on a strategy with a target institution and specific goal, and continuous protest using a particular tactic. He sets out six stages for a potentially successful campaign, which may involve diverse tactics, and gives examples of effective campaigns from different countries. An edited extract from the book is: 'The difference between a campaign and endless action', Peace News, 2632-2633 (Aug-Sept 2019), p. 11. 

See also: 'How to Build a Movement that Wins', Peace News, 2634-2635, Oct.-Nov. 2019, pp.8-9. which is an extract from the Handbook

Kotcher, John ; Mayers, Teresa ; Vraga, Emilie ; Stenhouse, Neil ; Maibach, Edward, Does Engagement in Advocacy Hurt the Credibility of Scientists? Results from a Randomized National Survey Experiment, Environmental Communication, Vol. 11, issue 3, 2017, pp. 415-429

Examines whether, as often assumed, scientists support for particular views and policies damages their scientific credibility. Their findings were that there was no significant indication that advocacy undermines scientific credibility.

McCarthy, Joe, What You Need to Know about Fossil Fuel Divestment, Global Citizen, 07/02/2020,

Notes that the movement for divestment from fossil fuels has grown 'from picket signs and petitions to a multi-trillion dollar crusade involving more than 350 institutions worldwide'. Cites Norway's Sovereign Wealth fund, the Episcopal Church and the British Medical Association as some of the important bodies that have divested, and that investment firms such as Blackrock have begun to withdraw support from climate polluting industries, as have universities and various companies. But also notes that divestment still often initiated by pressure from below. 

McGreal, Chris, A Dirty Secret: Big Oil and Gas Face a Reckoning, Guardian Weekly, 09/07/2021, pp. 30-32

Article discussing the rising number of law suits being brought in the US by cities and states against fossil fuel companies for environmental damage and for hiding information about the dangers of their operations. It also comments on how courts and activists are influencing the board membership of oil companies. But McGreal notes that although there is mounting pressure on the companies, the court process is very slow.

McMonagle, Rachel, OPINION: We can’t tackle climate change without indigenous people, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 04/02/2021,

Following President Joe Biden’s initiative to recommit to the Paris Agreement on climate change and the signing of an executive order halting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline project, this article emphasises the role of indigenous people within the climate justice movement.

See also: Ambroiggio, Mia, ‘Why We Need to Center Indigenous Voices in Climate Conversations’,  Loyola Phoenix, 3 February 2021.

http://loyolaphoenix.com/2021/02/why-we-need-to-center-indigenous-voices-in-climate-conversations/

Odendahl, Teresa, Women on climate change frontline make big impact on small grants, The Guardian, 28/11/2014,

Briefly discusses the women-led initiative in Indonesia against the burning and plundering of forests for mining and palm oil plantation.

Roser-Renouf, Connie ; Atkinson, Lucy ; Maibach, Edward ; Leiserowitz, Anthony, The consumer as climate activist, International Journal of Communication, Vol. 10, 2016, pp. 4759-4783

The article examines how far in the US consuming green products is linked to a desire to alter corporate practices that lead to climate change. It finds that concern about global warming and belief in consumer activism does predict ‘green purchasing, behaviour and opinion leadership’. The authors note the role of communications in promoting both concern about global warming and belief in consumer activism.

See also Laurence, Bill, ‘Boycotts are a crucial weapon to fight environment-harming firms’, The Conversation, 6 April 2014. https://theconversation.com/boycotts-are-a-crucial-weapon-to-fight-environment-harming-firms-25267

Roser-Renounf, Connie ; Atkinson, Lucy ; Maibach, Edward ; Leiserowitz, Anthony, The Consumer as Climate Activist, International Journal of Communication, Vol. 10, 2016, pp. 4759-4783

In the context of rapid growth in consumption of green products in the US, the authors use national survey data to test their hypothesis that people's beliefs about global warming as well as their beliefs about consumer activism, predict their approach to green consumerism.  

See also: Del Valle, Gaby, 'Can Consumer choices Ward Off the Worst Effects of Climate Change? An Expert Explains', Vox, 12 Oct. 2018,

Notes that the 2018 UN report on climate change warns less than two decades to limit global warming to 1.5% centigrade, and that in response proposals made for individual actions in response on issues such as meat eating and transport.  But the article also notes that the Climate Accountability Institute in its 2017 'Carbon Majors' report traced 70% of greenhouse gas emissions to 100 companies, which suggests individual actions 'futile'. The article notes that individuals can also reduce emissions per household through energy efficiency and altering houses to conserve energy. 

Ruiz, Felipe ; Vallejo, Juan Pablo, The Post-Political Link Between Gender and Climate Change: The Case of the Nationally Determined Contributions Support Programme, Contexto Internacional, Vol. 41, issue 2, 2019

This is an article querying the emphasis on gender in the UN Development Programme. Examining how gender was incorporated into Colombia’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy, they suggest that there are various risks in promoting feminist ideas within ‘mainstream institutional frameworks’.

Rupinder, Mangat ; Dalby, Simon ; Paterson, Matthew, Divestment discourse: war, justice, morality and money, Environmental Politics, Vol. 27, issue 2, 2018, pp. 187-206

The authors focus on the ‘discourse’ used in North America to promote disinvestment in fossil fuels, based on statements by activists, mainstream media reports on campaigns and coverage in alternative media. They argue that there are four overlapping narratives. The first ‘of war and enemies’, with fossil fuel companies as the enemies, is most dominant. The others are: ‘morality, economics and justice’.

Scheidel, Arnim, Environmental Conflicts and Defenders, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 63, 2020, pp. 1-12

This analysis of 2743 cases highlights the characteristics of environmental conflicts and the activists involved, examining their mobilization strategies and the need for specific support for indigenous for indigenous activists. The study finds that bottom up movements for more sustainable and socially just approaches to the environment can be found worldwide, and across all income groups, indicating that grass roots environmentalism is a promising force for sustainability. The authors note that environmental defenders are of ten members of vulnerable groups and use largely nonviolent methods, playing a significant role in preventing environmental destruction in 11 per cent of cases studied. However, these activists also face serious risk of criminalization (20 per cent of cases), physical violence (18 per cent) and assassination (13 per cent). These risks increase significantly when indigenous people are involved. The analysis is based on the Environmental Justice Atlas, (EJAtlas) database), which the authors created in 2011 to monitor worldwide climate justice protests.

See also: Grist, ‘For Indigenous Protesters, Defending the Environment Can Be Fatal’, Eco Watch, 11 June 2020.

https://www.ecowatch.com/environmental-activist-violence-2646168966.html#toggle-gdpr

Temper, Leah ; al., et, Movements Shaping Climate Futures: A Systematic Mapping of Protests Against Fossil Fuel and Low Carbon Energy Projects, Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 15, issue 12, 2020, pp. 1-24

This articles provides a systematic mapping of resistance movements against both fossil fuel (FF) and also against low carbon energy (LCE) projects. Hydropower projects dominate in the LCE category, causing both social and environmental damage.  The authors find that over a quarter of the projects encountering social resistance have been suspended or delayed, that low carbon renewable energy projects cause conflict as much as fossil fuel projects, and that both disproportionally impact socially vulnerable groups such as rural communities and indigenous peoples. The authors also find that repression and violence against protesters and land defenders was widespread, and that assassination of activists occurred in 10 per cent of all the cases analyzed. 

Thorson, Kierstin ; Weng, Lupamg, Committed Participation or Flashes of Action? Mobilizing Public Attention to Climate on Twitter, 2011-2015, Environmental Communication, Vol. 14, issue 2, 2020, pp. 347-363

Climate advocacy organizations are increasingly using social media to mobilize the public and so put pressure on policy-makers. The authors' investigation found that relatively few people repeatedly used Twitter on climate issues, though a small group of organizations and individuals did so repeatedly. They therefore raise questions about maintaining political interest over time.

Trent, Steve, As indigenous people protest in Colombia, we must rally with them, Environmental Justice Foundation, 2020

With a yearly figure of 251 activists assassinated in Colombia in 2020, and an average of 4 every week since the Paris agreement’s adoption in December 2015, indigenous activists in Colombia have risen against violence and environmental destruction with protests beginning in Bogota last month in October 2020.

Wheelan, James, Community Organising for Climate Action, Social Alternatives, Vol. 31, issue 1, 2012

Examines techniques of community organizing adopted by some environmental and climate change activists, and notes this approach alien to institutionalized and hierarchical NGOs.

From Paris to 2030: A Call for Climate Change Leadership, The Elders, 09/12/2020,

The Elders, a lobbying group for the environment chaired by Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland) joined leading climate experts to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement at a virtual conference. This was also hosted by Project Syndicate and the European Investment Bank and includes a two hour video clip of  the panel discussion.

Glasgow's Festival of Climate Resistance, Peace News, issue 2657, 2022, pp. 7-7

Provides brief examples of protests and related activities in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021 during the COP 26 Conference. Almost all the events were organized by the COP 26 Coalition, a UK-based coalition of groups committed to climate justice, which also assisted activists from abroad.

Corbet, Jessica, Indigenous-Led Action Outside White House Urges Biden to Protect People Not Polluters, Common Dreams, 30/06/2020,

Reports on three-day demonstration spearheaded by the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies.

Elson-Watkins, Rebecca, Paving a Path to COP 26, Peace News, 2021, pp. 7-7

Provides a round up of what UK based environmental bodies were doing to foreground climate and environmental issues in the run-up to the Glasgow Conference, both in terms of  protest and direct action and in terms of green initiatives such as creating 'green towns'.  It also references the website of the COP 26 Coalition.

Engelfried, Nick, US Climate Breakthrough: How young activists in the Sunrise movement turned the old idea of a Green New Deal into a powerful movement, Apr-May 2019, Peace News, issue 2628-2629 , 2019, pp. 14-15

First published on Waging Nonviolence website: www.wagingnonviolence.org

See also: Horton, Adrian, Dream McClinton and Lauren Aratani, 'Adults Failed to take Climate Action. Meet the young activists stepping up', The Guardian, 4 Mar. 2019.

Interviews with young activists in the Sunrise Movement.

Gabizon, Sascha, Women's movements' engagement in the SDGs: lessons learned from the Women's Major Group, Gender & Development, Vol. 24, issue 1, 2016, pp. 99-110

The purpose of the Women’s Major Group is to make sure women’s NGOs have a voice at the UN in framing policy on sustainable development and environmental issues. This articles focuses on the Group’s role in negotiations for the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and assesses the effectiveness of civil society involvement.

Hertsgaard, Mark, How 350.org Is (Still) Changing the Climate Justice Movement, The Nation, 09/12/2014,

Outlines how the organization founded by US climate activist Bill McKibben in 2007 was still promoting climate activism: supporting the indigenous struggle against the Keystone XL oil pipeline, urging universities and other bodies to stop investing in fossil-fuel companies and playing a significant role in organizing hundreds of thousands at the September 2014 People's Climate March in New York city. Hertsgaard also notes 350.org's role in international lobbying and activism in the run up to the UN Paris Climate Conference in 2015. The article was written just as McKibben was standing down as chairman. 

See also: https://www.influencwewatch.org/non-profit/350-org/ for a brief history and assessment, including explanation of the organization's name, which sums up McKibben's belief that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere needs to fall to 350 parts per million, or below.

Hicks, Kathryn ; Fabricant, Nicole, The Bolivian Climate Justice Movement: Mobilizing Indigeneity in Climate Change Negotiations, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 43, issue 4, 2016, pp. 87-104

The authors note that many of the groups in the Bolivian coalition mobilizing against global warming draw on indigenous philosophy and worldviews to oppose value commitments to economic development. Drawing on fieldwork in 2010, they assess the relationship between state and non-state actors and argue that the coalition has had a significant global impact, despite the failure of multilateral climate change negotiations.

See also article by the same authors: 'Bolivia vs. the Billionaires: Limitations of the "Climate Justice Movement" in International Negotiations', Nacla: reporting on the Americans since 1967, Vol. 46, issue 2, 2013, pp.  27-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2013.11722008

Examine's Bolivia's role at UN Conferences in Copenhagen and Doha and notes the strength of the opposition, not only from powerful global companies blocking real reduction iof carbon emissions, but 'the capitalist economy itself'. They also discuss the World People's Conference in Bolivia in 2010 and report criticisms of Evo Morales reliance on extractive industries f or economic development, despite his 'anti-capitalist discourse'.

Higgins, Polly, Eradicating Ecocide: Exposing the Corporate and Political Practices Destroying the Planet and Proposing the Laws to Eradicate Ecocide, 2nd ed., 2015, pp. 204 (pb)

International lawyer and expert on ecocide Polly Higgins sets out the full case for an international ecocide law which would hold corporations and governments to account for actions and policies that result in massive harm to the environment. She also examines how law has operated effectively in other contexts. The book is linked to the international campaign she headed to broaden the remit of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to include ecocide as a crime (alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity). An example of ecocide was the massive oil spill of 134 million gallons by BP in the Mexican Gulf in 2010. Higgins died from cancer in 2019, but an international campaign continues. See: stopecocide.earth

See also: Cooke, Ben, 'Could Ecocide become an International Crime?', New Statesman, 16 Mar. 2020. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2020/03/could-ecocide-...

Useful overview of possible examples of ecocide, such as the 2019 Amazon forest fires and tar sand oil extraction , and of the goals and current strategy of the campaign, now headed by Jojo Mehta. The campaign now focuses on getting support from states most vulnerable to climate change (any ICC signatory state can propose an amendment to the Rome Statute governing the court, and the votes of all states are equal). The South Pacific island state, Vanuatu, has indicated it might initiate the process - if two thirds of the signatories agree the ecocide law would apply to them. Cooke notes that the idea now has support from Extinction Rebellion activists, and that Pope Francis indicated in 2019 that he was considering making ecocide a sin

Lakhani, Nina, ‘A continuation of colonialism’: indigenous activists say their voices are missing at COP 26, The Guardian, 03/11/2021,

In the aftermath of the 2016 Paris accords, according to the international non-profit Global Witness, one in three of those killed were indigenous people. This article reports on indigenous voices and their exclusion from COP 26.

See also: If Not Us, Then Who?, Climate Week 2019.

https://ifnotusthenwho.me/playlists/climate-week-2019/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw4eaJBhDMARIsANhrQACa1OPlVypyRIzSq4Kk50XsXWbxI50B4Gyk1Vh9GWj_zNxCF0Z_Sp4aAr7VEALw_wcB

Focuses on the role of indigenous and local people in protecting the planet and fighting for climate justice.

Newell, Peter ; Simms, Andrew, Towards Fossil Fuel Disarmament, Peace News, Vol. 2652-2653, 01/01/2021,

The article argues that the success of the campaign which resulted in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides an example of how global mobilisation around a moral idea can have significant political results. Noting that the Parsi Agreement on limiting climate change does not even mention fossil fuels, the authors argue for a 'Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty'. This would impose a moratorium on developing fossil fuels by rich countries, phase out their use, provide for an end to extracting such fuels, and offer technological support to developing countries to increase alternative sources of energy. They note that growing numbers of people, including prominent political figures like Mary Robinson, now support the idea of a treaty to keep almost all remaining fossil fuels underground.

Teague, Ellen, Thousands Lobby for Action on Climate Change, The Tablet, 27/06/2019,

This report in a Catholic newspaper stresses the role of Catholic and Christian bodies in this 'The Time is Now' mass lobby of the Westminster Parliament organized by the Climate Coalition (coordinating 132 environmental, social and religious bodies in the UK with a focus on lobbying). Teague reports: 'the whole day event started with a walk of witness down Whitehall, with Columbian missionaries, Jesuit Mission, Salesians, Arocha, Pax Christi and more'. About 12,000 took part, and over 350 MPs were lobbied.

See also: www.theclimatecoalition.org   

Walker, Clare, COP Comes of Age, Dec-Jan 2015, Red Pepper, 2015, pp. 32-33

Discussion, in light of lessons from the 2014 People's Climate March. of how to prepare for mobilization at the UN Paris Conference of the Parties on Climate Change 

See also: Worth, Jess, 'Climate Justice Comes to Copenhagen', New Internationalist, 16 December 2009  

https://newint.org/blog/editors/2009/12/16/climate-justice-invades

See also: Peoples Climate Movement 'To change everything, we need everyone', https://peoplesclimate.org/our-movement/

Sets out policy: to demand radical action on climate change, through mass mobilization and alignment with other movements for economic and racial justice. Provides very brief overview of campaigning since 2014 People's Climate March.

Yoon, Kate, Towards an Equitable and Effective Climate Deal: An Interview with Mary Robinson, Harvard International Review, Vol. 36, issue 3, 2015, pp. 35-37

In this interview Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, talks about the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice.  She discusses how climate change disproportionately affects women, especially through undermining food security, and notes that many women are farmers in developing countries.

See also: Editorial spotlight: Climate action with women, UN Women, 13 September 2019.

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/9/spotlight-climate-action-with-women

Link to women-led initiatives in Bolivia, the Caribbean and Cambogia to tackle climate change.

See also: Empowering women on the frontlines of climate change, UN Environment Programme, 8 March 2019.

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/empowering-women-frontlines-climate-change

Brief introduction to “Promoting Gender-Responsive Approaches to Natural Resource Management for Peace”, a Sudanese project implemented by UN Environment, UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme.

Websites recommended

Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) - https://www.wecaninternational.org ,

WECAN is a climate justice body which stresses that indigenous women, women of colour, women on low incomes and from Global South countries live on 'the front lines of climate change'. Therefore solutions to climate change require not only ending extraction of oil and gas, but 'building a new economy' based on communal and women's rights, right of nature and the rights of future generations. WECAN aims to mobilise women around the world in policy advocacy (for example at UN climate conferences) and in movement building.

Re-visioning Our Relationship with the Earth: lessons from "Rights of Nature and System Change in Climate Solutions", 2017

Report on meeting held in conjunction with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature which was part of mobilization around People's Climate march and UN Climate summit in New York City 2014.

The Big Story: Global Climate Protests, Guardian Weekly, 27/09/2019, pp. 10-14

Covers the demonstrations by school children and students in an estimated 185 countries with a photo of a protest in Nairobi, Kenya, and an overview of the protests in their environmental and political context. Coverage also includes brief statements from young activists in Australia, Thailand, India, Afghanistan, South Africa, Ireland and the US; the speech by Greta Thunberg to the UN Climate Action summit in New York; and 10 charts explaining the climate crisis.

See also: Milman, Oliver, 'Crowds Welcome Thunberg to New York after Atlantic Crossing ', The Guardian, 29 Aug. 2019, p.3.

Reports on Thunberg's arrival in New York where she was to address the UN Climate Action summit on reaching zero carbon emissions.

The Big Story: Kids v. Climate Change, Guardian Weekly, 15/02/2019, pp. 10-14

Covers the origins of the School Strike Movement in Greta Thunberg's solitary protest outside the Swedish Parliament, charts 'The snowball effect' prints Thunberg's speech at the Davos Economic Forum in January 2019, and summarizes a week of bad climate news.

Youth Climate Action Takeover, 22-28 April 2019, The Big Issue, 2019, pp. 19-39

This special supplement in the paper focusing especially on the homeless (and sold by them) takes up the climate crisis and the role of youth activism. Features young people arguing for climate change to be on the school curriculum, and interviewing the UK Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, Caroline Lucas (the sole Green MP in the UK Parliament), and representatives of Marks and Spencer about their clothing and recycling policies. Includes interviews with young naturalists and activists in different parts of the country.

My Name is not Greta Thunberg': Why Diverse Voices Matter in the Climate Movement, The Elders, 19/06/202,

Xiye Bastida, an 18 y-ear old Mexican-Indigenous climate activist recounts her own experiences and stresses the need to recognize the diversity of the climate justice movement in order to achieve a more equitable and sustainable future.

Fridays for Future: How the Young Climate Movement Has Grown since Greta Thunberg's Lone Protest, The Conversation, 28/08/2020,

Explores briefly the Fridays for Future movement and its interconnection with the struggle against systemic racism.

See also: FridaysforFuture website page: https://fridaysforfuture.org/what-we-do-/activist-speeches 

See also: 'Young voices on the Frontlines of Climate Change', The Elders' Blog, https://theelders.org//intergenerational-climate-blogs

An update of experiences of climate activists from both the Global North and the Global South.

Harvey, Fiona, Young People Resume Global Climate Strikes Calling for Urgent Action , Guardian, 25/09/2020,

Compares the September 2020 Friday strikes (in about 3,500 places worldwide) which were constrained by Covid related social distancing measures, with the 2019 week of action involving at least six million. The article also provides a link to a 24-hour global zoom call covering regional issues and links to forms of activism, especially digital activism.

O'Brien, Karen ; Selboe, Elin ; Hayward, Bronwyn, Exploring youth activism on climate change, Ecology and Society, Vol. 23, issue 3, 2018, pp. 1-14

The authors examine youth opposition to policies and practices that lead to climate change, noting that differing forms of climate activism have differing results. They focus on three types that oppose power relationships and political interests: ‘dutiful, disruptive, and dangerous dissent’

Rathi, Akshat, United We Are Unstoppable: 60 Inspiring Young People Saving Our World, London, John Murray Press, 2020, pp. 265

This book, edited by a climate journalist, features accounts from young activists around the world.  Individuals in very different social and environmental contexts, and with varying motives and goals, recount their contributions to reducing climate change.

Woods, Lucy, Young Climate Heroes, Mar-Apr 2020, New Internationalist, 2020, pp. 67-72

Survey of youth climate activism in schools and universities in Canada, focused on the climate impacts of excess consumption and fast fashion, symbolized by the November 2019 'Black Friday' shopping spree. Based on interviews with six young Canadians involved in a rang e of environmental activism. 

Gayle, Damien ; Carrington, Damian, Street Illegal: XR Ponder Diminishing Returns from Guerrilla Protest, Guardian Weekly, 19/09/2021,

The article describes the change in police tactics from earlier protests, including immediate intervention to stop obstruction of roads and the use of batons. It then discusses briefly the changes in XR's own approach: the emphasis shifting from 'sounding the alarm' to demanding why there is not 'an emergency response'.

See also: 'XR's Latest Rebellion', Peace News, October-November 2021, p.7.

Outlines briefly plans for a fortnight of action directed at stopping fossil fuel investment and focused mainly on the City of London.  On the same page there is a brief report on XR Scotland's appeal to all XR activists to respect XR Scotland's 'COP 26 Rebel Agreement' to show respect for the most vulnerable local communities and to demand a just transition for workers and local communities.

Hallam, Roger, Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only nonviolent rebellion can now stop climate breakdown and social collapse, Roger Hallam, 2019, pp. 80

Hallam is a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and claims its April 2019 protest launch in London was based largely on the strategic ideas he had already sketched out. The book examines the case for fearing imminent planetary disaster, outlines 'the civil resistance model' underlying X R strategy. and criticizes 'climate justice' movements' for their approach.

His views do not represent all those taking part in the XR movement or who support in principle taking nonviolent direct action to combat climate change.

For a critical review of both the use of science and the basis of the strategy see: Gabriel Carlyle, Peace News, 2636-2637 (Dec. 2019-Jan. 2020), p. 21

'Has Extinction Rebellion Got the Right Tactics?' - debate in New Internationalist, Jan-Feb. 2020, pp. 46-47

Two supporters of climate activism disagree about the likely efficacy of XR's approach and its ability to maintain momentum over time.

Iqbal, Nosheen, Extinction Rebellion, a year of climate red alert, Guardian Weekly, 11/10/2019, pp. 15-17

Overview after half a year of XR's impact, noting its very rapid growth inside the UK and mobilization of a wide cross-section of people, its global spread (485 affiliates around the world). Iqbal also notes the impact on the engineering and construction industries, universities, local councils, architecture and the arts all focusing on the urgency of reducing emissions. But he cites criticism from the Wretched of the Earth collective for climate justice, who urged XR not to ignore the voices of indigenous, black, brown and diaspora groups.

See also: 'Climate Change Protesters Take Over Museum and Threaten Disruption', The i, 23 April 2019, p.11. Report on 'die in' by 100 activists under the blue whale skeleton in London's Natural History Museum, a week after XR blockades in London began;

See also: 'Climate Protesters to Pitch Tent City in Four-day "Northern Rebellion", The Guardian, 29 Aug. 2019, p.20. 

Report that at least 750 people had pledged to occupy Deansgate in Manchester, an entertainment area with high air pollution levels;

See also 'Mothers in Google Climate Action as Protesters Defy Ban', The Guardian, 17 Oct. 2019, p.13. Reports blockade of Google's London HQ in defiance of police ban on protests in London to oppose Google's funding of deniers of climate crisis. Young people and nursing mothers took part.  Lawyers for XR were applying for judicial review of the police banning order at the high court.

Lights, Zion, Hot Earth Rebels, Nov-Dec 2019, New Left Review, issue 120, 2019

Interview with leading activist Zion Lights from Extinction Rebellion about their shutdown of central London, covering reasons for adopting civil disobedience and 'flat management' structures.

Randle, Michael, Thousands of Arrests: What can Extinction Rebellion learn from the experience of the Committee of 100?, Feb-Mar 2020, Peace News, issue 2638-2639, 2020

Randle was a full time organizer for the Committee of 100, which was created in 1960 to promote mass nonviolent direct action, such as sit-downs and occupations, as a strategy to promote unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain. In this article he compares the Committee's experience with the tactics and aims of Extinction Rebellion, noting the greater acceptability of nonviolent direct action today and the differences between the two threats (nuclear war and major climate change). He also notes that the Committee of 100 ceased to exist after eight years, whilst the more conventional CND has lasted over 60 years. 

See also articles by Gabriel Carlyle 'Building the Climate Movement We Need', and Mya-Rose Craig, 'The Point of Striking is to Take Control over Our Futures' in Peace News, 2034-2035, Oct.-Nov. 2019 for further debate about strategy and focus. Carlyle makes a comparison with the US Civil Rights Movement and its localised, focused campaigns combining to create a national movement. Craig stresses the need to prioritize the Global South and when setting out alternatives, to advocate only actions that do not harm communities in poorer countries.

Taylor, Matthew, Extinction Rebellion, Guardian Weekly, 14/08/2020, pp. 35-39

Taylor provides a detailed account and analysis of the origins of Extinction Rebellion (XR), its structure and decision-making processes, its major demonstrations in 2019, and its evolution. He includes the internal debate about whether to try to shut down Heathrow, the ideological divides in the movement, and the decision by one of XR’s founders, Roger Hallam, to leave XR and found a new climate campaigning group. The article concludes by discussing the implications of Covid-19 and noting the plans to disrupt parliament peacefully in September 2020.

This section includes recent campaigns not covered under those listed in C.2. or in Vol. 2. B.2. Indigenous Resistance to threats to their Environment.

Green, Graeme, Paradise Lost?, New Internationalist, issue November-December , 2021, pp. 60-63

Green outlines plans by the Canadian oil and gas company Recon Africa to create a huge oil and gas field in the Okavango valley area, which includes large areas of both Namibia and Botswana and is at present a sanctuary for wildlife and home to about 2 million people. Both African and international green organizations are mobilizing to stop the project. Recon Africa are already drilling under exploratory licenses.

NB. Earlier references to resisting oil companies can be found under Vol. 2 A.4.b., which also covers some references on resisting mining.

Hambach Forest Saved, Feb-Mar 2019, Peace News, issue 2626-2627, 2019, pp. 11-10

Reports that after years of resistance by German green activists against open cast coal mining, which had already destroyed much of the Hambach forest, the rest of the forest seemed to be safe. A government-appointed 'coal exit commission' recommended in January 2019 that Germany should stop using coal-fired energy by 2038 and that it was 'desirable' to preserve the Hambach forest. A court order requested by the German Friends of the Earth (BUND) had already temporarily halted expansion of the mine, after major protests by the campaign Ende Gelaende, which included occupying coal train tracks

See also: Polden, David, '4,000 Activists Block German Coal Trains for 24 Hours', Peace News, 2624-2625, Dec.2018-Jan.2019, p.5.

Very brief report on Ende Gelaende direct action.

Indigenous Activists Keep Carbon Below Ground, May-June 2020, New Internationalist, 2020, pp. 51-50

Brief account celebrating victory after years of campaigning by Indigenous Climate Action against Teck Resources, the company pressing for permission to build the tar sands Frontier Mine in Canada, which would have produced 3.2 billion barrels of oil over 40 years. Teck withdrew early in 2020, after 12 years of lobbying (indigenousclimateaction.com). The journal also reports very briefly that the Great Australian Bight Alliance, led by Aboriginal elders and local activists has in succession prevented Chevron, BP and (most recently) Equinor to abandon plans to drill for oil in the Bight (fightforthebight.org.au.)

Brandt, Katie, Native Americans and Supporters Fight Keystone XL Pipeline with Spirit Camp, [2015], Huff Post, 06/12/2017,

Account of resistance to the TransCanada Corporation's Keystone XL oil pipeline to protect ancestral lands and the environment against oil spillage. President Obama halted the project in 2015, but President Trump gave TransCanada the go-ahead in March 2017. In response two Native American communities launched a lawsuit against the Administration in 2018.

See: 'Native American Tribes File Lawsuit Seeking to Invalidate Keystone XL Pipeline Permit', npr, 10 Sept. 2018.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/646523140/native-american-tribes-file-lawsuit-seeking-to-invalidate-keystone-xl-pipeline-p?t=1595266018021

Estes, Nick, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance, London, Verso, 2019, pp. 320

This book is an account of the prolonged and multi-faceted Sioux resistance to the 1,172 mile Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) which in 2014 was rerouted through their territory, threatening their ancestral burying grounds and archaeological sites. In addition to violation of their rights over the land, the Sioux Nation feared that oil spills would pollute their land, and especially the water supply. The protest began in April 2016 with the setting up of a camp as a centre for direct action and the expression of spiritual resistance, and was supplemented by a social media campaign. Surrounding Native American communities joined in the protest, as did many environmentalists, so that thousands were involved by the summer. The local police were criticised for using unnecessary force against protesters and there were many arrests. The story of Standing Rock is set within the context of the much longer history of indigenous resistance to colonization and struggle to maintain their culture.

See also: Treuer, The Heartbreak of Wounded Knee (under Vol. 2. B.1.d.) which includes an account of Standing Rock at the end of the book. 

See also: 'What is Standing Rock and Why are 1.4m 'checking in' there? - BBC News, 2 Nov. 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37834334

Protesters were worried that they were being individually traced by the police through social media (denied by the local police) and asked for supporters to check-in to the SR Facebook site to overwhelm police efforts to identify protesters that way.

Faith, Mike, Our Fight against the Dakota Access pipeline is far from over, The Guardian, 15/11/2019,

Article representing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe position by its chairman.  Notes that the Obama administration refused in late 2016 to grant DAPL a permit to cross the Missouri River upstream of Standing Rock, but that under Trump the pipeline had been built. Faith also reports that his tribe is still engaging in legal challenges to pipeline permits, and that owners of DAPL are trying to double the pipeline capacity, increasing the risk of oil spills.

Firempong, Jesse, Everything You Need to Know about Tar Sands and How they Impact You, Vol. Greenpeace, 17/04/2018,

Explains the scope and nature of the Alberta tar sands in western Canada - oil fields and mines covering an area larger than England with lakes created by the runoff of chemicals. This oil extraction process is difficult because the oil (bitumen) is heavy and has to be brought to the surface using huge amounts of water. It is a major contributor to global warming as well as polluting indigenous lands and the local environment. Greenpeace notes that resistance was mounting to the pipeline projects linked to tar sands, including Keystone XL, and the Transmountain Expansion pipeline.

Lindemann, Tracey, The Pipeline Battle and Canada's Climate Doublespeak, Guardian Weekly, 06/03/2020, pp. 33-32

Reports on wave of rail blockades across Canada in February/March 2020 in solidarity with the Wet-suwet-en indigenous nation in British Columbia, who had been obstructing work on the 670 kilometre Coastal Gaslink project. A military style police raid in British Columbia sparked solidarity from Mohawks in Ontario and Quebec, and other indigenous and non-indigenous people. Greenpeace gave their support. There were also street marches in towns and cities.

See also: Rizvi, Husna, 'Wet"suwet'en Gas Pipeline Battle', New Internationalist, May-June 2020, p. 10.

All Those/times the Anti-Fracking Campaign Rocked, Greenpeace, 07/11/2019,

Celebrates UK government decision to halt fracking because of size of seismic shocks caused by drilling, but stresses role of nearly a decade of campaigning, especially at the Cuadrilla fracking site in Sussex, where local residents from the village of Balcombe were joined by activists in resistance, and at the Cuadrilla site in Lancashire.

See also: McWhirter, Kathryn, Frack Free Balcombe Residents' Association, 'The biggest thing since the arrival of the railway', pp. 85-90 in Rodriguez, Global Resistance to Fracking (listed below)

See also: ‘How summer fracking protest unfolded in Sussex village’, BBC, 17 April 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-26765926

Detailed account of the the protests in Balcombe that centred on oil company Cuadrilla's attempt to drill a 3,000ft (900m) vertical well to test for oil.

See also: Vaughan, Adam, ‘Fracking firm gets green light to test for oil at Balcombe … again’,The Guardian, 9 January 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/09/fracking-firm-gets-green-light-to-drill-for-oil-at-balcombe-again

See also Perraudin, Frances and Helen Pidd, Anger and blockades as fracking starts in UK for first time since 2011’, The Guardian, 15 October 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/15/fracking-protesters-blockade-cuadrilla-site-where-uk-work-due-to-restart

Reports on Reclaim the Power campaign’s against fracking in Lancashire.

Cabrera, Fernando, The Argentine Government is set to push ahead with Controversial Fracking despite Warnings, The Ecologist, 07/12/2018,

Reports on the Argentine government plans and the oil companies involved in exploitation of the Vaca Muerta formation, close to one of the country's most important water basins. The UN Committee on ESCR had warned in October that the project would have a serious impact on the climate and the local territory. Cabrera also notes that over 60 municipalities had banned fracking, but several of m these bans have been ruled unconstitutional for exceeding communal powers.

Ceja, Jose, Mexico's Ban Advances Broader Fight to End Fracking in North America, Truthout, 10/08/2018,

Reports on surprise promise by newly elected Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to stop fracking in the country, which would be the largest area yet to ban this process. But also notes that anti-fracking activists were not ready to abandon resistance yet.

Hayhurst, Ruth, Anti-Fracking Groups Launch Campaign to put Shale Gas on Election Agenda, Drill or Drop, 09/05/2017,

Reports on the campaign during the 2017 UK election by Frack Free United (a network of residents near fracking sites and campaign groups) and Cross Party Frack Free (group of MPs, Peers and parliamentary candidates, as well as local councillors, who support a national ban on fracking).

Jordan, Brandon, Anti-Fracking Movement Emerges to Halt Argentina's Natural Gas Boom, July 2017, Third World Network, 2017

Overview of opposition to fracking plans in Argentina, includinga provincial law in the province of Entre Rios to ban fracking (it is not directly involved in the plans) and Vista Alegre became the first municipality to ban fracking.  The Supreme Court suspended the ban, but residents marched to the capital and blocked a highway to demonstrate their commitment to it. Brandon notes also that the Mapuche, the largest indigenous group in Argentina were mobilizing to resist the threats to their land, especially near the Vaca Muerte basin. (The article was reproduced from the Waging Nonviolence website.)

See also Platform London, 'UK-Argentina Fracking Talks Targeted by Protest', 22 May 2019. 

https://platformlondon.org/p-pressreleases/uk-argentina-fracking-talks-targeted-by-protest/

Marusic, Kristina, This is what Indigenous Resistance to Fracking looks like in Pennsylvania, Environmental Health News, 23/20/2018,

Reports on water ceremony in Pittsburgh, conducted by two indigenous tribal faith leaders, followed by march and rally by local and national environmental groups to protest against the development of fracking in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The protests were timed to coincide with a large fracking convention in the city.

Novorro, Santiago ; Bessi, Renata, Fracking Expands in Latin America, Popular Resistance, 07/12/2015,

Reports on the pressure from multinational companies to extract hydrocarbons from rocks through fracking in Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, and documents the harmful environmental effects including contamination of water supplies. The report also notes the growing resistance in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina to fracking, for example the No Fracking Brazil Coalition (Coesus) protests outside the offices of fossil fuel companies tendering for areas to frack in October 2015, with international support.

Pineiro, Moreno, Argentina: 6 Indigenous Women at the Heart of Fracking, Telesur, 18/03/2016,

Story of six Maolucho women from the Campo Maripe community in the Argentine Patagonia, who have resisted fracking where they live by chaining themselves to fracking rigs and barricades. Pineiro represents the women as representative of the Latin American wide resistance by indigenous women to oil extraction.

Ridriguez, Samuel, Global Resistance to Fracking: Communities Rise Up to Fight Climate Crisis and Democratic Deficit, Madrid, Libros en Accion, 2015, pp. 153

This book, edited by the international coordinator of Ecologistas en Accion, covers 15 varied struggles against fracking around the world, and is intended to be a source of inspiration for continued resistance. Many are first person accounts, by those involved. Chapters cover personal opposition fracking in the courts or at the municipal level, resistance by local farmers to corporations backed by the government, as in Poland and Romania and the campaign for 'frack free' municipalities in the Basque territory of Spain. There are also accounts of resistance from Argentina, Algeria, South Africa, Australia, the UK (against drilling in Sussex) and Northern Ireland, and on the role of ATTA C in France. Includes a timeline and 'some snapshots' of the resistance, as well as some conclusions drawn by the editor.