Oscar Berglund – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Repression of climate and environmental protest is intensifying across the world

Posted on January 8, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Climate and environmental protest is being criminalised and repressed around the world. The criminalisation of such protest has received a lot of attention in certain countries, including the UK and Australia. But there have not been any attempts to capture the global trend – until now.

We recently published a report, with three University of Bristol colleagues, which shows this repression is indeed a global trend – and that it is becoming more difficult around the world to stand up for climate justice.

This criminalisation and repression spans the global north and south, and includes more and less democratic countries. It does, however, take different forms.

Our report distinguishes between climate and environmental protest. The latter are campaigns against specific environmentally destructive projects – most commonly oil and gas extraction and pipelines, deforestation, dam building and mining. They take place all around the world.

Climate protests are aimed at mitigating climate change by decreasing carbon emissions, and tend to make bigger policy or political demands (“cut global emissions now” rather than “don’t build this power plant”). They often take place in urban areas and are more common in the global north.

Four ways to repress activism

The intensifying criminalisation and repression is taking four main forms.

1. Anti-protest laws are introduced

Anti-protest laws may give the police more powers to stop protest, introduce new criminal offences, increase sentence lengths for existing offences, or give policy impunity when harming protesters. In the 14 countries we looked at, we found 22 such pieces of legislation introduced since 2019.

2. Protest is criminalised through prosecution and courts

This can mean using laws against climate and environmental activists that were designed to be used against terrorism or organised crime. In Germany, members of Letzte Generation (Last Generation), a direct action group in the mould of Just Stop Oil, were charged in May 2024 with “forming a criminal organisation”. This section of the law is typically used against mafia organisations and had never been applied to a non-violent group.

In the Philippines, anti-terrorism laws have been used against environmentalists who have found themselves unable to return to their home islands.

Criminalising protest can also mean lowering the threshold for prosecution, preventing climate activists from mentioning climate change in court, and changing other court processes to make guilty verdicts more likely. Another example is injunctions that can be taken out by corporations against activists who protest against them.

3. Harsher policing

This stretches from stopping and searching to surveillance, arrests, violence, infiltration and threatening activists. The policing of activists is carried out not just by state actors like police and armed forces, but also private actors including private security, organised crime and corporations.

In Germany, regional police have been accused of collaborating with an energy giant (and its private fire brigade) to evict coal mine protesters, while private security was used extensively in policing anti-mining activists in Peru.

4. Killings and disappearances

Lastly, in the most extreme cases, environmental activists are murdered. This is an extension of the trend for harsher policing, as it typically follows threats by the same range of actors. We used data from the NGO Global Witness to show this is increasingly common in countries including Brazil, Philippines, Peru and India. In Brazil, most murders are carried out by organised crime groups while in Peru, it is the police force.

Protests are increasing

To look more closely at the global picture of climate and environmental protest – and the repression of it – we used the Armed Conflicts Location Event database. This showed us that climate protests increased dramatically in 2018-2019 and have not declined since. They make up on average about 4% of all protest in the 81 countries that had more than 1,000 protests recorded in the 2012-2023 period:

This second graph shows that environmental protest has increased more gradually:

We used this data to see what kind of repression activists face. By looking for keywords in the reporting of protest events, we found that on average 3% of climate and environmental protests face police violence, and 6.3% involve arrests. But behind these averages are large differences in the nature of protest and its policing.

A combination of the presence of protest groups like Extinction Rebellion, who often actively seek arrests, and police forces that are more likely to make arrests, mean countries such as Australia and the UK have very high levels of arrest. Some 20% of Australian climate and environmental protests involve arrests, against 17% in the UK – with the highest in the world being Canada on 27%.

Meanwhile, police violence is high in countries such as Peru (6.5%) and Uganda (4.4%). France stands out as a European country with relatively high levels of police violence (3.2%) and low levels of arrests (also 3.2%).

In summary, while criminalisation and repression does not look the same across the world, there are remarkable similarities. It is increasing in a lot of countries, it involves both state and corporate actors, and it takes many forms.

This repression is taking place in a context where states are not taking adequate action on climate change. By criminalising activists, states depoliticise them. This conceals the fact these activists are ultimately right about the state of the climate and environment – and the lack of positive government action in these areas.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Oscar Berglund, Senior Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol and Tie Franco Brotto, PhD Candidate, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Tyre Extinguishers: activists are deflating SUV tyres in the latest pop-up climate movement

Posted on March 15, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

A new direct action group calling itself the Tyre Extinguishers recently sabotaged hundreds of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in various wealthy parts of London and other British cities. Under cover of darkness, activists unscrewed the valve caps on tyres, placed a bean or other pulse on the valve and then returned the cap. The tyres gently deflated.

Why activists are targeting SUVs now can tell us as much about the failures of climate policy in the UK and elsewhere as it can about the shape of environmental protest in the wake of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain.

The “mung bean trick” for deflating tyres is tried and tested. In July 2008, the Oxford Mail reported that up to 32 SUVs were sabotaged in a similar way during nocturnal actions in three areas of the city, with anonymous notes left on the cars’ windscreens.

In Paris in 2005, activists used bicycle pumps to deflate tyres, again at night, again in affluent neighbourhoods, again leaving anonymous notes. In both cases, activists were careful to avoid causing physical damage. Now it’s the Tyre Extinguishers who are deflating SUV tyres.

In the early 2000s, SUVs were still a relative rarity. But by the end of 2010s, almost half of all cars sold each year in the US and one-third of the cars sold in Europe were SUVs.

In 2019, the International Energy Agency reported that rising SUV sales were the second-largest contributor to the increase in global CO₂ emissions between 2010 and 2018 after the power sector. If SUV drivers were a nation, they would rank seventh in the world for carbon emissions.

At the same time, the Tyre Extinguishers’ DIY model of activism has never been easier to propagate. “Want to get involved? It’s simple – grab some leaflets, grab some lentils and off you go! Instructions on our website,” chirps the group’s Twitter feed.

Changing activist strategy

Though the actions led by the Tyre Extinguishers have numerous precedents, the group’s recent appearance in the UK’s climate movement does mark a change of strategy.

Extinction Rebellion (XR), beginning in 2018, hoped to create an expanding wave of mobilisations to force governments to introduce new processes for democratically deciding the course of climate action. XR attempted to circumvent existing protest networks, with its message (at least initially) aimed at those who did not consider themselves activists.

In contrast, activists in the Tyre Extinguishers have more in common with groups that have appeared after XR, such as Insulate Britain, whose members blockaded motorways in autumn 2021 to demand government action on the country’s energy inefficient housing. These are what we might call pop-up groups, designed to draw short-term media attention to specific issues, rather than develop broad-based, long-lasting campaigns.

After a winter of planning, climate activists are likely to continue grabbing headlines throughout spring 2022. XR, along with its sister group, Just Stop Oil, threaten disruption to UK oil refineries, fuel depots and petrol stations. Their demands are for the government to stop all new investments in fossil fuel extraction.

An industrial scene with three cooling towers and various chimneys lit up with yellow lights. — UK-based activists have threatened to block oil refineries in April 2022.
Orxy/Shutterstock

The Tyre Extinguishers explicitly targeted a specific class of what they consider anti-social individuals. Nevertheless, that the group’s action is covert and (so far at least) sporadic is itself telling.

In his book How to Blow up a Pipeline, Lund University professor of human ecology Andreas Malm asked at what point climate activists will stop fetishising absolute non-violence and start campaigns of sabotage. Perhaps more important is the question that Malm doesn’t ask: at what point will the climate movement be strong enough to be able to carry out such a campaign, should it choose to do so?

Given the mode of action of the Tyre Extinguishers, the answer on both counts is: almost certainly not yet.

The moral economy of SUVs

For now, the Tyre Extinguishers will doubtless be sustained by red meat headlines in the right-wing press. It’s still probable, however, that the group will deflate almost as quickly as it popped up: this is, after all, what has happened with similar groups in the past.

The fact that activists are once again employing these methods speaks to the failure of climate policy. Relatively simple, technical measures taken in the early 2000s would have solved the problem of polluting SUVs before it became an issue. The introduction of more stringent vehicle emissions regulations, congestion charging, or size and weight limits, would have stopped the SUV market in its tracks.

SUVs are important because they are so much more than metal boxes. Matthew Paterson, professor of international politics at the University of Manchester, argues that the connection between freedom and driving a car has long been an ideological component of capitalism.

And Matthew Huber, professor of geography at Syracuse University in the US, reminds readers in his book Lifeblood that oil is not just an energy source. It generates ways of being which become culturally and politically embedded, encouraging individualism and materialism.

Making SUVs a focal point of climate activism advances the argument that material inequality and unfettered individual freedoms are incompatible with any serious attempt to address climate change.

And here lies the crux of the conflict. The freedom of those who can afford to drive what, where and when they want infringes on the freedoms of the majority to safely use public space, enjoy clean air, and live on a sustainable planet.

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This blog is by Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology, Aston University and Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Oscar Berglund, Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Insulate Britain: blocking roads will alienate some people – but it’s still likely to be effective

Posted on September 21, 2021April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

Insulate Britain is a campaign group urging government action on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel poverty in the country’s housing stock. Their methods have recently landed them in the news, as activists blocked parts of the M25 – the motorway surrounding London – by sitting on slip roads and in the carriageway until their removal by police.

The long delays their protests caused drew outrage from motorists and much of the media that reported it. So what is the purpose of this kind of disruption, made popular in recent years by Extinction Rebellion (XR)?

The American sociologist Charles Tilly argued that all protest actions were what he called WUNC displays: shows of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment. The goal was not to stop or make something happen directly, but to demonstrate the strength and appeal and values of the protesters, so that both those in power and the general public would listen to their message.

Direct action groups tend to be slightly different from traditional social movements: their actions typically carry higher risks, and they tend to have fewer organisational resources. While they are very committed, being “respectable” isn’t necessarily so important, and the actions are typically carried out by relatively small numbers of people. Creating disruption helps make up for these shortcomings.

Novelty and attention

Protest is the language of people denied access to power – it is designed to draw attention, to be seen and heard. It is much more likely for protesters to achieve something if they inconvenience others in the process, rather than (as more established groups tend to do) leading a march or a demo. Many activists in Britain drew that lesson from the massive anti-Iraq war protests of 2003, which mobilised so many people and yet achieved little.

Recently, researchers have shown this to be true by comparing various kinds of protest over the past decade. Strikes, sit-ins, occupations and blockades have proven more likely to achieve some degree of success than less disruptive protests such as marches, demos or petitions.

One reason for the efficiency of disruption is that it is much more likely to provide press coverage, particularly when it is novel. It’s instructive to compare the Insulate Britain protests with the recent Extinction Rebellion protests. In April 2019, XR were able to garner widespread media and political attention by occupying central London for nearly two weeks. Since then however, doing the same thing has brought diminishing returns: the police are better prepared, the actions are less disruptive, they mobilise fewer people, and the media has turned elsewhere.

Yet people stopping traffic on the M25 has attracted attention. And the small group of activists have managed to get their demands – insulate all social housing by 2025 and all homes by 2030 – printed in national newspapers. Their clear demands are an evolution of XR’s preference for leaving details of what policies are needed to tackle climate change to a future citizens’ assembly.

A worker in blue overalls rolls out wool in an attic. — A nationwide retrofit and insulation campaign could slash emissions and fuel poverty.
Irin-k/Shutterstock

Is annoying people worthwhile?

Critics say that blocking roads hurts vulnerable people. In this case, talk radio hosts highlighted delays to one girl’s taxi journey to her special needs school. In the case of anti-fracking activists who blocked the A583 in Lancashire in July 2017, the trial judge argued that the inconvenience caused – the police had to set up a contraflow – justified sending three of them to jail on a public nuisance charge.

But as any motorist can tell you, these things happen every day. If you drive a car to work, you’ll know how often you are delayed, by accidents, roadworks, sheer weight of traffic.

Other critics will point to the confused logic of blocking roads for the cause of insulating homes. There is, indeed, little connection between the two, unlike activists occupying the Science Museum to protest Shell’s sponsorship of its climate change exhibition, or blockades of fracking sites. But then again, there isn’t much of a direct connection between marching through London and demanding that British forces don’t invade Iraq, either.

Where groups engage in more indirect forms of disruption, it’s necessary to do more behind the scenes for the protest to make sense, including making the link explicit for onlookers. Insulate Britain held banners with their name and logo – a quick search on the web takes you to a website outlining what the group wants. It is, in other words, all about the target audience, the public, which activists reach through the media. Nothing will be achieved there and then. Britain’s homes will not be insulated as a result of this particular protest.

Of course, disruptive protest annoys people, and protesters sometimes lose support because of this. YouGov measured public support for XR recently and found that nearly half of those polled have a negative opinion of the group. But broad popularity isn’t all that relevant. Direct action groups aren’t running for elections. They don’t need to be supported by a majority. At least 73% of those polled had heard of XR – more than Momentum (33%), Stonewall (50%), ActionAid (60%), or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (64%).

What Insulate Britain want is to highlight political inertia and force the government to take action. And it is unlikely that people will be against insulating homes just because they get annoyed at protesters. An estimated four million UK households currently live in fuel poverty. Insulating homes is an essential part of lowering Britain’s emissions – and saving British households a lot of money. So, while Insulate Britain may well not be popular, their strategy appears to be to take the hit among some groups who might be irked by their methods in order to get home insulation in the news and up the government’s agenda.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Oscar Berglund, Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol and Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology, Aston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Extinction Rebellion uses tactics that toppled dictators – but we live in a liberal democracy

Posted on August 6, 2019April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

XR protesters getting carried away. Image credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA.

After occupying parts of central London over two weeks in April, Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) summer uprising has now spread to Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds and Bristol. All these protests involve disruption, breaking the law and activists seeking arrest.

Emotions are running high, with many objecting to the disruption. At the same time, the protests have got people and the media talking about climate change. XR clearly represents something new and unusual, which has the power to annoy or enthuse people. But what led it to adopt such disruptive tactics in its efforts to demand action on climate change?

XR is accused of being an anarchist group in a report from the right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange. To actual anarchists, that is laughable. XR strictly adheres to non-violence, seeks arrests and chants “we love you” to the police. This contrasts starkly with anarchists’ antagonistic relationship to the state and its law enforcement.

The movement claims to practice civil disobedience – but that is also a confusing label. Civil disobedience developed during the 20th century as a way of understanding and justifying law-breaking protests in liberal democracies. Much of this was in relation to the US civil rights movement. Liberal political thinkers like Hannah Arendt and John Rawls explored when and how disobedience was legitimate in a democracy.

The misfit rebellion

In some ways, XR fits with liberal civil disobedience. That disobedience should always be a last resort chimes well with XR’s claim that time is running out and traditional campaigning has proven unsuccessful. The voluntary arrests resonate with the liberal onus on open and conscientious law-breaking that accepts law enforcement.

Non-violent protest in Cardiff, July 2019. Image credit: Neil Schofield/Flickr., CC BY-NC

But on two other crucial points, XR breaks with the liberal civil disobedience tradition. For one thing, civil disobedience is generally aimed at showing the majority of the public that specific laws are unjust. XR does not seem to focus on this majority-building. It does not engage in discussion with climate change deniers, and its disruption antagonises people who do not share its fears and frustration with the inaction of governments.

Instead, XR’s tactic is to get a significant but still small part of the population to participate in disruption. The movement aims to get 3.5% of the population so incensed that they take to the streets. It does not aim to convince 51% that this is the right thing to do.

Liberal civil disobedience maintains an overall “fidelity to law”. In other words, it is considered okay to break certain unjust laws, as long as you respect the state’s laws generally. The aim is then to get the state to have better, more just, laws.

But for XR, the social contract has already been broken. The state has failed to take necessary action on climate change, thereby putting its citizens at risk. Disruption and law-breaking are therefore justified.

Talkin’ ‘bout a revolution

XR’s tactics are not based on how social movements have achieved policy change in liberal democracies. It is based on how dictatorships have been toppled. It draws directly on Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s book Why Civil Resistance Works, where they argue that non-violence is more effective than violence. The XR tactic is therefore based on how to achieve revolutions, not on how to get governments to respond to the will of the majority.

There are reasons to be sceptical about the relevance of this research, when it comes to addressing climate change. The 3.5% figure applies to such a small number of historical cases that no conclusions can be based on it. More importantly, perhaps, in most cases of regime change, not much else changes. Most in XR see saving the world as incompatible with capitalism as a system that depends on economic growth on a finite planet. Most cases of regime change on the Chenoweth and Stephan list have not resulted in abandoning capitalism – quite the opposite.

There are, however, good reasons for why XR’s radical tactics resonate with so many. People experiencing climate change through hot summers and other extreme weather events increases the sense of urgency. More importantly, perhaps, in an era of political polarisation, more extreme action becomes more likely. The trust in the state and its politicians has eroded on both the left and right across Europe. In the UK, this has been made worse by the politics of Brexit.

Law-breaking then becomes a more likely form of protest. One of XR’s spokespeople wrote on The Conversation that “the chances of … succeeding are relatively slim”. But since many in XR foresee societal breakdown as a result of climate breakdown, the cost of getting a criminal record diminishes. And if they continue to make the protests a bit of a festival, then the chances are we’ll see more disruption from Extinction Rebellion – even if it does alienate many others.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Oscar Berglund, Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Oscar Berglund