Mission 2020: An analysis of the current state of climate, climate politics and climate activism

Note: The current draft is for discussion and is expected to be updated based on received comments.


Summary. The failure of current societies to take required actions to limit global warming to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, leaves major responsibility to transform current systems to non-governmental organizations and grass-roots movements within extremely short timelines and outside formal structures and processes. Current forms of climate activism are analyzed and assessed as ineffective in eliciting the required actions to limit global warming.  To increase the efficacy of climate activism, it is proposed to reinterpret forms of climate activism described as “non-violent direct action” or  “civil disobedience” as forms of Passive Resistance or Sabotage (“carbon-tage”) to increase the costs of the current unsustainable system and make it “cheaper” for decision makers (and other individuals) in terms of political and financial cost to switch to a sustainable system. Considering this broader definition of methods, it is proposed to preferably select methods which decrease the personal costs for climate activists in terms of time, money and personal risks and increase the effectiveness regarding influencing political decisions, social norms, and ultimately the reduction of greenhouse gases. As an historical example, the German resistance movement “Die weiße Rose” (The White Rose)  and their 3rd leaflet is used, which discusses various of Passive Resistance, especially Sabotage, to overthrow the nationalsocialist government during The Third Reich in Germany.


The following text aims to analyse the current state of the climate as assessed by leading climate scientists and current observations of climate change, climate politics, relevant actors, especially climate activists. Forms of climate activism are reduced to underlying principles, and a proposal for next level of climate activism is presented. Facts and opinions are supported by references as available.

Climate. World-leading climate scientists have presented strong evidence to declare a planetary emergency  on 2019-11-27 [1, 2]. Scientists of the Club of Rome proposed to nations to declare a planetary emergency on 2019-09-24 [3] and a list of 11,000 scientist have warned of “untold suffering” on 2019-11-05 [4]  due to climate change. Global carbon emission rates reached a new record in 2018 [5] and still increased in 2019 [27]. In September 2019, bushfires started burning in Australia after record-breaking hot temperatures. Until the 2019-12-31 , the bushfires have been destroying 54,000 sqkm [8], an area the size of Croatia, and may have killed an estimated number of 480,000 animals [9]. Bushfires at that scale have not been observed before in Australia [26].

In the coming year 2020, the ever increasing carbon emission curve has to be bent to preserve a chance of limiting global warming to controllable level of 2 degrees Celsius in comparison to pre-industrial levels  [30]. The required rate of decarbonization is estimated to be between 5% to 15% percent  per year starting in 2020, depending on targeting 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius and other assumptions [30].  World-leading climate scientist Professor Michael Mann even argued that the carbon budgets  by the IPCC are biased by an artificially warm pre-industrial temperature baseline, requiring a substantially higher carbon reduction rate for a target temperature of 2 degrees Celsius and the opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius does not exist any longer  [32].

Since any delay in the process of reducing carbon emissions, will require even higher reduction rates, the situation is extremely serious now, in the sense that if humanity does not “bend the emissions curve” in 2020, there is even less chance that humanity will make it later, and therefore, the time window to avoid climate breakdown will effectively close in 2020 [33].

Politics. The 25th conference of the parties  (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Madrid, Spain, from 2019-12-03 to 2019-12-13, which yielded a minimal consensus after four major states massively blocked stronger climate action, especially the USA (gas), Saudi-Arabia (oil), Australia (coal), and Brazil (agriculture) [10]. The Union of Concerned Scientists critized the almost total disconnect between the scientific recommendations for climate action and the results of the climate negotiations at COP25  [11].

The German government lead by Chancellor Merkel presented on 2019-09-20 the draft of a climate package  (“Klimapaket”), which was confirmed as “Klimaschutzprogramm 2030” on 2019-10-09 [12]. The climate package was widely criticized as totally insufficient and favouring higher income citizens [28]. For example, the price per ton of CO2e was raised from an originally (ridiculous) 10 euro/ton CO2e to 25Euro/ton CO2e from 2021 after intervention of a conciliation committee, while scientists recommend a price of at least 50 Euros/ton CO2e [14].

The Australian government’s climate policy was rated as “highly insufficient” (corresponding to 4 degrees global warming) [15, 16]. Australia blocked climate action at COP25 [11]  in the middle of catastrophic wild fires and record temperatures which were clearly linked to climate change [18].

The government of the USA under president Donald Trump has given a formal notice of intention to leave the Paris Climate Agreement on 2019-11-04 [19].

However, positive examples of politics starting to take adequate action to handle the climate emergency are a declaration of climate emergency by the EU parliament [36],  a statement of the European Investment Bank to stop investing in fossil fuels after 2021 [37], and a proposal of the EU president Von der Leyen for a European Green Deal including climate neutrality until 2050 [38], which, however,  does not seem consistent with the Paris climate targets and, therefore, may fail to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown [39].

Actors. The important actors in the climate emergency are:

  • United Nations: The UNFCCC/COP approach to limit global warming to safe or controllable targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement is failing, as demonstrated by a record-breaking carbon emission rate after 25 years of annual global climate conferences and the minimal consensus at COP25 (references above). Peter Carter, Director of the Climate Emergency Institute, described how the UNFCCC/COP process had a design fault from the beginning due to a lack of definition of the decision process, with ad-hoc definitions of consensus by the conference host country, which usually means unanimous consensus, to the effect that already single countries can block climate action [29].
  • European Union: The European Union and important institutions have made statements, which indicate large-scale, future actions, to handle the climate emergency including climate neutrality until 2050, which however do not seem consistent with the Paris climate targets, therefore, may fail to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown [39].
  • Nations: According to the Climate Change Performance Index, no industrialized nation is meeting the safe or controllable targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. Sweden is the best performing nation in terms of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions  (rank #4, no countries on rank #1-#3)  [20], however, has only managed to reduce its (territorial) carbon emissions by 1.8% from 2017 to 2018 [21], while reductions of the total (including territorial production  and consumption) of 5% to 15% per year are required to meet the Paris targets [30].
  • Cities: Over 50% of the world population is living in urban areas [46], so cities are important actors. Currently, there is great variety regarding climate action. Promising examples are cities organizing themselves to protect the climate in the C40 network [47], however, it is hard to generalize across cities across the globe.
  • Corporations: About 100 large corporations are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions [22]. While 221 large companies have joined the “RE100” (100% Renewable Energy) initiative, the pace of change is considered “nowhere near enough” [22].
  • Individual emitters (consumers): Reports indicate that in specific countries, individual consumer behaviour is changing towards a reduction of high-emitting behaviours such as air travel, road travel (SUVs), or meat consumption (eg air travel in Sweden [22] ), while other countries continue and increase climate-damaging patterns (eg air travel in Germany [23]).
  • Climate Activists: A global wave of protests demanding climate action was observed in 2019, culminating in Global Week For Future in September 2019 totalling to 6 million protesters world-wide, which was arguably, the largest coordinated, single (climate) protest event in human history [7, 31].

Climate Activists. The main forms of climate activism are based on established, legal organizations (eg Greenpeace, WWF) and several newly emerging grassroots movements (eg Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Ende Gelände, Sunrise Movement). While some organizations have existed for decades, others have been initiated only in late 2018 and have received a high-level of media  and political attention driving forward climate action.  For example, massive protests across the world which were triggered by the school strike by 15-year old climate activist Greta Thunberg  on 2018-08-20 [6], which culminated a global climate strike of estimated 6 million climate activists across the planet on 2019-09-27 [7], which was arguably the largest, global protest in human history.  However, according to Greta Thunberg school strikes in 2019 have not achieved nothing, since greenhouse gas emissions keep rising [31].

So far, the strategies have been mostly based on legal activities (eg information campaigns, petitions, political lobbyism, …), but also illegal activities, mostly in the form of non-violent direct actions and civil disobedience with varying degrees of illegality.

For example, Greenpeace UK states that non-violent direct action is a core principle of Greenpeace’s work. According to Greenpeace UK, direct action is about physically acting to stop an immediate wrong at the scene of the crime. Ordinary people around the world can act to confront those in positions of power with their responsibility for stopping global environmental destruction and provoke action [34].

The Fridays For Future (FFF) protests, which were initiated by Greta Thunberg, used school strikes as a method to put pressure on society and the political system, by students breaking against the law of compulsory education, which can be considered an act of civil disobedience. Although this method is “non-violent”, it is not a “direct” action, since it does not prevent events which harm the environment in general or the climate in particular. However, it is a method to create a conflict with the political and societal system by breaking legal and social norms, which is effective to create public and media attention. It creates a conflict in decision makers and puts pressure on them to taking sides whether or not they care about the well-being of future generations.

Limitations of this method are that it is designed for students, but does not work for activists to whom the law of compulsory education does not apply, eg adults. Such activists have also joined the “school strikes” , however, by doing so, they presumably merely joined a conventional protest. To “strike” does not work for working adults, because they will misdirect a strike against their employer who may not be  the actual opponent in this conflict, and adults may lack  the efficacy of a mass strike and the protection of a union to provide financial support because of lost income and avoid negative consequences from their employer.

The Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement which was created in the UK proposed three demands to the (UK) government and is based on 10 principles, however, – to my knowledge – without a clear concept on its methods. However, Extinction Rebellion de-facto uses methods of Civil Disobedience to increase costs for the current system, which they demand to change. For example, during “International Rebellion Weeks”, large numbers of activists blocked core infrastructure in (capital) cities, eg London, to impair civil and economic life, by blocking doors, blocking roads, stopping trains, which can partially be regarded as “direct” actions targeted at the government or large corporations. In addition, XR uses also critical mass actions, eg mass bike rides (“We are not blocking the traffic, we are the traffic!”), to increase costs for public and economic life.  In addition, XR also uses Symbolic Actions which use art and shock elements to generate public and media attention to the climate and ecological crisis, eg “Red Rebels”, fake blood, die-ins, nude protests, hunger strikes. Finally, XR uses also Non-Violent Direct Actions by blocking agents or processes contributing to the climate and ecological crisis, eg by blocking government or corporate buildings or infrastructure, eg by flying drones over airports. XR aims to increase the conflict with the system to a level where Mass Arrest of activists take place, to show their commitment to their goals, and also create a crisis for the government/executive system because of a lack of capability to handle these mass protests, hoping that the government will finally give in to the demands of Extinction Rebellion. XR also uses a Confrontational Communication Strategy, for example, by focusing on  “telling the truth”, clearly using negative terms of “mass extinction”, confrontational symbols (eg “extinction symbol”, animal skulls) and high-visibility colours and design. The idea behind this is that XR tries not to activate “by-standers”, which cope with inconvenient fact by distancing themselves and denial, but activate “up-standers”, which cope with inconvenient facts by taking action [40].

Limitations of XR’s methods are mostly related to the fact that they are designed for the political system and the culture in the United Kingdom:

  • A two-class society and political system with a low degree of identification with the ruling class (“The people against the elite!”). This concept will work less effective in countries with a high degree of democracy and identification with the state and government, eg in Sweden.
  • A centralized system which can be blocked with a limited number of activists, eg the financial district of the City of London. XR methods will be less effective in systems which are less centralized.
  • A high degree of cultural diversity and a culture of civil disobedience. XR methods of civil disobedience  will be less effective in more homogenous, conformist cultures (eg Sweden, Japan).
  • The concept of mass arrest to saturate the capacity of the state’s system may work if offenders are imprisoned and limited police force and prison space is available. However, if activists receive fines instead of arrests, it will be much harder to saturate the system, but puts activists at financial risks without robust financial financial infrastructure to support. Therefore, saturation of the system will be less effective in system with large law enforcement capacities or a system were legal action is not limited by resources (eg fines instead of prison).

In addition, the collection of a broad variety of methods to achieve system-change creates confusion about the mechanism and objectives of these methods, which causes an inefficient use of the methods, eg blocking of insignificant roads, overly strong focus on non-violence, while the objective of avoiding climate and eco collapse moves to the background. Some actions were also interpreted as failed because the actions mostly affected working-class citizens and elicited angry reactions which stopped actions early, examplifying the conceptual uncertainties of XR’s methods [42, 43].

The often discussed “race” problem [41] of XR, which seems to consist mostly of white, middle-class activists, is in my opinion not a result of discrimination in XR, but a result of the confrontational methods and a discriminatory society. Since non-white activists performing illegal actions are at higher risk of experiencing more negative consequences by the police and the legal system, the cost for participating in such actions is much higher for non-white activists, and, therefore, are less likely to join XR and perform such actions (“self-selection”). However, this is not a problem in XR’s structure, but a problem of the societal system since in my opinion the in principle desirable target of being inclusive should not dominate the selection of methods to reach the superior goals of the movement.

Common Principles of Climate Activism. Observing the various methods of implementing system change to address the environmental crisis, the shared principles seem to be:

  • Legal:
    • Inform the public and decision makers (“central route of persuasion”) [44]
    • Present oneself as competent and morally good (“peripheral route of persuasion”) [44]
    • Create attention of the media and public, and finally decision-makers
    • Influence the perception of people’s will
      • by political decision makers (via elections) and
      • by individuals (via social norms)

In addition, there are various forms of illegal actions (direct actions, civil disobedience), which aim to increase the costs of the current, unsustainable system and make it “cheaper” to switch to an alternative, sustainable system. There are various forms of actions, which may involve passive or active aggression, and are at various levels of legality. The “costs” may refer to financial (“money”)  or political (“power”) loss:

    • political (eg angy citizens, reduced control over society) => loss of power
    • economic (eg stop people from working) => loss of money
    • executive (eg busy police force, full prisons) => loss of money
    • judicial systems (eg number of trials) => loss of money

However, these climate activism strategies often involve high costs in terms of time (for planning and implementation of protests), money (for organization of protests, incl travel and accommodation, lost income/holidays), risk for physical and psychological health (eg cold/heat, police violence, conflicts with the public,…), while the effect of these actions is often temporary in terms of public or media attention or temporary reduction of political or industry processes (eg shutdown of coal power plants).

An important reason for these type of actions which involve a high personal investment maybe to show the high importance of the issue for the activist,  the high personal commitment, the high moral standard of the activist (“I am not going through this struggles for myself!”), to avoid personal attacks that activists are trying to achieve advantages for themselves or their peer group. In addition, by making oneself vulnerable by being peaceful and non-violent, eg by lying on the ground as dead or sitting in a blockade, activists go into a conflict with a much more powerful system and at the same time trigger a cultural norm not to harm somebody weaker and vulnerable (“bite inhibition”).

Proposal. Considering the lack of efficacy of current climate activism to transform the current, unsustainable to a sustainable system, it seems necessary to increase the effectiveness of climate activism by decreasing the current cost per climate activist and increasing effectiveness in terms of its influence on social norms, political decisions, and finally the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, I would suggest to re-interpret the current forms of civil disobedience as passive resistance or sabotage (“eco-tage”) and search for new, more effective forms. Personally, I found inspiration in the 3rd leaflet by the German resistance movement “Die Weiße Rose”, which proposed all forms of passive resistance (“sabotage”) to overthrow the nationalsocialist government during The Third Reich in Germany [35].

And now every resolute opponent of National Socialism must ask himself this question: How can he most effectively contend with the current “State”? How can he deal it the severest blow? Undoubtedly through passive resistance. Clearly, it is impossible for us to give every individual specific guidelines for his personal conduct. We can only allude to general issues. Everyone must find his own way to realize resistance.

Sabotage in armaments factories and other businesses vital to the war effort. Sabotage in all assemblies, rallies, festivities, organizations that were breathed into life by the National Socialist Party, prevention of the smooth operation of the war machine (a machine that operates only for one war, one that focuses on the preservation and maintenance of the National Socialist Party and its dictatorship). Sabotage in all scholarly and intellectual realms that exist for the continuance of the current war – this whether it be in universities, colleges, laboratories, research facilities, or technical offices. Sabotage at all cultural events that could possibly exalt the “prestige” of fascists among the people. Sabotage in all branches of the fine arts that have the least connection to National Socialism and serve its goals. Sabotage in all areas of literature, all newspapers that are on the payroll of the “government”, and that fight for their ideas, for the dissemination of the brown lie. Do not put even one penny in the collection plate, even if it is disguised as a charity. [35]

The application of the principles of Passive Resistance including Sabotage to increase the cost of the fossil-fuel based system can also be labelled as “eco-tage” or “carbon-tage”. Since the current failure to handle the climate emergency is also caused by the close collaboration between fossil-fuel based corporations and a corrupted political system within a global neoliberal capitalist system, which promotes a concentration of wealth and power, the passive resistance should be primarily targeted at those corporations and organizations which currently represent the largest concentrations of wealth and power and follow the lowest levels of sustainability:

Two legal categories methods of passive resistance are:

  • Passive resistance of production, eg
    • avoid working for fossil fuel-based corporations
    • avoid working for large corporations
    • avoid working for corporations with low standards of sustainability
    • reduce work-time
      Note: A reduction of work-time by 15% per year may be recommended based on a heuristic rule assuming that work-time and carbon emissions are equivalent and a required reduction of 15% of carbon emissions per year is required to meet the Paris Climate Targets.
  • Passive resistance of consumption, eg
    • reduce buying products or services from fossil-fuel based corporations
    • reduce buying products or services from large corporations
    • reduce buying products or services from corporations with low standards of sustainability
    • reduce buying products or services products (ie reduce consumption)

In addition, a broad variety of illegal methods of passive resistance are possible, which are, however, not discussed here. The definition of illegal methods of passive resistance is, however, difficult here, since laws which violated the interests of future generations are against the fundamental principles of democracy and, therefore, lack a legal or moral basis. Instead such laws or punishment of actions to protect these interests may be regarded as  based on a dictatorship of a minority of the currently living, powerful generation forcing their decisions upon a majority of many future, powerless generations [45].

Obviously, climate activism based on passive resistance does not apply to areas of society or economy, which contribute to a transformation to a sustainable way of living to avoid climate and ecological collapse.

References:

[1] https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2019-11-27-time-for-an-emergency-response.html

[2] Lenton, T. M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Richardson, K., Steffen, W., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2019). Climate tipping points—Too risky to bet against. Nature, 575(7784), 592–595. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0

[3] https://www.clubofrome.org/2019/09/24/nations-should-declare-a-planetary-emergency-says-club-of-rome/

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/05/climate-crisis-11000-scientists-warn-of-untold-suffering

[5] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/co2-emissions-reached-an-all-time-high-in-2018/

[6] https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1031442623653928960?s=20

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/27/climate-crisis-6-million-people-join-latest-wave-of-worldwide-protests

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season

[9] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8-000-koalas-killed-by-devastating-australian-bushfires-experts-predict-w8hm3jcz8

[10] https://www.germanwatch.org/en/17459

[11] https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop25-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-climate-talks-in-madrid

[12] https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/themen/klimaschutz/klimaschutzprogramm-2030-1673578

[13] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundesrat-billigt-klimapaket-der-grossen-koalition-a-1302299.html

[14] https://www.businessinsider.de/politik/deutschland/klimaforscher-ueber-groko-klimapaket-lediglich-kosmetische-korrekturen/

[15] https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/australia/

[17] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/31/fact-checking-angus-taylor-does-australia-have-a-climate-change-record-to-be-proud-of

[18] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/11/what-are-the-links-between-climate-change-and-bushfires-explainer

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Paris_Agreement

[20] https://www.climate-change-performance-index.org

[21] http://www.naturvardsverket.se/klimatutslapp

[22] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/04/stayontheground-swedes-turn-to-trains-amid-climate-flight-shame

[23] https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/handel-konsumgueter/deutsche-flugsicherung-luftverkehr-in-deutschland-waechst-immer-schneller/23918574.html?ticket=ST-38744029-6ik0cAEsnVyf4d1g1jMk-ap6

[24] Nathaniel Rich (2019). Losing Earth – A recent history. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

[25] Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway (2010). Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Publishing, USA.

[26] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/25/factcheck-why-australias-monster-2019-bushfires-are-unprecedented

[27] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-accord-carbon-idUSKBN1Y800W

[28] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/klimapaket-bundesrechnungshof-kritisiert-massnehmen-der-regierung-a-1292952.html

[29] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s

[30] https://www.carbonbrief.org/unep-1-5c-climate-target-slipping-out-of-reach

[31] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/06/greta-thunberg-says-school-strikes-have-achieved-nothing

[32] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-close-are-we-to-dangerous-planetary-warming_b_8841534

[33] https://twitter.com/PEspinosaC/status/1121685688267575297

[34] https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about-greenpeace/how-we-create-change/

[35] http://white-rose-studies.org/Leaflet_3.html

[36] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20191121IPR67110/the-european-parliament-declares-climate-emergency

[37] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/15/european-investment-bank-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels-financing

[38] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_19_6749

[39] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/29/first-eu-wide-climate-law-to-set-net-zero-carbon-target-by-2050

[40] Extinction Rebellion (2019). This Is Not A Drill – An Extinction Rebellion Handbook. Penguin Press. https://www.penguin.com.au/books/this-is-not-a-drill-9780141991443

[41] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/04/extinction-rebellion-race-climate-crisis-inequality

[42] https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/18/extinction-rebellion-faces-backlash-over-self-defeating-disruption-london-public

[43] http://biosphere.wilmarigl.de/en/?p=1457

[44] http://www.cios.org/encyclopedia/persuasion/Helaboration_2routes.htm

[45] http://biosphere.wilmarigl.de/en/?p=1534

[46] https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html

[47] https://www.c40.org/

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