Climate Action Upsurge

In the late 2000s climate action became a defining feature of the international political agenda. Evidence of global warming and accelerating greenhouse gas emissions created a new sense of urgency and, despite consensus on the need for action, the growing failure of international climate policy engendered new political space for social movements. By 2007 a ‘climate justice’ movement was surfacing and developing a strong critique of existing official climate policies and engaging in new forms of direct action to assert the need for reduced extraction and burning of fossil fuels. This book offers an insight into this important period in climate movement politics, drawing on the perspectives of activists who were directly engaged in the mobilisation process. Through the interpretation of these perspectives the book illustrates important lessons for the climate movement today.

The upsurge of climate activism produced a new configuration of political forces, superseding relatively uncritical climate action approaches on an international level. This upsurge was disrupted by the global financial crisis in late 2008, and cut short by the following recession, but was still hugely significant. Many of the visions, strategies and tactics that were developed during this period had powerful generative potential. The ‘climate justice’ alternatives that emerged at this time have reframed the way climate change is understood, and approached, highlighting the collective power of climate activists. These advances are critical for when climate is forced back onto the political agenda by the accelerating climate crisis, and by the on-going failures of climate policy. This book analyses this new climate politics as a response to the marginalisation of environmental NGOs, and their incorporation into a failing policy framework.

In developing its examination of the climate action upsurge, the book focuses on individual activists involved in direct action ‘Climate Camps’ in Australia, while drawing comparisons and highlighting links with climate campaigns in other locales. In outlining key dimensions in the build-up to mobilisations, and during them, the book draws out the distinctively personal transformative processes through discussion of the perspectives of activists as they engaged in the emergent movement. The accounts are set in the Australian context while necessarily reflective of, and embedded in, the wider international context of climate policy negotiations. The book should be of interest to scholars and researchers in climate change, environmental sociology, politics, policy and activism.