Action by…
Individuals
Examples
Runner says no to competing for GB in Australia over flight climate concerns (2023, article in The Guardian)
Consultant who ditched Shell: ‘take a look at yourselves in the mirror’ (2022, article in The Guardian, see also here)
The people making a difference: the climate activist fighting fossil fuel giants (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘I just want to leave with the calf’: the US activist befriending farmers (2022, article in The Guardian)
US judge blocks sale of Gulf of Mexico drilling leases over climate concerns (2022, article in The Guardian)
Reducing the personal environmental footprint
*Six key lifestyle changes can help avert the climate crisis, study finds (2022, article in The Guardian)
Six promises you can make to help reduce carbon emissions (2022, article in The Guardian)
The JUMP – movement to persuade and support relatively well off people sign up to six lifestyle pledges that would make a strong difference in environmental impact
Turn down heating by 1C to reduce need for Russian imports, Europeans told (2022, article in The Guardian)
Reducing the personal environmental footprint through diet
Climate-friendly diets can make a huge difference – even if you don’t go all-out vegan (2022, article in The Guardian)
Going vegan: can switching to a plant-based diet really save the planet? If politicians are serious about change, they need to incentivise it, say scientists and writers (2021, article in The Guardian)
*Why you should go animal-free: 18 arguments for eating meat debunked (2020, article in The Guardian)
*Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth: Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock – it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland (2018, article in The Guardian based on article in Science)
Contributing to conservation
Help nesting birds during UK heatwave: People urged to leave out mud pies and dishes of fresh water for migrating birds as temperatures rise (2022, article in The Guardian)
Green professions & careers
‘No point in anything else’: Gen Z members flock to climate careers (2021, article in The Guardian)
…and why individual action alone isn’t the solution
Instead of focusing on ‘micro consumerist bollocks’ like ditching our plastic coffee cups, we must challenge the pursuit of wealth and level down, not up (2021, comment by George Monbiot in The Guardian)
Civil society / Grassroots initiatives
Extinction Rebellion – decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency
The Big One – 2023 mobilization campaign by Extinction Rebellion UK, for a fair society and a citizen-led end to the fossil fuel era
A powerful solution’: activists push to make ecocide an international crime (2022, article in The Guardian)
Camino to Cop26: climate pilgrims walk 135 miles to promote film (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘We are not going away’: the volunteers fighting back against England’s polluted rivers (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘People are waking up’: fight widens to stop new North Sea fossil fuel drilling (2022, article in The Guardian)
Climate activists vow to fight as new gasfield gets go-ahead in North Sea (2022, article in The Guardian)
Thousands protest against Brazil’s ‘death combo’ of anti-environment bills (2022, article in The Guardian)
Greenhouse gases must be legally phased out, US scientists argue: A petition calls on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions under the Toxic Substances Control Act (2022, article in The Guardian)
Australians fighting to save humpback whales tangled in fishing nets (2022, article in The Guardian)
Coral crusaders: Costa Rica’s young divers learn to protect their seas (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘Plant trees now’: Dutch come up with cunning way to create forests for free (2021, article in The Guardian)
Indigenous communities and activists
Banzeiro Òkòtó: The Amazon as the Center of the World (2023, book by Eliane Blum)
Indigenous leaders urge businesses and banks to stop supporting deforestation: Amazon ecosystem is on verge of collapse, leaders tell brands such as Apple and Tesla as UN gathers in New York (2022, article in The Guardian)
Amazon forest guardians fulfil Bruno Pereira’s mission of Indigenous exchange (2022, article in The Guardian)
World Elephant Day: inside Kenya’s first indigenously run sanctuary for orphans (2021, article in The Guardian)
People vs. Fossil Fuels demonstrations in Washington D.C. (2021, news article in the Washington Post)
*The role of indigenous peoples in biodiversity conservation: the natural but often forgotten partners (2008, report for the World Bank, shows that 80% of worlds’ biodiversity is in territories stewarded by indigenous communities)
Frontline communities
Nearly 14,000 Nigerians take Shell to court over devastating impact of pollution (2023, article in The Guardian)
‘You can’t take risks’: Portugal’s lonely lookouts stand guard against wildfires (2022, article in The Guardian)
Port in a storm: the trailblazing town welcoming climate refugees in Bangladesh (2022, article in The Guardian)
The village that stood up to big oil – and won: The fossil fuel industry faces a reckoning in the Niger Delta after disaster left families ‘eating, drinking, breathing the oil’ (2022, article in The Guardian)
Those worst affected by the climate crisis will show us the way forward – if they are given enough support to survive it first (2022, article in The Guardian)
Youth movement / Fridays4Future
Occupy – End Fossil Now! Initiative with the plan to occupy hundreds of schools and universities all over the world to demand to end the fossil economy
Thousands call for ‘climate reparations and justice’ in global protests (2022, article in The Guardian)
We’re occupying schools across the world to protest climate inaction. Youth activists involved in End Fossil: Occupy! (2022, open letter/call by End Fossil Fuel Now! in The Guardian)
Do not work for ‘climate wreckers’, UN head tells graduates (2022, article in The Guardian)
Profession-based alliances
Creatives
Creatives 4 Climate – arming creatives with the connections, skills, and opportunities for action they need to tackle the climate emergency
Health Professionals / Doctors
Health groups call for global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (2022, article in The Guardian)
Psychologists
Scientists
Scientists Warning Foundation (also publishing warnings on specific issues in the format of scientific journal articles)
Climate scientists are desperate: we’re crying, begging and getting arrested (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)
World scientists’ warnings into action, local to global (2021, article in Science Progress)
*Scientists must act on our own warnings to humanity (2019, article in Nature, Ecology & Evolution)
Solicitors and legal experts
Law in the emerging bio-age (2022, report by The Law Society, advocating rights for non-humans, such as animals, trees and rivers)
NGOs
Stand.earth – advocacy organization that brings people together to demand that corporations and governments put people and the environment first
Global Witness – mission to hold companies and governments to account for their destruction of the environment, their disregard for the planet and their failure to protect human rights
Reclaim Finance – goal to create a financial system that supports the transition to sustainable societies that preserve ecosystems and satisfy people’s basic needs, contesting the practices of financial institutions that work against this goal.
Greenpeace protesters disrupt Truss speech for ‘U-turns’ on fracking and climate (2022, article in The Guardian)
Making a comeback: rewilding in Europe gets a £4m funding boost (2022, article in The Guardian on Rewilding Europe NGO & travel company)
Climate emergency a ‘national security’ concern, says Red Cross – On eve of alarming IPCC report, organisation warns governments to treat crisis on a par with war and peace (2022, article in The Guardian)
Greenpeace: half a century on the frontline of environmental photo activism (2021, article in The Guardian)
Think-Tanks
Autonomy – an independent, progressive research organisation that focuses on tackling climate change, the future of work and economic planning
Governments
Transnational
Vulnerable Twenty Group – Group of Ministers of Finance of the Climate Vulnerable Forum is a dedicated cooperation initiative of economies systemically vulnerable to climate change
Brazil, Indonesia and DRC in talks to form ‘Opec of rainforests’ (2022, article in The Guardian)
EU plans tighter controls on pollution as doctors call for urgent action: Stricter standards will tackle fine particulates and PFAS and require polluters to pay for cleanups (2022, article in The Guardian)
African countries urge rich nations to honour $100bn climate finance pledge: Ministers rebuke ‘shameful’ failure to meet funding promises for poorer countries to cope with climate crisis ahead of Cop27 summit (2022, article in The Guardian)
European Commission aims to end secret system protecting fossil fuel holdings: Proposal aims to reform energy charter treaty that protects multi-billion-pound investments in Europe (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘Polluters must pay’: UN chief calls for windfall tax on fossil fuel companies (2022, article in The Guardian)
Vulnerable countries demand global tax to pay for climate-led loss and damage: Poor nations exhort UN to consider ‘climate-related and justice-based’ tax on big fossil fuel users and air travel (2022, article in The Guardian)
EU expects to raise €140bn from windfall tax on energy firms (2022, article in The Guardian)
US and DRC to work together on protection of rainforest and peatlands (2022, article in The Guardian)
More than 100 nations take action to save oceans from human harm: Envoys at Brest summit sign up to measures to tackle fight against illegal fishing and cut pollution (2022, article in The Guardian)
National
Colombia announces halt on fossil fuel exploration for a greener economy (2023, article in The Guardian)
France becomes latest country to leave controversial energy charter treaty: Quitting the ECT, which protects fossil fuel investors from policy changes that might threaten their profits, was ‘coherent’ with Paris climate deal, Macron said (2022, article in The Guardian)
Denmark offers ‘loss and damage’ funding to poorer countries for climate breakdown (2022, article in The Guardian)
Vanuatu, one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, launches ambitious climate plan – The Pacific country has committed to 100% renewable energy in electricity generation by 2030 (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘We need politicians and experts’: how Chile is putting the climate crisis first – President Gabriel Boric has brought renowned climate scientist Maisa Rojas into government to help ensure a greener future (2022, article in The Guardian)
Costa Rica as ‘green leader’ (2021, article in The Guardian)
Regional
North Yorkshire puts seaweed at the heart of its carbon-negative ambitions (2022, article in The Guardian)
‘This is the future’: rural Virginia pivots from coal to green jobs: Region’s long awaited energy and economic transition will be substantially boosted by US’s first climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (2022, article in The Guardian)
Public institutions
Universities
100 UK universities pledge to divest from fossil fuels (2022, article in The Guardian)
Companies & Industries
M&S joins calls for EU to restrict harmful tuna fishing methods in Indian Ocean (2023, article in The Guardian)
Pan-European sleeper train to sweep Britons to Berlin from May 2023 (2022, article in The Guardian)
Businesses call for nature impact disclosures to be mandatory by 2030: H&M, Sainsbury’s and Nestlé are among more than 300 companies urging governments to agree to the pledge at Cop15 in December (2022, article in The Guardian)
Patagonia’s billionaire owner gives away company to fight climate crisis (2022, article in The Guardian)
Europe’s next-generation night trains aim to draw passengers away from planes: Austrian national railway unveils design for NightJet trains due to come into service from next summer (2022, article in The Guardian)
Letter from CEOs to heads of states: Global businesses call for governments to deliver a meaningfuland actionable Global Biodiversity Framework (2021, open letter)
Investors
World’s biggest investment fund warns directors to tackle climate crisis or face sack (2023, article in The Guardian)
£262bn investor says it will target bosses who fail on climate or human rights (2022, article in The Guardian)
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield in bid to take over AGL and shut down coal plants earlier (2022, article in The Guardian)
Targeted initiatives
Anti-fossil fuel
Just Stop Oil – coalition of groups working together to ensure that the government commits to ending all new licenses and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK
Fossil Free (UK)- Launch and win your own fossil fuel divestment campaign
Ende Gelände (DE)- broad alliance of people from the anti-nuclear and anti-coal movements
Code Rood (NL)- cooperation between people who together battle the fossil fuel industry and its power
The fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty – global initiative to phase out fossil fuels and support a just transition
What is the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty? (2022, article in The Guardian)
Coalition of lawyers, journalists and campaigners challenge climate-busting mega projects exposed in Guardian investigation (2022, article in The Guardian on the initiative Defusing Carbon Bombs)
Big oil is wringing humanity dry. We need a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)
Anti-Lobbying
Kick Big Polluters out – coalition to kick polluters out at COP27
Decolonial Climate Justice
Debt for Climate! Grassroots, Global South-driven initiative demanding debt-cancellation in order to stop further extraction of natural resources in the Global South and open up funds for climate adaptation
There’s a simple way to unite everyone behind climate justice – and it’s within our power (2022, article on Debt for Climate! in The Guardian)
Conservation
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition
Driving out invasive species on islands has high success rate and big benefits – study (2022, article in The Guardian based on article in Scientific Reports)
Animal rights / Interspecies justice
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Animal farming / animal proteins
Reboot Food – initiative for plant-based food, rewilding land used for livestock/pasture production, and synthetic meat production
Replace animal farms with micro-organism tanks, say campaigners (2022, article in The Guardian)
Insurance Industry
Insure Our Future – global campaign of NGOs and social movements that hold the insurance industry accountable for its role in the climate crisis
Coal projects outside China becoming ‘uninsurable’, says climate group (2022, article in The Guardian)
Good signs / successes
Brazil supreme court ruling to reactivate Amazon Fund gives hope in fight to save rainforest (2022, article in The Guardian)
Carbon emissions from energy to peak in 2025 in ‘historic turning point’, says IEA: International Energy Agency says Ukraine invasion boosted state spending on clean energy and ‘will accelerate transition to renewables’ (2022, article in The Guardian)
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