2019: The Year of Climate Protest

By: Casey Morris

A look back at the final year of the decade brings images of global movements against climate change with activists and youth from around the globe taking to the streets to demand action from their governments. The following are the protest movements that garnered the most attention in 2019:

Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion, a UK-based group, describes itself as “an international movement that uses non-violent civil disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and minimise [sic] the risk of social collapse” fighting the “third world war – of profit versus life.” Its three primary demands in the UK are that the government “tell the truth,” “act now,” and look “beyond politics.” Extinction Rebellion has proposed the formation of a Citizen’s Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice, a jury-like service for citizens of the UK in which participants would generate solutions to climate change under the supervision of non-governmental organizations.

This past year, 2019, proved to be the group’s most successful year for mobilization to date as it organized global protests in 60 cities as part of its “International Rebellion.” Each city’s planned actions took a unique local approach, with acts ranging from a coffin-carrying funeral march in Istanbul to nonviolent direct action in Buenos Aires in which protestors planned to block the entrances to the Bayer and Monsanto headquarters.

School Strikes

Perhaps the most widely discussed protests of 2019 were the international youth school strikes. The year began with school strikes in Ireland, Norway, UK, France, and Sweden. The movement culminated with united protests around the world on March 15th and May 24th, with students joining in on protests in more than 115 countries. In September, the third wave of climate strikes took place with more than 2,400 separate protests and an estimated 2 million participants globally. In Montreal, the school board cancelled classes for 114,000 students. In December, Time Magazine named Greta Thunberg, the icon of the student climate strike movement, its 2019 Person of the Year.

Global Week for Future

On the eve of the UN Climate Summit in late September, 7.6 million people participated in 6,100 separate strike events in 185 countries around the globe during the Global Week for Future. The events included trade unions; medical professionals; and employees of iconic brands like Amazon, Google, and Facebook who walked out of work to participate in climate strikes. In New Zealand, an estimated 3.5% of the country’s population participated in the demonstrations. New York education officials gave each of its 1.1 million school children permission to take the day off of school to attend the climate strike. In Italy, 1.5 million people took to the streets, followed closely by the 1.4 million who protested in Germany. The protest has been called the largest climate protest in history.

Fire Drill Fridays

In support of Greta Thunberg and student strikers, Jane Fonda launched Fire Drill Fridays, in which she and others protest in Washington D.C. on a weekly basis to demand climate action from the US government. The movement has five demands: (1) a Green New Deal, (2) respect for indigenous land and sovereignty, (3) environmental justice, (4) protection and restoration of biodiversity, and (5) implementation of sustainable agriculture. The protests have garnered considerable media attention as over 100 protestors, including Fonda and other prominent Hollywood figures, have been arrested during the weekly demonstrations. In addition to the protests, Fonda and experts host educational “teach-ins” to provide information regarding environmental issues. Topics include migration and human rights, environmental justice, and the link between war and the climate.

Individual Actions

While large-scale group actions have garnered attention throughout the year, other more individualized acts of climate protest have taken up increasing popularity. For example, animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the amount of exhaust produced by all transportation. Partially due to rising awareness of this environmental impact, plant-based diets are gaining popularity, particularly with millennials. One quarter of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 say they are vegan or vegetarian, in stark contrast to the statistics for Americans at large, of whom only roughly 3% are vegetarian and less than 1% are vegan according to The Economist’s “The World in 2019” report.

Another rising environmental trend is “flying shame.” As the emissions and impact associated with air travel become more apparent (partially due to Greta Thunberg’s widely publicized refusal to fly, traveling instead by rail and sailboat), more individuals are abstaining from flying. Swedish airports have attributed a decline in the number of air travelers in the country to the “Greta effect.”