Clare Saunders: Climate change activism in the UK: Continuity and change over the last 20 years

Climate activism has been hitting the streets since the early 2000s, but has come in notable peaks and troughs. What is it that causes those peaks and troughs? And where might we expect climate activism to go next after the latest wave of civil disobedience? What allowed these new waves of climate activism (Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future) to emerge and flourish? The talk will focus mostly on the British case, exploring frictions and factions and undercover policing as demotivating factors; and leadership, urgency and scientific certainty as motivating factors.

• Milena Buchs, Clare Saunders, Rebecca Wallbridge, Graham Smith and NicholasBardsley (2015) ‘Identifying and explaining framing strategies of low carbon lifestyle movement organisations, Global Environmental Change, 35: 307-315.
• Clare Saunders (2012) ‘Reformism and radicalism in the Climate Camp in Britain: Benign coexistence, tensions and prospects for bridging’, Environmental Politics, 21(5): 829-846. 
• Clare Saunders and Stephan Price (2009) ‘One person'seu-topia, another's hell: Climate Camp as a heterotopia’, Environmental Politics, 16(5): 117-122. 
• Clare Saunders (2008) ‘The stop climate chaos coalition: climate change as a development issue’, Third World Quarterly, 29(8), 1509-1526.  
• Schlembach, R., 2018. Undercover policing and the spectre of ‘domestic extremism’: the covert surveillance of environmental activism in Britain. Social Movement Studies, 17(5), pp.491-506.
• Brian Doherty and Clare Saunders (2020) ‘Global Climate Strike protesters and media coverage of the protests in Truro and Manchester (UK)’, in Analicia MejiaMesinas, Judith Bessant and SarahPickards (eds) When Students Protest, Rowman and Littlefield.