Extinction Rebellion (XR) announces strategy to put pressure on the government in the run-up to next November’s UN climate talks.
Online disruption, financial civil disobedience and one-person road-blocks are some of the action XR is urging its followers to take in 2021.
In a document outlining its strategy for 2021, XR argues that the government has wasted five years since the Paris Agreement was signed, and that it is “clearly out of its depth”.
It wants nonviolent civil disobedience to begin building momentum again next year, with people taking their own action, as well as mass participation events when COVID restrictions are eased sufficiently.
Power
Alanna Byrne from XR UK said that the strategy would help people get planning for the new year. Recent reports by government advisors the Committee on Climate Change and the National Audit Office, which tracks government spending, had both shown that the government is not on track on its climate commitments, she noted.
“We’re going to need nonviolent direct action more than ever next year if we hope to see any substantive action,” Byrne added.
The six main strands of XR’s new strategy are to raise media attention on the government’s failure to solve the increasing climate and ecological threats; get 326 MPs supporting the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill by 13 March 2021; expose how government spending is directly perpetuating climate and ecological breakdown; make the media put truth above power and profit; bring one million people into active support of XR ahead of COP26; and to shift the conversation around climate through disruptive moments.
Workers
The strategy will be realised through a number of online and in person actions, beginning in spring, XR said.
Separately, XR is crowdfunding £9,500 to launch a whistleblowing platform to enable workers to anonymously report corporate environmental failings.
TruthTeller.Life will launch in 2021, incorporating a secure telephone, email account and PO Box for employees to disclose information, XR said.
This Author
Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76.
