CNN
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Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion is best known for its attention-grabbing tactics. Activists have blocked roads and bridges, glued themselves to trains, smashed bank windows and sprayed fake blood over buildings.
But in two words headlining a New Year’s Eve statement, the group signaled a radical change.
“We Quit,” it announced.
Extinction Rebellion – widely known as XR – said it had made the “controversial resolution” to temporarily abandon tactics of mass public disruption, just as other climate groups plan to scale them up.
Instead, the group said it will focus on trying to build its numbers and become a more inclusive organization, including trying to attract people who may have felt alienated by its previous tactics.
Shifting landscape
Founded in 2018, XR has changed the face of climate protest. Its aim was to draw attention to bleak climate predictions by showing just how far activists were willing to go to demand change, including arrests and jail time.
And the strategy worked, to an extent. XR, which now has hundreds of affiliates across the world, became a household name. But its blunt tactics came at a cost: unpopularity.
The group has also found itself operating in a trickier landscape. Tighter anti-protest laws in the UK have sought to criminalize many of the tactics favored by climate organizations, upping the stakes for activists.
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Extinction Rebellion climate change protesters demonstrate during a rally in Trafalgar Square in London on Wednesday, October 16. Climate protesters in London have kept up their campaign
despite being ousted by a police order from their Trafalgar Square encampment on Monday.
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Climate activists hold a banner after climbing atop the roof of the entrance to YouTube's offices in London during the 10th day of demonstrations on October 16.
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The Guardian newspaper environmental journalist and author George Monbiot, right, sits blocking a road with the Co-Leader of Britain's Green Party Jonathan Bartley at the bottom of Trafalgar Square on October 16.
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An Extinction Rebellion climate protester sits atop a fence pillar on the perimeter of the houses of parliament in London, on Tuesday October 15.
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Protesters demonstrate outside the BlackRock headquarters in Throgmorton Avenue in London on Monday, October 14.
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A protester stands near a policeman during a demonstration in London.
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A young child waves an Extinction Rebellion flag outside of the Bank of England during the eighth day of demonstrations October 14.
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Doctors join Extinction Rebellion activists to demonstrate for the sixth day running in Trafalgar Square on October 12.
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Protesters block a road during an Extinction Rebellion protest on Saturday, October 12, in Prague, Czech Republic.
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Oisin O'Connor and his sister, Eve, help wallpaper the front of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday, October 11.
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Activists bury their heads in the sand on Sydney's Manly Beach on October 11.
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Protesters chain themselves to barrels on Berlin's Marschall Bridge.
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Police block the entrance to the BBC New Broadcasting House in London during an Extinction Rebellion protest on October 11.
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Climate activists participate in an Extinction Rebellion protest in New York's Times Square on Thursday, October 10.
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Extinction Rebellion demonstrators block an entrance to the City Airport in London on October 10.
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Extinction Rebellion protesters march as a "human forest" in Dublin. They were heading to Leinster House to call for a complete remodeling of forestry policy.
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A demonstrator displays a banner at the City Airport in London.
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Mothers gather ahead of the Extinction Rebellion "nurse-in" road blockade in London on Wednesday, October 9.
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Extinction Rebellion protesters wear masks in Berlin on October 9. From left, the masks represent German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
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Extinction Rebellion told CNN on October 9 that activists now control three sites in Berlin.
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Stanley Johnson, father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, joins protesters in London's Trafalgar Square on October 9. Days before, his son described Extinction Rebellion protesters as "hemp-smelling," "uncooperative crusties."
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The protests often dip into the theatrical. On October 9, anti-aircraft protesters held signs in Trafalgar Square a day before a planned "'Hong Kong-style occupation" of the London City Airport.
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Activists block a bridge close to the Reichstag building in Berlin on October 9. Extinction Rebellion encourages volunteers to carry out acts of "peaceful civil disobedience to call on government to act on the climate and ecological emergency."
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Activists protest outside Dublin's Government Buildings as Ireland's finance minister unveiled the country's 2020 budget on Tuesday, October 8.
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Climate activists glue themselves to the entrance of a power company's offices in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on October 8.
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Activists stage a sit-down protest outside Dublin's Government Buildings.
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Protesters wearing black stand next to a coffin as they stage a demonstration in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on October 8.
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A man is detained in Melbourne as he takes part in an Extinction Rebellion protest on Monday, October 7. More than 50 people were arrested throughout Australia that day.
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In New York, demonstrators congregate at Washington Square Park as they launched actions around the city on October 7. The protests included pouring fake blood over Wall Street's Charging Bull statue.
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The Red Brigade surrounds police in London on October 7. This crimson-robed troupe is common at Extinction Rebellion protests and is the creation of the Invisible Circus, a street performance group.
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A driver watches protesters block a city intersection in Melbourne on October 7.
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Extinction Rebellion flags fly at a protest in Melbourne.
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A group calling itself the Aged Agitators demonstrates outside London's Houses of Parliament.
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A woman sits down in front of a line of police in Melbourne.
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Protesters take part in Extinction Rebellion's global "Week of Action" in Melbourne.
The decision to move away from disruptive protest is a big shift and “wasn’t taken lightly,” said XR spokesperson Marijn van de Geer. “But we feel there’s now this space where we can try something different and perhaps be a place especially for people from backgrounds where arrest is something extremely frightening.”
As the impacts of climate change intensify – marked particularly in Europe by last summer’s blistering heatwaves – the group believe people will be more open to its message. Conditions for change “have never never been more favourable,” XR said.
But as XR pulls back, some of the environmental groups that have sprung up in its wake are ramping up mass disruptive protests.
The UK group Just Stop Oil have glued themselves to roads, ziplocked their necks to goal posts, blockaded oil facilities and targeted iconic artwork. In October, in one of their most high-profile protests, they flung tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” at a London Gallery.
Just Stop Oil/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Climate protesters hold a demonstration as they throw cans of tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at the National Gallery in London, on October 14, 2022.
Members of the German group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) have glued themselves to roads and thrown mashed potato over a Monet painting, while their Italian counterparts, Ultima Generazione, threw pea soup over another Vincent van Gogh.
As 2023 begins, many of these groups have pledged to go further.
Letzte Generation said it will double down on protests and is prepared for more arrests and jail time – seven of its members spent Christmas and New Year behind bars.
Spokesperson Carla Rochel told CNN: “We will continue to block motorways in the new year; we will stand in the governmental district and directly confront those responsible; we will go to concert halls, football stadiums, museums, political party headquarters and all areas of society.”
Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images
Activists from Letzte Generation block the end of a highway on January 24, 2022 near Berlin, Germany.
Just Stop Oil is also planning to ramp up disruption.
“We are barreling down the highway to the loss of ordered civil society, as extreme weather impacts tens of millions,” Indigo Rumblelow, a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil, told CNN in a statement, adding, “it is time to escalate, from disobedience into civil resistance.”
Disruptive protests have succeeded in gaining attention but they have also attracted waves of criticism for disrupting daily life, delaying emergency services and damaging cultural heritage.
Herein lies the “activists’ dilemma,” said Robb Willer, director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford University. Activists want to reach the public through the mass media but the best ways of achieving this are often unpopular.
Feyzi Ismail, a lecturer in global policy and activism at Goldsmiths, University of London, said that while shocking, creative tactics are needed, “preventing ordinary people from getting to work or hospital doesn’t advance our cause.”
Willer’s research has found that disruptive protest tactics tend to reduce public support, but there are still reasons groups might want to pursue them, he said. For smaller, early stage organizations, it can be a way to gain profile and recruit members.
Campaign group Insulate Britain, for example, started blocking major roads in 2021 to demand low-carbon insulation retrofitting in the country’s public housing. Videos of motorists angrily dragging protestors off roads, with one driver even nudging her SUV into an activist, made a group with an unsexy-sounding cause suddenly very high profile.
Disruptive tactics from a radical climate organization can also help draw people to more moderate organizations, according to a theory known as the “radical flank” effect. XR may be hoping to scoop up those alienated by the actions of groups like Just Stop Oil, said Willer.
XR plans to spend the next 100 days building support for an April demonstration, which they hope will see 100,000 people surround the Houses of Parliament. The ultimate aim, van de Geer said, is to prove “it’s not just a bunch of tree hugging hippies that are concerned; it’s everyone, and everyone wants action.”