Climate Movement Vs. the Industry

Global movements see young people utilising their power by voicing their grievances, organising in different youth-run climate change organisations, and using all available platforms to make their demands heard and spread.

The Polluters Out's (PO) twitter campaign showed the power of social media in garnering the attention of BP’s directors and chief executive.

PO argues that the campaign’s pressure helped start a conversation with the very leaders of the corporation, which opened seemingly unimaginable doors.

Change

Action is required—from petitions to campaigns to evidence of the environmental harms produced by such corporations’ failures to administer environmentally conscious practices.

Movements can target corporations by disrupting their ability to recruit and retain talent as perfectly exemplified by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement’s #PullUpOrShutUp campaign which globally calls out corporations on racial inequity and discrimination.

Politicians and governments brush over climate activists because they don’t find their demands realistic and credible and the fossil fuel industry has too much influence. 

However, if movements can control the conversation through campaigns aimed at the industries themselves, then will we see the beginnings of policy change.

This series of articles has been published in partnership with Dalia Gebrial and Harpreet Kaur Paul and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in London. It first appeared in a collection titled Perspectives on a Global Green New Deal.