States, Radicalism, and Adaptation. Three Urgency-Induced Debates on Climate Activism

The climate movement is distinct from most other social movements by the temporality of its topic of concern: climate change will have irreversible consequences that will become inevitable as soon as certain tipping points are passed. Urgency is consequently one of the key driving forces behind, and challenges for, climate activism. This paper reviews three key debates within the academic literature on climate activism that are essentially linked to, and driven by, this sense of urgency. The take stock of these issues and outline the need for additional research emerging from each of them. Firstly, an ongoing discussion concerns the role of the state. That is, should climate activists focus on putting pressure on governments to solve the crisis, or, given the continued failure of governments to act, should activists take matters into their own hands by focusing on DIY activism instead? Two emerging forms of climate activism can be linked to the latter option: growing numbers of direct actions against the fossil fuel industry and the proliferation of grassroots alternatives by which movements get involved in promoting local solutions to the climate crisis. However, recent climate campaigns, such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion put the onus back on the state. ‘Demand action or do it yourself’ is thus a key strategic debates that deserves ongoing scholarly attention. Secondly, as mainstream approaches to addressing climate change, such as sustainable development, ecological modernization, and reformism have not delivered necessary change, should climate activists advocate more radical system change? Or, are radical demands, such as an end to the growth economy, unrealistic given the shrinking window of opportunity, and should climate activists focus instead on what’s more readily achievable? Speaking to these dilemmas, a growing body of literature has focused on the politicization and depoliticization of climate activism. Raising questions about the conditions that enable activists to navigate these challenges, scholar should and do explore under what conditions climate activists can successfully promote an agenda for radical systems change. Thirdly, as the window for effective climate action is slowly closing (or has already closed, according to some), and as consequences of climate change already become noticeable, an emerging question is what role climate movements play in shaping society’s responses to the these consequences. So far, this question has remained largely ignored by social movement scholars, even though environmental scholars do stress the political and even contentious nature of climate adaptation. A key area for future research is how social movements may start engaging with this topic as it becomes increasingly urgent. The emerging literature on ‘post-apocalyptic climate movements’ is of considerable relevance here. This paper describes these three urgency-related debates on and within climate activism. Its focus is on climate activism in the Global North. It takes a comparative perspective on how these issues are found to play out in various contexts, as well as making suggestions for the way in which comparative and other types of research could contribute to advancing them.