Climate Activism

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We work with environmental defenders and climate activists to protect their rights and amplify their voices so they can safely shape climate and environmental decisions.

Climate and Environmental Activism

Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, threatening every aspect of life on Earth. Urgent, coordinated global action is essential to limit its impact, mitigate damage and adapt to irreversible changes. Climate change action must prioritise the needs of the people most affected. Action must therefore involve environmental human rights defenders, indigenous groups and other civil society organisations. But, when these groups mobilise, governments and companies often stifle their voice or their freedom and enact laws to restrict their work. Civil society groups working for the environment urgently need recognition, protection and participation in debates and decisions that are shaping the future. Over the next years we will work with environmental defenders and climate activists by combining legal advocacy, coalition-building, capacity strengthening, and international engagement to protect their rights and amplify their voices in climate and environmental governance.

  • Legal exchange and protections: Research and legal arguments to strengthen protections for environmental human rights defenders, including in emerging and cross-cutting areas; advance legal standards and judicial protections for diverse forms of environmental activism, including civil disobedience.
  • Multilateral action: Advocate for a multilateral platform that guarantees recognition, protection, and meaningful participation of defenders with our global coalition of defenders, organisations, experts and allies.
  • Challenge restrictions: Work with groups to anticipate and prepare strategies to challenge restrictive legislation targeting environmental defenders, build connections and solidarity with other movements facing similar laws, advise environmental groups campaigning for reform.
  • Exchange: Strengthen the legal skills of defenders to use international or EU law, co-create practical tools, and share knowledge on tactics and risks to better protect their spaces for environmental and climate action.
  • Counter trends: Explore the nexus between security and climate change to anticipate and counter the misuse of security frameworks and measures that threaten climate activism, including impact on climate activism but also other issues of society (for example, migration).