Skip to content

Campaigning Wiki

3 min read

lang: en

Summary

This monograph by Dr Robyn Gulliver, Professor Kelly Fielding, and Professor Winnifred Louis analyzes the Australian climate change movement using a dataset of 497 environmental groups and over 35,000 actions. It finds that the movement is grassroots, diverse, growing quickly, and achieving substantial success through a vibrant repertoire of civil resistance tactics. The study concludes that climate change campaigns are achieving high levels of success, especially those targeting businesses, but challenges remain due to entrenched political and corporate power.

Background

Global concern about the climate crisis is growing, mirrored by a rise in climate change activism, yet emissions continue rising and the fossil fuel industry maintains its grip on politics. The Australian climate change movement is grassroots in nature, diverse, growing quickly, and using a vibrant repertoire of civil resistance tactics to demand urgent climate action. The monograph investigates what this civil resistance looks like, how it is changing, and what it is achieving.

What happened

The monograph uses a large dataset of 497 Australian environmental groups and over 35,000 environmental actions to analyze climate activism from 2017 to 2019 [source: commons-library]. It finds that the majority of tactics are conventional, with information sharing activities like film screenings and candidate forums being most popular [source: commons-library]. Directed network campaigns and groups with no formal organizational structure use a greater range of civil resistance tactics [source: commons-library]. The analysis of two case studies, the Stop Adani coal mine campaign and the Divestment campaign, demonstrates the use of civil resistance tactics and their success [source: commons-library]. Activists faced increased pushback by all tiers of government, with peaks of civil resistance met by government mechanisms to restrict activism [source: commons-library]. In response, there appears to be an accelerated emergence of new environmental groups forming via distributed and extra-legal organizational structures [source: commons-library].

Key people & organizations

  • International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
  • Dr Robyn Gulliver
  • Professor Kelly Fielding
  • Professor Winnifred Louis
  • Stop Adani
  • Divestment campaign

Tactics used

The movement uses a diverse and evolving repertoire of civil resistance tactics, including information sharing, building alternative structures, and sustained targeted civil resistance, which collectively mobilize and create change. Directed network campaigns and groups with no formal structure can use a greater range of civil resistance tactics, enhancing the movement’s adaptability. [source: commons-library]

Outcome

Verdict: partial.

Climate change campaigns are achieving high levels of success, with campaigns targeting businesses having the highest proportion of successful outcomes [source: commons-library]. However, campaigns targeting powerholders who determine climate policy remain difficult to influence, and the strong resistance of entrenched political and corporate power indicates a long fight ahead [source: commons-library].

Lessons

  • Diverse organizational structures, including directed network campaigns and groups with no formal structure, can sustain increased climate activism and overcome government repression.
  • Campaigns against corporate entities foster tactical innovation and have very successful outcomes, but they are complex, lengthy, and depend on a wide range of tactics.
  • Building strong alliances between local grassroots groups and targeting opponents with different and changing tactical approaches can increase campaign effectiveness.

Sources

Disclaimer: Included as a teaching example of campaign craft, not as endorsement.

Sources & verification

  • commons-library — grounding: primary — license: link-only
  • Rewritten: 2026-06-25 via worker_casestudies_v2.py

Graph View

Backlinks