XR Threatens Return to Civil Disobedience as UK Doubles Down on 'Deadly Climate Chaos'

After kicking off 2023 by announcing a departure from "public disruption as a primary tactic" and plans for a mass demonstration in London, Extinction Rebellion U.K. and allied groups threatened a historic wave of civil disobedience if Parliament declines to engage with their demands for climate action by next week.

The new announcement came ahead of "The Big One," the demonstration set to kick off in London on Friday. The coalition's primary demands are:

1. We must end all new licenses, approvals, and funding for fossil fuel projects as we begin a transition to a fair society centered on reparatory justice for all life on Earth.
2. The U.K. government must create emergency citizens' assemblies to lead on fair, long-term solutions to the most urgent issues of our time.

"We have come to Parliament to deliver two demands for a better world. These demands will give children a fairer, safer future," declared 7-year-old Drake, whose 43-year-old mother and 72-year-old grandfather joined him in delivering the demands to policymakers on Tuesday.

Drake's mother, Hester Campbell, explained that "parents like myself are increasingly concerned about the huge issues our government is neglecting. Hunger, inequality, racism, and the climate crisis—all are rapidly worsening. The government is failing in its duty to protect us and we are calling for that to end."

Dirk Campbell, the boy's grandfather, said that "I've seen the government breaking promise after promise. We are offering them a last chance and they must take it seriously."

"I've seen the government breaking promise after promise. We are offering them a last chance and they must take it seriously."

The U.K. arm of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and other groups are giving the government until 5:00 pm BST on Monday to craft a plan to deliver on their demands.

"Four months ago, Extinction Rebellion announced 'We quit' and entered into a period of alliance-building with other movements and groups by temporarily stepping back from our tactics of civil disobedience," explained XR's Rob Callender. "Since then, the government has made policy announcements that effectively double down on deadly climate chaos. This is their last chance to show us that they are serious about saving our lives and our futures by agreeing to enter negotiations around our demands."

"A failure to do so will mean that Extinction Rebellion has no choice but to unquit—and to step up our campaign to force the government to take the drastic and radical actions necessary to avoid runaway climate change," Callender continued. "This time, we're not alone—allies from this 200-strong bloc will be stepping up alongside us."

"The four days of The Big One will see the people deciding what to do next if the government lets us down yet again by failing to meet our deadline," Callender said. If necessary, by Monday night, "the people will have delivered a plan for stepping up their campaigns," he vowed, and "within three months, Extinction Rebellion will have designed a plan for the greatest acts of civil disobedience in this country's history."

Other organizations supporting The Big One include the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Don't Pay U.K., Friends of the Earth, Global Justice Now, Green Christian, Greenpeace, Just Stop Oil, Landworkers Alliance, Parents for Future U.K., Patagonia, Pesticide Action Network U.K., Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union, Scientists for Global Responsibility, Viva!, and War on Want.

"Every day more lives and livelihoods are lost to the climate crisis," said Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now, adding that the involved groups "now get this fact and want to take action together to do something about it," and "The Big One will be a springboard for building a bigger and bigger movement that drives the long-term systemic change that our society needs."

Don't Pay U.K.'s Joe Davies similarly said that "right now, with everything that is happening in the world, we need solidarity more than ever and that is what The Big One is all about. It will empower and bring together tens of thousands of people with very different opinions and modalities of protest and resistance to share their goals and find ways of delivering them together."

Final preparations for the gathering—which XR and allies have been promoting across country with "Unite to Survive" banners—come as the U.K. government has not only backed new climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects in the North Sea and "false solutions" like carbon capture and storage but also introduced "authoritarian and draconian laws" targeting protesters, noted XR co-founder Clare Farrell.

"It's quite astonishing how this government want to legislate out of existence a bunch of hippies with tubes of glue in their pocket because they scare the state so much," said Farrell. "It's important to have an open conversation of the impacts of these laws. But it's also important to note that they are not having the chilling effect that the state had hoped for. Instead, people are coming together at moments like The Big One to find new and creative ways to protest effectively."

"Stepping up after The Big One is going to take many different and disruptive forms. It doesn't have to mean taking to the streets with us or gluing yourself to things," she stressed. "We have recently seen lawyers who had ways to disrupt their profession by refusing to take part in the prosecution of climate activists. I can imagine people within the media, which continues to be guilty of untruths and misleading stories about the climate, developing their own ways of disrupting their own industry."

"Over the months ahead," she predicted, "millions of people are going to start getting very creative and clever about what disruption means to them and what they are prepared to do to make it happen—because more and more [of] them know for sure that we are in deep shit and that those in power are doing next to nothing about it."