Our Origins

For decades those in power have known the lethal risks of burning fossil fuels. In all that time people have campaigned politely against the government and big industry players causing this crisis. And in all that time, precious little has been achieved by way of the UK reckoning with its responsibility to address climate change.

The UK’s cumulative greenhouse gas emissions are amongst the highest in the world, despite the UK only accounting for a fraction of the global population. We believe that morality and justice demands that addressing this existential crisis therefore falls in a large part on us.

In spite of this, the UK government handed fossil fuel companies over £13.6 billion in subsidies between 2016 to 2020, and more recently, the High Court ruled that the government’s climate plan is unlawful.

According to climate projections, we are heading towards an unstable world in which communities globally will be irrevocably harmed; droughts will decimate agricultural harvests, floods will tear down towns and cities, water reservoirs will be depleted, diseases will break out more frequently, wet bulb temperatures will cost lives and the toll of human suffering will be unimaginable.

It doesn’t have to be this way. 

We need an urgent and drastic shift in our means of production. Management of our lands, forests, urban areas and legal and regulatory frameworks all need to be transformed radically to shift the economy onto a sustainable path that averts continued temperature rises.

The vested interests of the social elite who own and operate the capital are hedged against change as they fear it will put them out of pocket. Despite their culpability, we refuse to ever physically harm these people, but we also refuse to allow them to continually harm us.

The finance and insurance sectors of the economy have the power to make a significant difference. Without funding or insurance, fossil fuel companies cannot continue to operate or expand. Banks and insurance companies have clients other than fossil fuel extractors, they can continue to exist without this custom and so our demands aren’t unreasonable.

Banks and insurers have responded to campaigners’ demands by taking the tiniest of steps, however there is a serious discrepancy between what they are doing and what they must do in order to prevent catastrophic levels of global warming.

Now we are escalating to demonstrate that we – the public – will not accept this institutional and corporate support for climate breakdown.

A new type of movement is needed. Join us. Reach out to trusted contacts. They may know someone.