Grassroots set to drive 2019 climate action

As negative superlatives and doomsday predictions have become the uncomfortable norm of our daily environmental digest, we've grown increasingly used to hearing about the havoc and devastation caused by heat waves, storms, fires and flooding. But even all that groundwork hadn't prepared the world for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 global warming report. Its October release was a bombshell moment.

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"Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require 'rapid and far-reaching' transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities," the report read. In other words, if we're to hit that target, global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) will have to fall by some 45 percent of 2010 levels by 2030, and reach "net zero" 20 years after that.

There is then a huge amount of work to do. But with Germany still uncertain on when it can phase out coal (and therefore on track to missing its carbon reduction targets), Brazil's new far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, considering pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, and US President Donald Trump publicly declaring he doesn't believe the climate change predictions presented to him by his own federal agencies, there's something of a question mark over how we're going to achieve such ambitious goals.

Read more: How right-wing nationalism fuels climate denial

"Public opinion around the world is that our leaders, governments and businesses should be doing more on this vital issue," Hoda Baraka, global communications director with environmental campaign organization 350.org told DW, adding that "when governments fail, it's up to people to lead."

Last year was testimony to that notion, with massive people power mobilizing to resist fracking in the UK, march for a transition to renewables in the US, and protest lignite production – the dirtiest and thus most climate change inducing form of coal – in Germany.

Thousands also came together to pressure German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to seek a more ambitious target for its coal phaseout.  

The ambitious road ahead

Though still in its infancy, this year has already picked up where the old one left off.

"2019 got off to a pretty intense start," Baraka said, citing last week's 67 demonstrations of international support for indigenous land defenders blocking the path for a fracked gas pipeline in Canada.

Around the same time, formerly evicted activists in Germany's Hambach Forest, the center of the nation's lignite battle, were re-erecting around 20 tree houses from which to lead their protest.

And events on the calendar for the coming months include international action preparation camps, and climate change related actions around general elections in Nigeria and Indonesia.

Read more: Climate change: Governments don't act? We do!

"As we go through 2019 and build towards 2020, we're going to see many more coordinated actions from a multitude of organizations and movements," Baraka said.

Claudia Kemfert, Head of the department of Energy, Transportation, Environment at the German Institute of Economic Research, told DW she also expects this to be a "year of change where climate action is coming from civil society and young people more than ever before."

In the mix will be school children who are planning global and national strikes to protest a lack of climate action.

The student climate action movement ostensibly began when Swedish 15-year-old Greta Thunberg made lone Friday protest vigils against climate change outside the Swedish parliament. She then delivered a landmark address at the COP24 climate conference in Poland last month.

"We've run out of excuses and we are running out of time," she told the adults of the world. "We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not."

Civil society serving as a watchdog?

So the stage looks set for another year of bold grassroots and civil society climate action, perhaps the boldest yet, but how effective is it?

"Unless you have public pressure, national governments who are often looking at the shorter term, will put aside climate change," Antony Froggatt, energy policy consultant and Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House told DW.

He says civil society action has been a key actor in the debate in terms of alerting governments to environmental issues, establishing networks and talking to both the media and the public. Going forward, he also sees scope to get involved in monitoring individual states' pledges to reduce emissions.

"It's important that there's a verification of national contributions and there, I think civil society, acting as a watchdog, has an important role to play."  

The economic factor

Equally though, Froggatt says, non-state actors working on environment issues can be effective in influencing attitudes, both at an individual consumer level, and in the world of commerce.

"Civil society targets business, which then doesn't only change its own behavior but also supports governments if they have more ambitious plans in terms of climate change."

Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brasilia-based Climate Observatory, agrees on the importance of going "beyond the climate debate" to connect it with economics.

"It's extremely important to show that mitigation is not only good for the planet," Rittl told DW, adding that farmers and agribusiness must also understand that energy and land use efficiency of sustainable agriculture make the industry more economically competitive.

But in a country now led by a man already giving over the Amazon – one of the world's largest carbon sinks that will be vital to fighting climate change – Rittl says getting that message across "won't be easy."

That though, goes for most environmental fights. And certainly for the one to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages. But that reality won't stop grassroots and civil society groups from giving it everything they've got.