bringing together

• Connecting

  CIVICUS Connecting

  CIVICUS continues to invest in spaces for collective action and mutual learning. CIVICUS also contributes to the development of tools and knowledge on network management and other areas of interest to civil society practitioners through the development and expansion of its communities of practices. One of the strengths of CIVICUS’ convening power is its ability to create forums where groups from all sectors around the world come together to advance local, national, regional and global agendas, creating synergies and partnerships, and amplifying civil society’s efficacy and efficiency.

• UK: ‘We engage in disruptive protest to keep the climate catastrophe in people’s minds’

  CIVICUS speaks with Mitch Rose, a volunteer activist with Just Stop Oil, about climate activism and its criminalisation in the UK. Just Stop Oil is a nonviolent civil resistance group demanding that the UK government stop licensing all new oil, gas and coal projects. It was founded on the footsteps ofExtinction Rebellion andInsulate Britain and has organisers from both at the helm. It first came under the spotlight in March 2022, following a series of protests that interrupted various high-profile sporting events.

  What forms of protest have you undertaken in the past few months, and why?

  In the last few months, we have staged a series of high-profile non-violent protests to demand that the UK government immediately stop licensing all new oil, gas and coal projects. We blocked the M25 motorway with non-violent actions, threw orange-coloured confetti to stop a game at Wimbledon and threw soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, at the National Gallery in London, to name just a few.

  We engage in peaceful disruptive civil disobedience to push and maintain the climate catastrophe in people’s minds and in the news cycle. They put pressure on the UK government to fulfil the legally binding promises of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to reduce deadly emissions from burning oil, gas and coal, which they have so far systematically broken.