The climate action group grabbed headlines in April after they shut down major streets in London, bringing parts of the city to a standstill and placing an enormous pink boat emblazoned with the words ‘Tell the Truth’ in the middle of Oxford Circus. Harry Potter Star Emma Thompson joined them on the boat, calling the protests "one of the most important and hopeful movements of our time. Civil disobedience is necessary to create attention to the ongoing climate and ecological crisis."

Today they plan to shut down 5 major cities across the UK: London, Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff and Glasgow by blocking the streets for cars.

But who are Extinction Rebellion and where did they come from?

The group was set up by academics Roger Hallam, Gail Bradbrook and Simon Bramwel in 2018 after they formed the campaign group Rising Up! The group called for a ‘fundamental change of the political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm’. This has lead the group to be accused of being a ‘watermelon’ green on the outside and red (i.e. Marxist) on the inside.

Extinction Rebellion has three central demands:

1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025.

3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Last week, David Attenbourgh gave a speech in parliament calling on the government to do more and saying that young people's concerns for the planet are "a great source of hope".

Since last August, 16-year-old Greta Thurnberg has lead the School Strike for Climate actions, encouraging students to not go to school on a Friday and instead protest climate change. Extinction rebellion have been involved in organising thousands of students around the world to join her in the actions, calling themselves the ‘last generation’.

In May, Greta joined the extinction rebellion protest in London to give a speech to inspire young protesters.

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKMX8WRw3fc]

Following their shut down of London, parliament declared a climate emergency on the 1st of May, despite the fact that the Environment Secretary Michael Gove acknowledged there was a climate "emergency" but did not back Labour's demands to declare one.

The new protests are planned to increase the pressure on the government to act against the climate emergency. This follows the Committee on Climate Change’s report published last week that found the UK is “lagging far behind what is needed, even to meet previous, less stringent, emissions targets.”

These ‘Summer Uprisings’ may cause the same disturbances as those seem in May which the head of the Met Police, Cressida Dick, called "miserable disruption".

Each city being shut down is focused on a different aspect of climate change, Bristol is protesting rising sea levels, Cardiff the sixth mass extinction (the death of an unprecedented number of different animal species). Glasgow is looking at the problem of climate refugees, where peoples homes are no longer habitable due to climate change and so they have to move to a new country. Leeds is focussed on how banks and finance have an impact on the climate and London will shut down the Royal Courts of Justice to defend those putting their lives on the line to stop climate change.

A key tactic of the group is getting arrested. This has come into criticism from lots of people, for blocking up the court system, wasting an over-stretched police forces time and being a very privileged way of approaching a protest: to a lot of people being arrested is not just for a night or two. People in movements such as Black Lives Matter have been critical of Extinction Rebellion ‘whitewashing’ climate change. Over 1000 people were arrested in April, and there is now an entire court devoted to dealing with the arrests. https://news.sky.com/story/courtrooms-turned-over-to-hundreds-of-extinction-rebellion-cases-11761341

In May, a spokesman for the movement was invited on Sky news but stormed off the set after being called ‘Incompetent, middle-class self-indulgent people who want to tell us how to live our lives’ by the presenter. https://news.sky.com/video/extinction-rebellion-spokesman-walks-out-of-interview-11696104

Extinction Rebellion plans to shut down the five UK cities for five days, with more major actions scheduled for the Autumn.