Just Stop Oil may be reviled – but their tactics reshaped the climate movement

Just Stop Oil, the infamous climate campaign group, announced last week they were “hanging up the hi-vis“. They called themselves “one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history”, pointing to the Labour Party’s pledge to end new oil and gas exploration as proof of their impact.

It’s a bold claim. For many, Just Stop Oil will be remembered less for policy wins and more for chaos: blocking motorways, halting sports events and throwing soup at priceless art. Their tactics were condemned by politicians and pundits alike. They were called “eco-zealots” and even compared to terrorists.

The public mostly agreed. A 2023 YouGov poll showed 64% of people disapproved of the group. A significant majority of the British public think disruptive protest tactics hinder activists’ cause. While their approach was clearly unpopular, did it actually work? 

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I lead Social Change Lab, a think tank that studies the impact of protest movements – from public opinion to media coverage to policy change. Having conducted a number of studies on Just Stop Oil and other disruptive climate groups, we find the use of such tactics can have some unexpected and surprising consequences.

Let’s start with the backlash. Just Stop Oil, along with Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, were explicitly cited by the last government to justify its sweeping clampdown on protest. Sentences for environmental activists have grown harsher. Last summer, five Just Stop Oil members were given up to five years in prison for participating in a Zoom call planning disruption. This punishment is on a level with sentences for firearms and burglary offences. There were celebratory headlines from the British press, but most people in the UK felt those sentences were too harsh. 

Yet, Just Stop Oil and their predecessors made important contributions to the climate movement. Radical climate groups helped push the climate crisis to the forefront of public consciousness. In 2019, following a wave of large-scale disruption, UK concern about climate change reached record highs. An academic study found similar results: disruptive action helped strengthen environmental attitudes in the UK.

Environmental protest groups can powerfully influence public discourse. Just as US civil rights activists in the 1960s transformed the national conversation on race – and Black Lives Matter did the same decades later – climate activists have shifted the way we talk about the environment. Analysis of Google Trends shows that terms like “climate emergency” and “climate crisis”, once rarely used, surged by 2,000% in 2019, with clear spikes tied to major acts of civil disobedience.

Another important, though often overlooked impact, has been on the environmental movement itself. In our 2024 Nature paper we found that awareness of a Just Stop Oil protest made people more likely to support Friends of the Earth, a moderate green group. This is known as the “radical flank effect”: when more extreme groups shift the political centre, others seem more reasonable by comparison. People exposed to Just Stop Oil’s actions were also more likely to engage in pro-climate activities like volunteering, donating to charity, or contacting their MP. The message? Even unpopular groups can have positive and widespread ripple effects.

Of course, radical tactics have real costs. Disruption can alienate people. One study found that highly disruptive protests can backfire – undermining not just the group itself, but broader support for the cause. This is the activist’s dilemma: the same tactics that grab attention and apply pressure are the ones most likely to turn people away.

Critics have long asked: Why target ordinary people? Why block commuters or cancel Shakespeare, instead of going after oil companies or parliament? One Just Stop Oil activist put it to us bluntly: “I’ve been told so many fucking times, go to Parliament Square, go to an oil refinery or whatever. I’ve locked myself to an oil tanker for 36 hours. Nothing. I was just at Parliament Square for three days with 60,000 people, nothing happened. But my best friend throws soup on a fucking Van Gogh and we’re in the news for months.”

Our data back this up: the most disruptive and seemingly nonsensical actions – interrupting theatre, vandalising art – typically generate the most media coverage. 

Did Just Stop Oil force Labour’s hand? It’s nearly impossible to draw a straight line between the actions of a single protest group and a policy shift. But their tactics kept climate change in the headlines at a time when it was slipping down the agenda. They did what traditional NGOs and charities often can’t: loudly, controversially and unignorably challenging people not to turn away. It might not have been popular, but real change rarely is.

Sam Nadel is interim director of Social Change Lab, an independent think tank that conducts research on social movements.

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