Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new article, “The impacts of climate activism” in the journal Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences.

In this article, the research team reviews and synthesizes 50 research articles from the last few years that examine the question: what are the impacts of climate activism? Because climate activism has many different goals and outcomes, the team organized the scientific literature into different outcomes, focusing on impacts on the public, the media, the political system, and other outcomes (e.g., stock market). They took a broad view of what counts as climate activism (e.g., protests, divestment, non-violent civil disobedience), although most studies focused on protests and marches. They focus on collective forms of climate activism, rather than individual actions such as consumer choices or voting behavior. The strength of the evidence for each outcome is summarized in the figure below.

The review finds strong evidence that climate activism influences public opinion and media coverage, although the specific relationship depends on the kind of actions taken and the way the media covers the events. The evidence shows that protest usually increases support for the movement when protests are peaceful, but not when they are violent. But there was also evidence that the influence of activism on public perceptions could be positive or negative, depending on the tone of the media coverage of the protests.

The review found moderate evidence that climate activism can influence voting behavior and policymaker attention. One study in Germany found that areas that experienced Fridays for Future protests had a higher share of the vote go to the Green Party, and that repeated protests increased the effect. Multiple studies in the UK found that protests successfully increase communications by policymakers about climate change or pro-climate actions.

There was less evidence that climate activism leads directly to policy change or improvements in environmental quality. This is not necessarily because climate activism does not affect these outcomes or others we reviewed—it is likely because studies that capture these outcomes are difficult to conduct.

The full article with many other results is available here to those with a subscription to Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. If you would like to request a copy of the published paper, please send an email to climatechange@yale.edu with the subject line: Request climate activism paper. Or, a preprint version is available here.