The Rights Time? Predicting Environmental Justice Campaigns' Success

• In Event: Human Rights on and at the Margins

Abstract

Organisations in the mainstream environmental movement are larger, stronger, better funded and more knowledgeable than at any previous time. Polls consistently show very high levels of public support for environmental protection for government, corporate and individual action to address climate change. But individual campaigns around climate justice still enjoy limited success. In fact, a survey of climate justice campaigns undertaken by the EJOLT project Environmental Justice Atlas (2017) suggests that of 40 recent EJ campaigns in the Western Hemisphere relating specifically to fossil fuels and climate justice, only 14 were a clear success. How have successful climate justice campaigns have differed from those that have enjoyed more limited success? This paper examines the characteristics of over 40 climate justice campaigns carried out in North America to determine what qualities successful climate justice campaigns share.

Author

• Bethany Barratt, Roosevelt University