CLIMATE campaigners have unveiled plans to mobilise more than two million activists next year for acts of civil disobedience following the failure of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow earlier this month.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) vowed today to begin a major campaign of civil resistance in April, following on from large-scale protests before the coronavirus pandemic.

XR said that world leaders had failed to heed the pleas of experts at Cop26, with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Patricia Espinosa warning that Cop26 leaves the human race continuing to “invest in our own extinction.”

The criticism coincided with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that, in order to avoid global warming exceeding the target of 1.5˚C, greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 45 per cent by 2030, but the world is on track for a 16 per cent increase in emissions by 2030.

XR claimed that its nationwide programme of door-to-door canvassing, talks, training and mass civil disobedience, with the aim of engaging 2.3 million people, would make political and social change inevitable.

The group’s Nuala Gathercole Lam said: “The tragic lack of action is not for a shortage of potential solutions to the climate crisis, but down to a lack of political will to make difficult changes that threaten powerful financial interests.

“The theory behind XR is that mass participation in civil disobedience – on the doorstep of the government, media and elites – is our best shot at creating the political conditions for the UK to step up and play that role.” 

Full details of the actions to be taken from April are set to be announced in the new year.