After our email exchange with CISL we’ve been planning the next steps for the campaign.
We are adjusting our targets, keeping three company focuses (Coca-Cola, Anglo American, and AXA) and adding two sector targets: fossil fuels and arms.
Why are we doing this?
There is no justification for a “green” institution to be working with any company in either of these industries, which deal in death alone. Although CISL has made claims that they do not work with fossil fuel companies, they’ve been cagey on the “education” side of their institute (the more profitable side, we hear) and about their links with smaller fossil fuel companies.
CISL and arms
In our email exchange, CISL refused to engage with any of our questions on ties to arms companies such as Boeing, or Rolls Royce. They further failed to comment on the use of violence against land defenders by Coca-Cola, a member of their UK, European and African Corporate Leadership Groups. Finally, they ignored our request for comment on their partners’ ties to occupation and genocide in Palestine.
Our message to CISL
CISL: you make big claims about “justice” and the “front lines” while working with companies profiting from death and environmental destruction. Cutting your ties with these violent sectors and companies is the bare minimum you could do to stop laundering global injustice.
Why did we stick anti-rich posters up all over Cambridge?
The Multi-generational Leadership Course
From the 11th of November till the week’s end, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership will be running their week-long ‘multi-generational leadership program’. Costing almost £13k a head, the course promises to teach ‘wealth and business owning families‘ how to sustain… something [hint: themselves] into the future and “shape the 21st century”.
Also starting on the 11th is the 29th COP – a global meeting about the climate crisis. Despite meeting regularly for decades, COP has done little to turn around the worsening environmental and climate crises. This is because it is structurally incapable of addressing the issues that underlie these crises, namely capitalism and neo-colonialism. Indigenous, poor and decolonial voices are sidelined, while oil companies, mega-corporations and colonial powers control the proceedings.
On the 10th of November it was the 29th anniversary of the killing of the Ogoni 9 at the hands of the Nigerian government and the oil company Shell. You can read more about it here.
The experience of the Ogoni 9 and the resistance they were part of teaches us to be very critical about the relationship between land, power and environment. In 2023, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People were part of the People’s Health Tribunal, which looked at the harm done by Shell and Total Energy across Africa. It recommended that movements “stop endorsing ‘green capitalism’ and the continued colonial extraction for renewable energy.”
We respond to this call by highlighting and resisting the green capitalism found in CISL’s program, which aims to sustain wealth hoarding and the exploitation that depends on.
But more generally… what’s the problem?
CISL’s program promotes a type of “bunker environmentalism” – that is, teaching those with power and wealth how to keep themselves safe through the multiple crises we are experiencing today.
Bunker environmentalism is a part of eco-fascism – the allying of violent authoritarian politics with environmentalism. You can find out more about eco-fascism here and here
Don’t we need the rich people to change?
Yes – we need them to stop hoarding their wealth. The rich will lead us to nothing but further pain – any effective action against climate and environmental harm will be led by the communities which have been most affected by the violence of extractivism, and which are currently experiencing the most immediate effects of climate and environmental crisis.
Aren’t Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership on the good side?
They definitely want you to think that. However, their work speaks for itself – here’s a short ‘best of’ list:
At the end of the day, what CISL hopes to sustain is the status quo; with the rich on top, safe from climate change’s worst effects, and the global majority left to suffer the consequences of the rich’s actions.
As climate breakdown becomes undeniable, they will exploit climate anxieties to push an agenda of hate. This isn’t someone else’s problem – far-right ideas can take hold in our own groups and movements. The narratives below normalise far-right framings and legitimise oppression, sowing seeds for more dangerous futures – ecofascist or otherwise. We have to expose far-right talking points and leave no room for co-option in our messaging.
Here are some of their common talking points.
Overpopulation
The far right claims there are too many people for the Earth to support. This often leads to calls for reducing Global South populations. In mainstream climate groups, this idea can show up with comments like “there are just too many of us” or “birth control is a climate solution”. Remember that areas with higher birth rates or population aren’t responsible for the highest consumption – a billionaire’s carbon footprint is a million times the global average.
Migration
The far right claims borders protect the environment. Migrants, they say, are less able to care for nature and increase pressure on local ecology. Ecofascists also argue that we must act on climate to avoid migration. In mainstream groups, this can show up as discussions of a “migrant crisis” which don’t focus on the experiences of displaced people, or ideas of climate action being the remit of “civilised” countries.
Authoritarianism
The far right thrives in times of crisis, offering a strong leader to “protect the nation” – and in doing so crank up the oppression of minorities. This shows up in mainstream groups as appeals to the police, government or monarchy to suspend democracy to enforce climate measures on people in Britain and around the world.
Save our children
The far right claims the “white race” (symbolised by white children) is under attack. By claiming victimhood, the far right hides the overwhelming responsibility of rich countries and casts those most affected as the perpetrators. If you hear a lot of discussion about “saving our children” in your group, remember that people in the Global South (and marginalised communities in the North) are already dying – and have been for centuries of colonisation, extraction, air pollution, and police violence.
Purity
For the far right, “nature” is correlated with “purity”. They see People of Colour as “polluting white bloodlines”, and LGBTQ+ and disabled people as unnatural or impure. The idea of “pristine nature” is used to justify evicting Indigenous people from their lands for conservation projects. Purity narratives often show up in mainstream climate groups as a refusal to engage with “other issues” – insisting on climate-only messaging that doesn’t complicate the narrative.
Collapse
Some on the far right dream of an apocalyptic “survival of the fittest” scenario and may believe such collapse is inevitable. If someone says “catastrophic warming is locked in – all we can do is adapt”, remind them that many we care about aren’t able to do so.
So how do we fight this co-option of our movement?
The far right shifts blame onto marginalised people (especially migrants and peoAs Textple in the Global South) in order to justify further oppression as a solution. It is essential to recognise that it is these same systems of violence that created the climate crisis in the first place. Unconstrained fossil fuel extraction and combustion would not be possible, for instance, without the racism that treats those most impacted as disposable. Justice is not a distraction from the issue: it is the issue – and the one thing the far right cannot co-opt.
Poster
A poster defining far-right talking points used to co-opt environmental concerns to espouse fascist ideas
