Extinction Rebellion (XR) formed in the UK in 2018, with three main aims. It wants governments to declare a climate and ecological emergency, take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025 and create citizens’ assemblies to determine actions for climate and ecological justice. Similar to jury service, a citizens’ assembly is a group of randomly selected people who debate issues and solutions when governments are faced with contentious decisions. Such assemblies are designed to be representative of the population in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. They were used to create legislative frameworks for abortion in Ireland and have been used to devise social policy in the UK.
XR has a legitimate authority, being backed by over 100 academics. It delivers its message using publicity stunts. This has worked well for pressure groups like UK Uncut, which staged protests outside tax-avoiding companies such as Starbucks and Vodafone.
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