Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a UK-founded global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Extinction Rebellion was established in Stroud in May 2018 by Gail Bradbrook, Simon Bramwell, Roger Hallam, and Stuart Basden, along with six other co-founders from the campaign group Rising Up!
Its first major action was to occupy the London Greenpeace offices on 17 October 2018, which was followed by the public launch at the "Declaration of Rebellion" on 31 October 2018 outside the UK Parliament. Earlier that month, about one hundred academics signed a call to action in their support. In November 2018, five bridges across the River Thames in London were blockaded as a protest. In April 2019, Extinction Rebellion occupied five prominent sites in central London: Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge, and the area around Parliament Square. In August 2021, the Impossible Rebellion, a series of nonviolent climate change protests organized by Extinction Rebellion, targeted London.Caleb Johnston and Aphra Holland Bonnett, "Picturing these days of love and rage: Extinction Rebellion's 'Impossible Rebellion'" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14744740221096102 accessed 2025-10-13
Citing inspiration from grassroots movements such as Occupy, the suffragettes, and the civil rights movement, Extinction Rebellion aims to instill a sense of urgency for preventing further "climate breakdown", as well as the ongoing sixth mass extinction. A number of activists in the movement accept arrest and imprisonment, similar to the mass arrest tactics of the Committee of 100 in 1961. The movement uses a stylised, circled hourglass, known as the extinction symbol, to serve as a warning that time is rapidly running out for many species.
Extinction Rebellion has been criticised as alienating potential supporters. Extinction Rebellion's 2019 protests cost the Metropolitan Police an extra £7.5 million. Activists identifying with the movement have also defended causing property damage, such as smashing windows. In a YouGov poll of 3,482 British adults conducted on 15 October 2019, 54% "strongly opposed" or "somewhat opposed" Extinction Rebellion's actions of disrupting roads and public transport to "shut down London" in order to bring attention to their cause, while 36% "strongly supported" or "somewhat supported" these actions.
Stated aims and principles
Aims
Extinction Rebellion's website, at the time of the group's inception in the UK, stated the following aims: Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025. Government must create, and be led by the decisions of, a citizens' assembly on climate and ecological justice.
When the movement expanded to the United States, a further demand was added to that group's list: "We demand a just transition that prioritizes the most vulnerable people and indigenous sovereignty; establishes reparations and remediation led by and for Black people, Indigenous people, people of colour and poor communities for years of environmental injustice, establishes legal rights for ecosystems to thrive and regenerate in perpetuity, and repairs the effects of ongoing ecocide to prevent extinction of human and all species, in order to maintain a livable, just planet for all."
Organisation
Structure
Extinction Rebellion is a loosely networked, decentralised, grassroots movement, with largely autonomous local groups – which often collaborate on actions – forming the bulk of the movement's organisational capacity. A local group is generally based around a specific geographical locality such as a suburb, city or in some cases a larger region. The movement also organises around affinity groups.
Anyone who takes action in pursuit of "XR's three goals and adheres to its ten principles, which includes non-violence, can claim to do it in the name of XR."
The Economist identified the group as using the tenets of holacracy to operate more effectively given strong state opposition.
Organisation and roles
Extinction Rebellion has a decentralised structure. Provided that they respect the "principles and values", every local group can organise events and actions independently.
Wings
Doctors for XR
A group of health professionals named "Doctors for Extinction Rebellion" supports XR actions and organises demonstrations on their own, warning about the effects of climate change on human health. They are notably present in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
XR Youth
A youth wing—XR Youth—of Extinction Rebellion had formed by July 2019. In contrast to the main XR, it is centered on consideration of the Global South and indigenous peoples, and more concerned with climate justice. By October 2019, there were 55 XR Youth groups in the UK and another 25 elsewhere. All XR Youth comprise people born after 1990, with an average age of 16, and have been as young as 10.
Christian Climate Action Believing humans to be God's stewards of the earth, XR's Christian wing, the Christian Climate Action, has been involved in numerous direct action campaigns and other protests to bring awareness of climate change and the climate crisis. It has called for churches in the UK to help alleviate poverty and inequality caused by climate change and has also written to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, over the Church of England's lack of support for the group.
It has a membership of more than 1000 (with around 150 taking direct action), including retired Anglican priest Sue Parfitt. It is associated with Camino to Cop26, a women-run faith group that walked 500 miles to the COP26 conference in Glasgow to protest world leaders' lack of action on climate change. Other groups such as Marcha a Glasgow, the Pilgrimage for Cop26 and the Young Christian Climate Network also walked to the conference; they have described the journey as a pilgrimage.
History
Extinction Rebellion originated in the United Kingdom at a meeting of activists including Gail Bradbrook, Roger Hallam and Simon Bramwell in April 2018, at which they drew up a number of goals. About one hundred academics signed a call to action in their support in October 2018, and XR was launched on 31 October by Hallam, Bradbrook, Simon Bramwell, and other activists from the campaign group Rising Up!
Grassroots movements such as those of Occupy, Gandhi's Satyagraha, the suffragettes, Gene Sharp, Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the civil rights movement have been cited as sources of inspiration In seeking to rally support worldwide around a common sense of urgency to tackle climate breakdown, reference is also made to Saul Alinsky. His "Pragmatic Primer", Rules for Radicals (1972),Saul Alinsky (1971), Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. New York: Random House is seen as offering insights as to "how we mobilise to cope with emergency", and "strike a balance between disruption and creativity". Roger Hallam has been clear that the strategy of public disruption is "heavily influenced" by the community-organizing tactician: "The essential element here is disruption. Without disruption, no one is going to give you their eyeballs".
A number of activists in the movement accept arrest and imprisonment, similar to the mass arrest tactics of the Committee of 100 in 1961.
On 9 December 2018, a second open letter of support signed by another hundred academics was published.
Extinction Rebellion has taken a variety of actions since 2018 in the UK, United States, Australia and elsewhere.How the anarchists of Extinction Rebellion got so well organised , The Economist, 10 October 2019.
On 5 October 2021, the group blocked streets in Zurich, Switzerland, demanding that the Swiss government take measures to address climate change in the country.
On 4 November 2021, Extinction Rebellion demonstrators blocked the Schlumberger Gould Research Centre in west Cambridge to oppose the research into fossil fuel extraction by an American corporation. The demonstration was scheduled to coincide with the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which is focusing on energy.
In April 2022, activists from Extinction Rebellion blocked key bridges across London, among them two Olympic athletes. Protestors had been arrested after climbing oil tankers, anchoring themselves to structures, or blocking roads at oil depots.
In June 2024, activists from Extinction Rebellion interrupted the PGA Tour's Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut, when they ran onto the golf course while play was taking place, spraying a green with orange powder.
In September 2024, activists from Extinction Rebellion chained themselves to the access gates of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, forcing its closure. The activists said they would only leave if the museum cuts all ties with the ING bank.
In September 2024, activists from Extinction Rebellion covered the Finnish Parliament House in red paint, which according to testers, may not be able to be removed without damage. Extinction Rebellion is under threat of being classified as a criminal organization and abolished due to a Citizens' Initiative which received more than 70,000 signatures within a day, in response to which, a member of Extinction Rebellion made internal posts in which they fantasized about violence and the collapse of the government. These posts received support from some members, but were condemned by the organisation who states that they have cooperated with police to locate those responsible.
Offshoots: Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil
In Britain in 2021, some campaigners considered that XR was being ignored by government (except for legislating against protests) and no longer had the effect needed to create real change, so other groups were formed with the idea of using mass disruption and arrest to draw attention to a very specific demand. Insulate Britain was set up to demand that the government implement measures to fit all homes with improved insulation by 2030 to improve energy efficiency thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Just Stop Oil from 2022 protested against fossil fuels. Both groups carried out disruptive protests, blocking traffic and seeking to be arrested.
Arrest as a tactic
Extinction Rebellion uses mass arrest as a tactic to generate attention to their cause by wasting police time and disrupting others. Extinction Rebellion's founders researched the histories of "the suffragettes, the Indian salt marchers, the civil rights movement and the Polish and East German democracy movements", who all used the tactic, and are applying their lessons to the climate crisis. Co-founder Roger Hallam has said "letters, emailing, marches don't work. You need about 400 people to go to prison. About two to three thousand people to be arrested."
In April 2024, Hallam was given a suspended two year sentence for attempting to block Heathrow Airport with drones, and in July 2024 he was convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance by blocking the M25 motorway and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.