Confronting the climate crisis in Africa: just transitions and Extinction Rebellion in Nigeria and South Africa

ABSTRACT

Climate change is having increasing impacts on the social, economic and political space across the African continent. The compounding character of such impacts reinforces existing inequalities, raising important considerations around climate justice. Growing awareness has seen the emergence of activists working for solutions and promoting alternative futures, working across scales and sectors to address the complexity of the threats. This article examines environmental activism in Nigeria and South Africa, exploring strategies and claims, and how these are rooted in questions of justice. While environmental movements in Nigeria have generally worked to encourage reform and adaption within the existing political economic system, a more systemic critique and need for fundamental change is observable in South Africa. Drawing on a comparison of Extinction Rebellion in both countries, we argue that understandings of just transitions should take into consideration the unequal abilities of social movements to call for radically transformative and just decarbonisation.

RÉSUMÉ

Le changement climatique a un impact croissant sur l’espace social, économique et politique du continent africain. Le caractère cumulatif de ces impacts renforce les inégalités existantes, soulevant ainsi d’importantes questions sur la justice climatique. La prise de conscience croissante a vu l’émergence d’activistes qui cherchent des solutions et promeuvent des avenirs alternatifs, en travaillant à tous les niveaux et dans tous les secteurs pour faire face à la complexité des menaces. Nous examinons l’activisme environnemental au Nigeria et en Afrique du Sud, en explorant les stratégies, les revendications et la manière dont elles sont ancrées dans les questions de justice. Alors que les mouvements environnementaux au Nigeria ont généralement œuvré pour encourager la réforme et l’adaptation au sein du système politico-économique existant, une critique plus systémique et un besoin de changement fondamental sont observables en Afrique du Sud. En nous appuyant sur une comparaison d’Extinction Rebellion dans les deux pays, nous soutenons que la compréhension de la transition juste devrait prendre en compte les capacités inégales des mouvements sociaux à appeler à une décarbonisation radicalement transformatrice et juste.

RESUMO

As alterações climáticas estão a afetar cada vez mais o espaço social, económico e político por todo o continente africano. O caráter agravado de tais impactos reforça as desigualdades existentes, e suscita considerações importantes em torno da justiça climática. A crescente consciencialização implicou a emergência de ativistas que trabalham em busca de soluções e promovem futuros alternativos, operando em várias escalas e setores para lidar com a complexidade das ameaças. Neste artigo analisamos o ativismo ambiental na Nigéria e na África do Sul, explorando estratégias, reivindicações e como estas estão enraizadas em questões de justiça. Embora os movimentos ambientalistas na Nigéria tenham geralmente trabalhado para incentivar a reforma e a adaptação dentro do sistema político económico existente, na África do Sul observa-se uma crítica mais sistémica e a proclamação da necessidade de mudanças fundamentais. A partir de uma comparação da Extinction Rebellion em ambos os países, argumentamos que os entendimentos de transição justa devem levar em consideração capacidades desiguais nos movimentos sociais para pedir uma descarbonização radicalmente transformadora e justa.

KEYWORDS:

• Just transition
• climate justice
• transnational movements
• Extinction Rebellion
• Nigeria
• South Africa

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Transition juste
• justice climatique
• mouvements transnationaux
• Extinction Rebellion
• Nigeria
• Afrique du Sud

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:

• Transição justa
• justiça climática
• movimentos transnacionais
• Extinction Rebellion
• Nigéria
• África do Sul

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the members of XR Nigeria for participating in our research. Our thanks also to the editors of this special issue for their comments, suggestions and support throughout the process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Geographical data and contact links for all Extinction Rebellion chapters were scraped from the movement's global website in 2021. Temporal data were then added to the dataset using publicly available creation dates from Facebook pages (see Gardner, Carvalho, and Valenstain 2022).

2 The 19 African countries in which Extinction Rebellion chapters have been formed are: South Africa, Mauritius, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Sudan, Algeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana and Malawi.

3 For a discussion on Extinction Rebellion in Gambia, see Gardner et al. (2023).

4 Local Extinction Rebellion groups across the world are funded by a mixture of local supporters and activist donations from across the world. Donations given to XR Global Support are distributed worldwide. Africa receives over 50% of XR Global Support’s grant funding. Although receiving more than any other region, these are small grants concentrated in a small number of countries. As such, most local funding is generated internally by local branches (Extinction Rebellion 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Gardner

Peter Gardner is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of York. His research focuses on environmental social movements, transnational activism and climate politics. His most recent book, Symbolic objects in contentious politics (University of Michigan Press, 2023), explores the role of physical objects in collective action.

Olalekan Adekola

Olalekan Adekola is a senior lecturer in geography at York St John University, UK. His research interests centre around understanding the distributional aspects of environmental issues (how outcomes vary between and within groups, and the implications of these for questions of vulnerability, equity and sustainability). Olalekan is actively involved in using evidence from research to influence policy.

Tiago Carvalho

Tiago Carvalho is a researcher at the ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge, which won the prize for best dissertation from the Portuguese Political Science Association (2022). He is currently working on two main topics: social movements and social classes in southern Europe, and global diffusion of climate movements. His recent book is Contesting austerity (Amsterdam University Press, 2022).

Thomas O’Brien

Thomas O’Brien is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of York. His research concerns democratisation, environmental sociology, political leadership and social movements. His recent work has appeared in Identities, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, and Social Movement Studies.