Some additional context: The science is crystal clear when it comes to burning fossil fuels—it is the leading cause of excessive accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, accounting for about 75% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. To avoid the most extreme climate scenarios and preserve the livability of the planet, it is imperative that the global use of fossil fuels swiftly and steeply declines. Specifically, in order to have a greater than 50 percent chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the global use of coal, oil, and gas must decline about 95 percent, 60 percent, and 45 percent, respectively, by 2050 as compared to 2019 levels. (Note that scientists have agreed that 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, is the warming threshold that the planet cannot exceed if we hope to avoid the most severe climate disruptions. As of 2022, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial era). To meet these targets outlined by the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC, it will require stranding most fossil fuel infrastructure and leaving considerable amounts of coal, oil, and gas in the ground that fossil fuel corporations have already purchased.

Unfortunately, and hardly surprisingly, the fossil fuel industry is adamantly resisting the much-needed transition away from fossil fuels. Doing so would leave up to $4 trillion of profits on the table. And so, fossil fuel corporations are still working hard to grow their markets for oil and gas around the world. They are actively expanding the infrastructure that drives new fossil fuel extraction, like pipelines and terminals, while negligibly investing in renewable energy. (For instance, ExxonMobil spent an estimated 0.16%, or a fraction of a percentage point, of their total capital expenditures on low-carbon energy technology in 2021. ExxonMobil spent more than double that amount on executive pay.)

In the so-called United States, state and federal governments are complicit in the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. Not only do they continue to approve thousands of oil and gas drilling permits and new infrastructure projects each year (for context, the Biden administration approved 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in his first year in office), but the United States government spends billions of dollars directly subsidizing the fossil fuel industry each year (estimates put United States’s direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry between $10 and $50 billion per year).

At the same time, communities on the front lines have been organizing against the fossil fuel industry for decades, and the grassroots movement is growing. They have been fighting to close coal plants, halt construction of new oil pipelines, and stop the expansion of refineries. They have been working in tandem with labor unions to build a Just Transition, or pathways to phase out extractive, exploitative, and polluting industries while creating good, living-wage jobs for their workers. Recognizing that they are up against an industry with tremendous political influence and financial resources, the fossil fuel resistance has embraced a variety of tactics. From #NoDAPL to #StopLine3 to #SaveTheArctic and beyond, activists have rallied in the streets of state and federal capitals, camped by construction sites for months at a time, chained themselves to construction equipment, locked themselves inside corporate offices, launched legal battles, flooded public hearings, pressured institutions to divest from fossil fuel companies, and held prayerful ceremonies.

And they have won. While state and federal policy, international agreements, and investor influence have thus far failed to substantially rein in or shift the direction of the fossil fuel industry, grassroots organizing has worked.

For instance:

• The Keystone XL Pipeline: In 2021, the Biden administration cancelled the permit for the pipeline, which would have transported crude oil from Canada to the United States, over a decade of organizing against the project. Amongst the numerous environmental and climate justice organizations involved in the resistance movement, the Indigenous Environmental Network was instrumental in mobilizing Indigenous communities from both Canada and the United States to organize protests, direct actions, and events to highlight the threat the pipeline posed to their lands, water, culture, and sovereignty, while Bold Nebraska organized landowners, farmers, and ranchers along the pipeline route and supported legal challenges against the project, and Tar Sands Blockade utilized direct action tactics and organized tree-sits and blockades to physically impede construction and draw attention to the cause.
• The Atlantic Coast Pipeline: In 2020, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy cancelled the project, which was proposed to transport natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina, after years of legal challenges and delays. Groups like Appalachian Voices, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, Friends of Nelson, Bold Alliance, and the Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina mobilized to oppose the project. They led public awareness campaigns, organized protests, rallies, and marches, filed lawsuits and legal challenges, mobilized concerned citizens to contact their elected officials and attend public hearings, and orchestrated tree-sits and pipeline blockades to physically disrupt construction.
• The Jordan Cove LNG Terminal and Pacific Connector Pipeline: The project was effectively cancelled in 2021, after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied a key permit for the project, which would have included a pipeline to transport natural gas from the Rocky Mountains to Coos Bay, Oregon, along with a liquefied natural gas export terminal that would enable transport to markets in Asia. The Klamath Tribes initiated legal challenges and public hearings highlighting concerns about the potential impacts on their ancestral lands, cultural resources, and fisheries, while groups like Rogue Climate, No LNG Exports, and Cascadia Wildlands helped to coordinate efforts, participate in legal challenges, organize public meetings and workshops, and engage in community outreach and education.

There are also countless grassroots movements that are currently organizing against fossil fuel projects and the industry at large, such as:

• The Willow Project: Though the Biden administration approved the Willow Project in March of 2023 (despite a campaign commitment to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters), the resistance movement against ConocoPhillips’ oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope is still gearing up for a long fight. The Willow Project is considered a “carbon bomb,” defined as a large fossil fuel project capable of contributing at least 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetimes. Burning all of the oil that the Willow Project is expected to produce would be the equivalent of adding nearly two million gas-powered cars to the road each year. It is also expected to have major ecological and public health impacts on the area, threatening the wellbeing and inherent and subsistence rights of Indigenous Alaska Natives who live nearby the planned project. Fortunately, the project is not expected to become operational for another six years, and in the meantime, several local, Indigenous-led groups who have been resisting this project for years, such as Defend the Sacred Alaska, Native Movement, and Soverign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, are doubling down on organizing against it. Meanwhile, EarthJustice and Trustees for Alaska have each filed lawsuits asking for an injunction, arguing that the environmental analysis conducted on the project is seriously flawed.
• The Mountain Valley Pipeline: The Mountain Valley Pipeline, a pipeline that is supposed to transport shale gas from West Virginia to the eastern United States, is in the process of being constructed, though the project continues to experience major setbacks at the hands of a fierce opposition movement. As of April 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a water permit needed by developers Equitrans Midstream Corp to resume construction; landowners and environmental groups had sued on the grounds of Equitrans violating state water regulations, and indeed the 4th Circuit found that Equitrans had violated its construction permit 139 times and committed at least 46 state water quality standard violations. Groups like Preserve Montgomery County, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and Appalachians Against Pipelines, along with Indigenous communities such as the Monacan Indian Nation, continue to engage in a variety of resistance tactics.