Since his inauguration on January 20, President Trump has signed several Executive Orders that seek to roll back President Biden’s climate action. These include: (re) withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, declaring a national energy emergency to support the production of fossil fuels, halting new permits for offshore wind projects and authorizations on federal lands and waters for wind and solar projects, stopping the release of any unspent federal money (specifically from the Inflation Reduction Act) for electric vehicle charging, and canceling the American Climate Corps. While the substantive impact of these measures remains unclear due to judicial challenges, climate advocates are gearing up to fight them.
Building public support for climate action
What strategies should the “resistance” adopt? There are three possible routes: (1) change Trump’s views; (2) judicial challenges, (3) increase support for climate action in the 119th (2025-27) and 120th Congress (2027-2029). It appears that the first one is impossible, given President Trump’s strong position on this subject. Judicial challenges are already in motion. We focus on the third one, Congressional support in the current and the next House. Because some House members respond to public opinion, we examine different ways to increase public support for climate action.
The climate movement consists of actors with different competencies and advocacy approaches. Some specialize in “insider” tactics, such as lobbying and educating, which take place within formal policy spaces. Others specialize in “outsider” tactics such as protests, demonstrations, and strikes along with confrontational tactics focused on specific targets such as picketing oil pipelines and airports. Since 2022, some groups have started disrupting public transportation, sports and cultural events, and vandalizing museums and cultural sites.
The “resistance” should wonder which of these tactics increase public support and therefore put pressure on House members, and which ones might backfire.
Voters are more concerned about other issues
Opinion polls suggest that despite the partisan divide, most Americans recognize the anthropogenic nature of climate change, favor renewable energy, and support governmental action. However, climate issues lose salience when placed alongside other policy concerns. As the 2024 U.S. exit polls show, Republicans are most concerned with economy and immigration, while Democrats prioritize the state of democracy and abortion. Thus, the challenge for the “resistance” is to increase the importance of climate change among voters.
With the 2026 Congressional elections on the horizon and the very slim House Republican majority, politicians will be alert to public opinion. This is why strikes, protests, and demonstrations can be helpful because they maintain the salience of climate issues in the political discourse.
What about blocking highways and trains, disrupting cultural and sporting events, and vandalizing museums? While such actions—often undertaken by a small number of activists and carefully choreographed over social media—attract media attention, they have two downsides.
First, they lack public support – and may even invite public scorn. In a recent paper coauthored with Jana Foxe, we asked British respondents to choose between hypothetical environmental organizations that adopt disruptive tactics (specifically museum and art gallery protests, sport event disruptions, and traffic stoppages), as opposed to mainstream tactics (such as litigation, lobbying, research, and education). We found respondents are less willing to support groups adopting disruptive tactics. Much to our surprise, this negative reaction was widespread, irrespective of whether respondents voted for Labor, Conservative, or the Green party, their ideology (liberals or conservatives), generational group, or support for a gasoline (petrol) tax.
Why this reaction? We speculate that because people juggle multiple priorities in their daily lives, they dislike disruptions by activists blocking highways or squatting on train tracks. Moreover, they get upset when activists disrupt sporting and cultural events for which they likely purchased expensive tickets (not to mention the planning that went into it). And their anger might be pronounced when activists vandalize museums and cultural and historical artifacts.
Disruptive tactics generate media attention. But it is less clear if these tactics increase support for moderate climate groups (the radical flank effect) or create the perception that the movement has been taken over by extremists (negative reputational spillovers).
Second, these disruptive actions allow governments to crack down on climate advocates. In the UK, courts have awarded harsh sentences to protesters who disrupted traffic. In Germany, members of Letzte Generation group have been charged with “forming a criminal organization.” About 35 U.S. states have passed laws (or are considering passing them) to criminalize such behavior.
Increasing public support is critical for resistance
While the UK results from our survey may or may not travel to the US context, a few lessons emerge. The 2024 U.S. elections revealed that voters prioritize bread-and-butter issues; disrupting their daily lives will probably not generate support for the climate cause. In addition, Trump 2.0 will not be shy about cracking down on disruptive actions.
In addition to raising issue salience via outsider tactics, climate groups could consider insider tactics such as forming alliances with Republicans to protect the Inflation Reduction Act; after all, most of its monies are going to Republican districts. Because wind energy is popular in Republican states (due to their geography), climate groups have opportunities to work with Republican Governors to protect wind projects from rollbacks. Importantly, this should be framed as energy abundance and economic development; climate change has become a taboo phrase in the current political climate.
The challenge is that there is no central climate body that greenlights specific advocacy tactics and prohibits others. Eventually, the climate advocacy eco-system is self-governing with actors employing different sorts of tactics. Nevertheless, mainstream groups should seek to control the climate narrative with the 2026 Congressional elections in mind. Climate rollbacks are facilitated by the Republican control of both legislative chambers and the Presidency. If the House of Representatives can be flipped, the rollbacks will become difficult. This is the big prize that the “resistance” should focus on.
