ABSTRACT
The climate movement has considerable, albeit limited, potential for mobilization. The movement is made up ofhundreds oforganizations, several thousand activists, and large numbers of sympathizers and supporters. Millions of signatures for its causes have already been coilected on the Internet, around 50,000 people demonstrated in Copenhagen and London in 2009, and thousands of people regularly take part in global days of action organized by the movement. Despite its limited size and visibility the climate movement has already had a distinct impact. A good example is the planning moratorium imposed by President Obama on the Keystone XL pipeline, which was to transport oil taken from Canadian tar sands to refineries in the US, following protests by the climate movement. In Germany, protests by anti-aviation expansion activists initially thwarted plans for the construction of a third runway at Munich Airport. The impact of activities by the climate movement are also apparent at the individual level: their members instail solar panels, plant trees, or, as with the 10:10 campaign, make voluntary commitments to cut their own carbon emissions, find out about environmentally friendly products on portals such as Utopia, and offset carbon emissions by donating to organizations, such as MyClimate, which provide financial support to projects that reduce the emission ofgreenhouse gases. Carbon offset providers such as these, which operate on a noncommercial basis, are also peripheral members of the climate movement.
