Should Climate Activists be Punished as Common Offenders?

Their acceptance of responsibility and political motivation should be taken into account as a mitigating factor when sentencing. Some climate activists, rather than receiving punishment, have in several cases successfully claimed to have acted on the grounds of necessity. In representative democracies guided by the rule of law, the climate necessity defense must be rejected, however, since such protests do not meet the 'non-legal alternatives' requirement. According to Ivó Coca-Vila from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany, this does not mean that protesters should be punished as common offenders. Their acceptance of responsibility and political motivation should be taken into account as a mitigating factor when sentencing. Climate activists are increasingly opting to break minor laws in order to gain maximum exposure for their climate protests. In fact, a number of climate justice movements-such as the German groups Last Generation, Extinction Rebellion, and Ende Gelände-explicitly call for civil disobedience and coercive forms of protest as a way of drawing attention to the catastrophic effects of global warming.