Climate change is a breadand-butter issue and grassroots efforts can successfully combat apathy, says Kristian-Marc James Paul, activist and organiser of the youthled movement SG Climate Rally.
He adds: “There are serious material and political implications to the decisions we make surrounding climate mitigation and adaptation.”
Speaking at the Conscious Festival on June 8, as part of a series of talks about fostering an engaged citizenry, Paul rattled off a list of questions about climate justice, which recognises that those who have contributed to the climate crisis the least are often the ones most impacted: “How will the revenue from a carbon tax be spent? Will it be distributed to the people equitably? How will migrant workers who toil outdoors, day in and day out, be affected by rising temperatures? How are we protecting them? How will our lack of climate-friendly infrastructure, like robust cycling lanes, affect delivery riders who have to rush from place to place on our car-filled roads to make ends meet?”
According to Paul, the SG Climate Rally — Singapore’s “first-ever climate protest” — drew over 2,000 attendees in its first run in September 2019. It called on the Singapore government to recognise that the climate crisis is a “systemic and political problem”, he adds.
Calling it a “turning point for environmental discourse in Singapore”, Paul says climate change policies here have changed since then, citing “numerous wins”, including the launch of Singapore’s 2050 net-zero emissions target. “To us, this is a sign that building a broad-based movement is integral to our activism.”
‘Self-selecting group’
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However, Paul is wary of preaching to the choir. “We realised that if we kept holding rallies without doing any of the groundwork of engaging with people, only the same few would keep turning up; numbers would not grow… The first rally was an indication to us that our base was not broad and diverse enough; a largely self-selecting group of people would continue showing up if we kept holding rallies without changing our strategies.”
During Covid-19, Paul and his team diversified into other initiatives. For instance, during the 2020 general election, their Greenwatch campaign issued climate scorecards to evaluate the environmental policies of political parties. “We also developed a communications infrastructure on Slack where hundreds of voters coordinated timings to attend rallies to ask questions about climate policies.”
Following the pandemic, Paul and his team returned to Hong Lim Park for their second rally in 2023. “Over 1,400 people attended the rally, a decrease from the 2019 edition. While we were definitely hoping for more attendees, this was in line with a global trend of decreasing turnout at climate marches.”
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But the organisers’ presence online has grown. On Instagram, @sgclimaterally has some 10,800 followers. Recent posts discuss topics like feminism and the June 14 oil spill at Pasir Panjang Terminal and their intersectionality with climate justice.
“We see our role as contextualising climate justice for a local audience, drawing links with other socio-political issues and raising awareness and calling out Singapore’s impact and position within the broader region,” says Paul.
Despite the lower in-person turnout, Paul believes the Overton window has shifted. He adds that this political theory model refers to concepts and beliefs that are politically and culturally acceptable at any one time.
“We want to speak things into existence,” he says to some 100 guests at NTUC Centre. “Just a few years ago, climate justice was an unfamiliar concept, but recently, it has been discussed in Parliament and featured in headlines. This is a positive indication that we’ve made significant contributions to changing people’s understanding of the climate crisis.”
Paul says his team is focused on engaging marginalised groups and not “technocratic fixes”. “What becomes less important to us then is the terrain of technicalities… We direct our attention towards directly engaging people on the ground, empowering and energising them to see themselves as active agents in a broader collective action movement.”
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Advocacy is an ecosystem with different roles for everyone, says Paul. “SG Climate Rally recognises that our place might not always be behind the closed doors of policy discussions or the working groups of think-tanks. Instead, our main role is to try and do the work of organising, directly challenging and transferring the power.”
Paul is aware of how “confrontational” this sounds. “We may not stick to the conventional script of advocacy or change-making in Singapore and are not afraid to call out and challenge sacred cows and conventional narratives.”
Photos: SG Climate Rally
