Introduction
Climate change has become a central political issue not only through scientific consensus but also through the historical work of environmental and climate activism linking local conflicts to global arenas. The profound social and biological effects of climate change, in addition to its nature as a multi-scale environmental problem,Footnote 1 have made it necessary and urgent for societies to seek out coordinated responses to address its consequences. Despite the irrefutable relevance of climate change, it is clear that environmental problems did not begin with its scientific and public recognition, but rather that the two maintain a synergistic and intertwined relationship. Indeed if, on the one hand, environmental problems can be thought of as a cause and/or localised manifestation of climate change it, on the other, must be understood as an accelerator of environmental problems, as well as a global and long-term manifestation thereof. This work therefore starts from the recognition that their interconnected relationship is also reflected in the historical configuration of environmental and climate activism around the world, and particularly in our case study, Chile.
This article argues that environmental and climate activism in Chile became particularly entwined through a glocal process in which grassroots environmental struggles were progressively articulated within transnational climate governance frameworks. We use ‘glocality’ to refer to the processes through which local environmental conflicts, actors and knowledges are translated, mediated and connected within global climate discourses and institutions, and vice versa. Beyond this, the concepts addressed in this article draw on the definitions provided by the participants in the organisations with which we have worked empirically over the last five years. The distinctions are ambivalent, with porous boundaries, and relate to historical and contextual processes in Chile. Therefore, rather than seeking to fix and define them, we explore the paradox and ambivalence of the environment and climate.
We conceive of environmental activism not as a fixed category reducible to collective action but as a historically shifting field of practices, claims and problematisations. Therefore, the environment can be conceived in a broad and multi-faceted way: from environmental justice, access to information, citizen participation and the protection of nature to the right to life. It involves issues such as sustainability, ecosystem conservation, laws, the energy matrix, reforestation and biodiversity, among many others. This multiplicity reflects the difficulty of representing the interests of nature in political life.Footnote 2 In this sense, climate change has increasingly become a central organising frame, particularly since the 2000s. We argue that what is now referred to as ‘climate and environmental activism’ emerged through a gradual process of climatisation, whereby diverse socio-environmental struggles were progressively reinterpreted, reconnected and reframed in relation to the climate crisis. This multiplicity of meanings and trajectories reflects both the breadth of environmental politics and the ongoing difficulty of representing the interests of nature within institutional political arenas.
Retracing the history of the environmental–climate movement in Chile is an exercise that allows us to seek situated definitions while avoiding a priori delimitations. Starting from theoretically defined concepts would force us to define a conception of environmentalism, activism or climate change ex ante. On the contrary, in our work we want to hear how these conceptualisations are experienced in the voices of the actors themselves.
Climate and environment activism refers to collective action around climate change that seeks to influence public authorities and political institutions (glocally), combining established and emerging repertoires of action, and characterised by both continuity with earlier environmental movements and innovation in participation and framing. We have chosen to refer to the concept of ‘activism’ rather than ‘grassroots action’, ‘collective action’ or ‘social movements’ because this is the term preferred by the research participants.
To explore this further, firstly, the relationship between environmental and climate activism in Chile must be understood as an historical and glocal intertwining, in which grassroots environmental struggles are progressively linked with transnational frameworks of climate governance, without this implying a substitution or linear evolution of one form of activism for another. Secondly, although they are intertwined, it is possible to distinguish differences. The two are analytically distinguished by their scales and languages. For example, while environmental activism is structured around local conflicts linked to pollution, extractivism, water and health, climate activism is configured around a multi-scale problem mediated by scientific knowledge, public policy instruments and international arenas. Finally, the two share a role in intermediation, through which activist actors translate, connect and reconfigure meanings, knowledge and demands between the grassroots, science, the state and global spaces, giving rise to ambivalent and situated definitions of the ‘environmental’ and the ‘climate’ that emerge from the movement’s practice and historical trajectory in Chile.
Methodologically, this article combines a historical–genealogical approach with ethnographic research carried out between 2019 and 2023 in order to develop situated concepts grounded in the practices and trajectories of environmental and climate activism in Chile. Genealogy allows us to reconstruct the historical conditions under which environmental activism emerged, was transformed and became linked to climate governance, highlighting discontinuities, overlaps and contingent alignments rather than linear progressions. Ethnography, in turn, captures how activists currently interpret, negotiate and mobilise notions such as ‘environment’ and ‘climate’ in their everyday practices and engagements. The articulation of these two approaches makes it possible to analyse environmental and climate activism as historically intertwined forms of collective action whose meanings, boundaries and scales are produced relationally through grassroots struggles, transnational networks and institutional encounters. This methodological strategy enables the emergence of concepts that are empirically grounded, historically informed and sensitive to the glocal dynamics that shape climate activism in Chile.
The article proceeds as follows. The next section situates the study within the literature on environmental and climate activism, reviewing global and Latin American debates and highlighting the specific features of the Chilean case. The following section outlines the methodology and data sources, combining a historical–genealogical approach with ethnographic research. We then develop the article’s analytical framework, introducing the concepts of glocality, scale and intermediation that guide the analysis. The subsequent sections present the empirical analysis, tracing the historical trajectories of environmental and climate activism in Chile and examining how grassroots struggles, institutional engagements and transnational networks have become intertwined. The final section discusses the implications of these findings and reflects on the contributions of the Chilean case to broader debates on environmental and climate activism and climate governance.
Trajectories and Configurations of Environmental and Climate Activism
The differing responses to environmental problems and climate change, both internationally and at the national level, result from the implementation of different forms of governance.Footnote 3 In this context, and even amidst the existing diversity, the participation of non-state actors, particularly environmental and later climate activists, has played a central and leading role. Generally speaking, this heterogeneous form of activism has manifested itself in social movements, NGOs, professional organisations and others seeking to influence how environmental degradation and the climate crisis are addressed.Footnote 4 The social, institutional, economic and political contexts in which this activism has taken shape across different regions have strongly influenced its challenges, trajectories and historical development.Footnote 5 This is especially evident in Chile, where post-dictatorship institutional frameworks, a highly centralised state and a neoliberal model of natural resource governance have profoundly shaped the evolution of environmental and climate activism.
Globally, the literature generally points out that a more organised environmentalism with a strong conservationist focus emerged primarily in the 1960s.Footnote 6 In the 1970s, with the worsening socio-ecological crisis and broader social mobilisations, a more radical movement arose, growing in parallel with nascent international institutions (e.g. the 1979 World Climate Conference, which was sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization, an agency of the United Nations).Footnote 7 Later, the 1990s saw the development of, on the one hand, activism willing to participate in the new institutions and focused on market regulation and, on the other, a more radical expression that advocated for a politicised approach, direct action and links with social justice and human rights movements.Footnote 8 After the failure of the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (the 15th ‘Conference of the Parties’ to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change of 1992, hence ‘COP15’), tensions within the global movement became critical. There was little enthusiasm in general terms for the Paris Agreement, adopted at COP21 in 2015, and its limited commitments illustrated, in a way, the retreat of global environmental and climate activism towards anti-extractivist struggles.Footnote 9
Indeed, this historical trajectory demonstrates the close relationship that environmental and climate activism have had globally. With industrial expansion and the ecological crisis, the environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s focused more or less on local issues, primarily associated with conservation. Despite gradual progress over time, it was not until the 2000s that diverse environmental conflicts became ‘climate-driven’, coming to be interpreted as expressions of a global climate crisis.Footnote 10 That said, as early as 1995, at the UN’s COP1 climate summit, environmental movements had begun to press for progress on relevant climate agreements.Footnote 11 In Chile, similar dynamics unfolded as activists sought to influence national climate policy while remaining rooted in conflicts at the grassroots.
Even with this general trend, the trajectories of environmental and climate activism have not been homogeneous. In Latin America, it has been expressed through socio-environmental activism and grassroots movements, which have historically fought for the protection of life within the framework of colonial capitalism and extractive practices.Footnote 12 In this sense, despite the global trends that emerged from the 1960s (e.g. Silent Spring),Footnote 13 some authors have highlighted that Latin America already possessed an environmentalism with very deep roots.Footnote 14 Unlike in other parts of the world, the 1970s and 1980s constrained regional environmental activism due to the existence of authoritarian regimes that threatened to violently repress any attempt at popular mobilisation.Footnote 15 Then, with the transitions to democracy in the early 1990s, Latin American countries experienced an increase in neoliberal reforms;Footnote 16 this affected the governance of natural resources and generated an expansion in extractivism,Footnote 17 which has continued into the twenty-first century and has been accompanied by the development of an eco-grassroots turn in the character of regional social struggles.Footnote 18
It is within this regional context that the Chilean case becomes analytically compelling. Previous studies show that Chilean environmental and climate activism has developed a broad repertoire of actions and strategies.Footnote 19 While it has frequently employed protest actions and street demonstrations (e.g. against the HidroAysén and Alto Maipo megaprojects), it has also made intensive use of institutional and formal channels, such as citizen participation mechanisms in the Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental (Environmental Impact Assessment System, SEIA)Footnote 20 and the prosecution of various cases.
In terms of its development, Chilean environmental activism, previously described as a weak political actor and heavily constrained by a neoliberal constitutional framework,Footnote 21 has in recent decades become influential in public policy formulation. Indeed, Chile’s transformation from a country lagging behind in environmental matters to a regional leader in this area,Footnote 22 particularly in the fight against climate change, can be largely attributed to how national environmental and climate activism, along with other social movements, has been able to build coalitions and mechanisms to push for institutional changes and lobby for adherence to international agreements.Footnote 23 This is exemplified by greater access to environmental information and improved opportunities for citizen participation.Footnote 24 In this regard, the relationship with institutional frameworks has been a significant focus of more recent studies, which have highlighted how environmental and climate activism has become involved in political advocacy (e.g. the 2021 Constitutional Convention),Footnote 25 how it interacts with municipal governments, and how it can influence the approval or rejection of investment projects during evaluation processes.Footnote 26 With this in mind, we argue that the Chilean case rewards study insofar as the relationship of environmental and climate activism with the institutional framework has been particularly intense – although no less conflictive for that.
The Chilean case offers a particularly productive site for examining the power and limits of environmental and climate activism. Unlike other Latin American contexts, Chilean activism has combined pragmatism, sustained engagement with institutional frameworks and transnational projection, while remaining deeply shaped by grassroots struggles and the protagonism of Indigenous peoples in defending nature and life.Footnote 27 These features underscore why Chile should not be treated as a simple illustration of global debates, but rather as a case through which to rethink how environmental and climate activism operates under neoliberal governance in Latin America.
Methodology
Methodologically, this article is based on data collected using two approaches: ethnographic and historical. The former corresponds to an ethnographic study (2019–23) conducted with climate activists in Chile, which began with the formation in 2019 of the first network of civil society organisations around the climate problem: the Sociedad Civil por la Acción Climática (Civil Society for Climate Action, SCAC). It brings together some 80 organisations from the Chilean environmental context, including grassroots movements, professional associations, unions and political and academic organisations. Its explicit objective is to raise awareness about the climate emergency, presenting alternative solutions and warning against proposals that do not effectively contribute to improving the relationship between humanity and the environment.
Other networks that emerged from this initiative were subsequently incorporated into the study. It is important to note that, during COVID-19 lockdowns, the study was carried out mainly digitally.Footnote 28 Online meetings were observed and emails and messages were exchanged through different digital platforms. Particular attention was paid to written and spoken interactions, acknowledging the limitations of this digital ethnography: the study followed collective and group spaces, such as virtual meetings and Google groups. Not all the organisations or activists participated digitally in the same manner, due mainly to the difficulties some experienced in accessing technology and their distance from urban centres with internet access.
The research focused initially on creating a database of emails, with prior authorisation from the networks’ members. Contact was then established with the key activists and advocates of the networks identified, of whom 35 of different ages, backgrounds, professions and regions were interviewed. Simultaneously, we participated in 32 meetings and workshops, most of which were virtual, although some were held in-person when possible. In other words, the research took the form of a hybrid ethnographic study that was exclusively neither online nor offline.Footnote 29 By ‘hybrid’ we mean precisely the combination of in-person and digital modalities according to the possibilities and restrictions of each moment: whenever health restrictions allowed, interviews were conducted face-to-face while, during periods when this was not possible, they were carried out digitally.
The interviews focused on four dimensions: the interviewees’ climate and environmental trajectories; their knowledge; their own definitions of climate change; and the organisations to which they belonged and their trajectories within the national and global context of the climate regime, understood as the network of agreements and mechanisms created to address the climate change problem internationally.
All participants signed an informed consent form prior to their involvement in the study.Footnote 30 Participants were fully informed about the objectives of the study, the use to which the information provided would be put, and their right to withdraw at any moment. Their names were disguised through the use of pseudonyms, in accordance with ethical guidelines.
The second approach, historical in nature, aimed to understand how the strategies and forms of organisation of Chilean environmental and climate activism have evolved over time. For this, we focused on compiling primary and secondary data to construct a genealogy of environmental activism in Chile using the Aeon Timeline software, which allowed us to visualise overlaps and changes in global and local trajectories of environmental and climate activism.
According to Michel Foucault, genealogy provides an historical perspective and, as a research method, facilitates understanding of the present through the past.Footnote 31 By analysing the relations between knowledge, power and subjects, it offers conceptual tools to grasp how historical forces have shaped the emergence and current conditions of specific social phenomenaFootnote 32 – in this case, the trajectories and characteristics of environmental and climate activism. Guided by this analytical framework, a genealogy was constructed by interpreting and analysing processes that emerged from the review of archives and documents of activists and organisations mobilised by climate change.Footnote 33
Data collection focused on two interrelated thematic pillars: firstly, on how climate activism changed over time and, secondly, on the importance of the connection between local and global trajectories. In the first pillar, the study sought to throw light on the trajectory of Chilean environmental activism in relation to the historical development of the environmental question in the country. In the second, the study analysed the stages of Chile’s institutional framework on environmental and climate matters, looking at the trajectories of climate change governance at the national level. These national-scale processes constantly interact with the international climate change regime, as described above.Footnote 34
The historical methodology consisted of an extensive review of primary media sources (news related to the different organisations studied, documents from official websites such as statements, books, videos and podcasts) and administrative records (government archives such as proposals for laws and press releases). A catalogue of secondary sources (literature on citizen participation, climate change, environmentalism and environmental history) was also compiled, along with a chronological systematisation of both sets of data using the Aeon Timeline software.
Finally, the genealogy was complemented by the interviews, using indices and thematic analysis.Footnote 35 Of the 35 interviews conducted and analysed using the Atlas.ti qualitative data analysis software, this article focuses specifically on interviews with founders of the country’s principal regional and metropolitan environmental organisations, looking particularly at those that have transitioned to climate activism. The nine interviewees selected and presented in Table 1 address the origins of the citizen environmental movement and its glocal articulation. They are activists of different ages and from different regions and organisations. During the interviews, the authors prioritised those elements that helped to trace the history of the environmental and climate movement.
Interviewees
Table 1 Long description
The table lists nine interviewees with their name, professional description, and approximate age. Most are environmental professionals or advocates, including biologists, lawyers, a journalist, a social worker, a political scientist, and NGO leaders. Ages cluster around about 50, with four people listed near that age. The youngest is Paloma at about 30, and the oldest is Gloria at about 70. Two interviewees are about 35 (Manuel and Pedro), and one is about 40 (Julián). Several are based in the Santiago metropolitan region, while others are described as working in northern or southern Chile or mainly in regional areas. Ages are approximate, so small differences should not be treated as exact.
Glocal Environmental and Climate Activism: Scales, Meanings and Intermediation
Among the skills developed by environmental and climate activists are criticism of the current state of socio-ecological ruin and the promotion of ecological care practices, outside the dominant logic of productivism.Footnote 36 The ability of activism to organise political causes and bring together groups allows them, even in their diversity, to multiply their connections, increasing their influence on policies or resistance to the most concrete effects of the crisis. As Peter Newell et al. point out, these forms of activism tend to build coalitions, alliances and networks within civil society in an attempt to increase their capacity for action.Footnote 37
This article is not a comparative study, but it is possible to observe a common denominator in the cases we have investigated of Chile’s environmental and climate movement over the past 20 years. In the multiplicity of meanings that activism has for the people committed to and involved in it, there are different scales.
Climate policy is determined by the power relations between local, national, regional and international actors. Contemporary social movements operate in glocal processes, that is, in a relational and dynamic way, through global influences that do not land homogeneously in different regions. Notions such as climate change, the environment and activism interact and are translated from local specificities into broader dialogues. Knowledge, agendas and networks of actions are appropriated in local dynamics, acquiring situated meanings. Glocality allows us to move beyond the local/global duality. Global and planetary problems, such as the climate crisis or loss of biodiversity, manifest themselves in localised ways, underscoring the analytical potential of glocality, which allows us to capture how such processes are experienced, interpreted and managed locally. Glocality emphasises multi-scale interdependencies and the processes of co-production of meanings, practices and forms of governance.Footnote 38 In defining glocality, Erik Swyngedouw introduces the idea of ‘politics of scale’ to show the need to generate collective strategies that do not sacrifice the loyalties or particularities of local movements’ demands.Footnote 39
However, criticism of the excessive emphasis placed on the international dimension and networks has highlighted how the global can obscure the local dimension in which organisations are created and operate.Footnote 40 Contrary to what some believe, the local contexts of these organisations and activists seem to play a key role in mediating meanings and shaping collective action itself. Situated climate responses are consistent with broader climate governance frameworks that cannot ignore multi-scale political contexts.
Another characteristic of global environmental and climate activism is its growing universality. This has been reflected in how climate action, especially at the local level, is shaped by multi-level governance frameworks, collaborative practices and institutional networks, and approaches that challenge universalising discourses, highlighting the structural inequalities that underlie climate change. See, for example, the work of James Goodman, which delves into the transition from global justice to climate justice;Footnote 41 or that of David N. Pellow on the critical model of environmental justice.Footnote 42 Including the notion of intersectionality, as developed by Giovanna Di Chiro from Black feminist thought and social justice activism, offers a key analytical tool for understanding how local responses to climate change are not neutral, but are traversed by multiple identities and intertwined systems of oppression.Footnote 43
Another feature of activism, however basic it may sound, is the manifestation of politics (through various concepts such as justice, governance, climate action, among others). Here it is possible to observe interactions that reveal a scientification of politics and a politicisation of science. While scientists create simulations and scenarios to analyse causes and effects, social movements capture the attention of the rest of society, with activism that uses scientific forecasts as a framework to attract a large audience and pressure national governments and other climate policy actors to adopt stricter measures. Science provides a ‘certification’ that confers legitimacy and neutrality on activist discourse because, in many cases, it is considered apolitical and based on empirical claims.
In turn, scientists seem to value the role of activists. As Gregor Hagedorn et al. point out, in many countries scientists have supported the demands of environmental movements and vice versa.Footnote 44 In this sense, activism seems to amplify scientific messages, playing a central role in raising public awareness, for example through educational campaigns and bringing science to places where it does not have sufficient visibility.
Finally, another characteristic that has begun to be attributed to environmental and climate activism is its role as an intermediary agent. Climate governance consists of a multi-level network of interactions between the different actors involved in climate-related decisions. These interactions require the deployment of codes and language necessary for exchange. Within this network, the scientific–technical world can be considered the ‘owner’ of the problem. In this framework, activists seek to penetrate and enter this world, but without necessarily possessing an ‘authoritative voice’. During participatory experiments civil society creates its own spaces to address knowledge asymmetries, especially when the skills of experts are prioritised over others.Footnote 45 However, despite adaptation, these processes often reveal communicative tensions, which can take the form of contradictions and even ontological dissent.
For Morgan Meyer, intermediation consists of interpreting technical information and acting as a bridge between the scientific–technical world and civil society, providing those affected with access to technical information.Footnote 46 In fact, he considers that this capacity of activists is a form of knowledge that defines an intermediate space in which a series of adaptive actions are carried out. Although the distinction between expert and non-expert knowledge is largely artificial, as activists are usually intermingled in different scientific, academic, political or associative spheres, the intermediary experience created by activists not only involves the production of ‘counter-experience’, but also encourages the circulation of knowledge, strengthening, transforming, deconstructing and reconstructing it to meet local needs at a given moment. In short, activists incorporate, interpret and mobilise data, resources and documents, integrating them into their climate-related actions because they can enter the political or scientific world, demonstrating a great capacity for adaptation and transformation.Footnote 47
Glocal Articulation in the Configuration of Chile’s Climate Change Regime
Climate change is one of the century’s most complex international problems.Footnote 48 International summits were already being held in the 1980s, establishing climate change as a public-interest problem, with its particular actors, communities and dynamics of problematisation.Footnote 49 In Chile, this process was gradual and slow-moving. Its roots can be traced back to the mid-twentieth century, when in the 1950s and 1960s a small section of civil society began organising to advance environmental initiatives in a quest for collaboration and connectedness in support of the nation’s conservation, a process that would gain broader momentum only decades later.Footnote 50 This was reflected in the creation of the first associations for the protection of animals, flora and fauna, established in 1955 and 1968.Footnote 51 In the early 1970s, political debate in Chile focused on ‘styles of development’, nationalisation processes, the control and ownership of natural resources and redistributive justice.Footnote 52 Towards 1974, under Augusto Pinochet’s civic–military dictatorship, NGOs of a more general nature began to be founded and these organisations, which focused above all on human rights in the context of the dictatorship, laid the groundwork for a more institutionalised and robust environmental movement in the future. These NGOs became havens for anti-dictatorship activists and professionals who were in touch with and received support from political movements and parties abroad.
Under Pinochet’s dictatorship, human rights and development NGOs built an organisational infrastructure that sustained oppositional professionals and transnational networks under authoritarian rule. This NGO ecosystem generated institutional practices, funding mechanisms and repertoires of action that survived the democratic transition. Post-dictatorship environmental organisations, such as the Instituto de Ecología Política (Political Ecology Institute, IEP), adopted these organisational forms and advocacy strategies. Consequently, Chile’s environmental movement emerged not in an institutional vacuum, but from the civil society structures and skills forged during the dictatorship.
The challenge of these early environmental organisations was to unite and organise previously disparate movements and, at the same time, establish connections with the international stage.Footnote 53 This strategy can be seen as a way of taking advantage of glocal ties made in the dictatorial period to connect local environmental movements. According to Gloria (an academic and founder of Chile’s first major ecological and environmental networks, who was involved in the origins of the Chilean environmental movement and, in the 2000s, went on to lead efforts addressing the climate problem),Footnote 54 these incipient organisations were spearheaded by professionals, academics and representatives of civil society. They sought to draw attention to the country’s environmental challenges and pioneered the joining together of over 80 grassroots organisations and incipient NGOs (Gloria, October 2021). The aim was not only to join forces nationally, but also to go further. The objective in the 1970s was to ‘link and connect through a network the work of different citizen organisations in Chile, which have undertaken specific ecological actions in their communities or have worked permanently in the environmental area around the country, in order to strengthen their actions. It [the objective] was also to establish work ties with environmental organisations worldwide’ (Gloria, October 2021). In fact, environmental actions during those years were very diverse and had different objectives. As one interviewee pointed out, ‘They were mainly actions to conserve the Araucaria and Alerce trees … then many other campaigns were launched to protect whales and native forests, and raise awareness about desertification. Environmental education and the production of teaching materials were very useful in those years because they had not existed before’ (Rocío, August 2021).
Despite the ties established by environmental movements, they played little or no role when Chile began to establish a climate institutional framework. Chile’s climate regime evolved gradually into an institutional policy which was heavily influenced by the international arena. There were institutional initiatives that contained undertakings within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1992, but left aside the participation of civil society. This trajectory shows how global institutional influences can unfold problematically at the local scale when the capacities of civil society to speak and act upon the problem of climate change are not recognised.
Mediating between the Scientific–Technical World and Civil Society
International state cooperation supported NGOs and social organisations in Chile. For instance, in 1979, the Centro de Investigación y Planificación del Medio Ambiente (Centre for Environmental Research and Planning, CIPMA) established ties with international networks to incorporate environmental variables into business projects and the country’s public policies. CIPMA’s technical–scientific nature is evident both in the university setting from which it emerged and in the type of actions carried out by its members, who were mostly professionals and academics. An important outcome of these efforts was the production of scientific evidence on such important national topics as the mining industry and the imbalance between equity, conservation and growth.Footnote 55 In the second half of the 1980s, a range of organisations and centres of reflectionFootnote 56 were focusing on the post-dictatorship transformation of the political regime and the economic development model in force, including ‘an alternative philosophy for development’Footnote 57 – without neglecting the struggle for human rights. In practice, each organisation sought international support independently, leveraging contacts with political parties, academics and networks of exiles. This entailed learning the language of international NGOs and international cooperation policies. In this way, a sector of professional middle-class activists emerged, who became versed in seeking networks of cooperation through the presentation of fundable project proposals. It comprised NGOs and teams of scientists and professionals from different fields such as law, sociology, economics and biology.
The formation of technical teams to study different cases of environmental degradation for their presentation to the authorities was a key feature of this period and a means of observing the intermediary agency of these early environmentalists, who found in technical and scientific language a way to highlight environmental grassroots problems to a broader audience.
One emblematic case was the defence of Lake Chungará by the Comité Nacional Pro Defensa de la Flora y Fauna (Committee for the Defence of Flora and Fauna, CODEFF) in 1985. CODEFF was founded in 1968 by Godofredo Stutzin and Jürgen Rottmann with the aim of protecting and level.
Godofredo Stutzin was the promoter of this committee, since at that time there was no organisation that protected wildlife or natural heritage. So the original vision was to protect or rescue our country’s natural heritage for future generations … he had a lot of interaction with international conservation organisations such as the IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature]. (Rocío, August 2021)
Within this framework, CODEFF used the scant legal mechanisms available to halt water extraction, employing technical–legal language to press the case. Its legal appeal also included scientific studies from the University of Tarapacá, providing evidence that contributed to the favourable ruling obtained.Footnote 58 CODEFF was the first organisation to use legal mechanisms and scientific studies to protect the environment.
By the late 1980s, environmental organisations were increasingly using technical language in cases before the courts. At around the same time, the first network, the Red Nacional de Acción Ecológica (National Ecological Action Network, Renace), was formed. It was regarded by some as a type of large environmentalist confederation,Footnote 59 and it went on to lay the foundations for the debate around Chile’s first environmental legislation. This first large grouping, with an international reach, brought together previously disparate environmental movements to defend environmental rights and address problems in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay as well as Chile.
The transformations that occurred in the 1990s at the academic, political and citizen levels were reflected in the establishment of growing concern about the environment in Chile.Footnote 60 Between 1992 and 2009, what could be termed the ‘environmental question’ as a concern of activists and the professional–scientific world as well as for public policy began to lay the political foundations for the issue of climate change at the national level.
Taking the Problem to the Regional and Local Level
The first linkages of the 1990s created collective spaces that also revealed the importance of local problems. Gloria, who coordinated the creation of the first network of ecological movements, recalls that it was shaped by the identification of environmental problems around the country. From the 1990s onwards, the environmental question was gradually introduced in universities, research centres and NGOs. From diagnosing and protesting against problems, these actors went on to propose solutions.Footnote 61 For instance, in the political field, Chile established its first environmental institution, the Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente (National Commission for the Environment, CONAMA) in 1994.
National policies gradually began to respond to global approaches to climate change. In 1996, the Comité Nacional Asesor sobre Cambio Global (National Advisory Committee on Global Change, CNACG) was established, and the Ministry of Foreign Relations acquired responsibility for negotiating environmental matters internationally.Footnote 62 From the late 1990s, Chile’s undertakings under the UNFCCC formed part of the country’s environmental policy, marking the start of the incorporation of climate change under CONAMA, which also played a central role in coordinating international cooperation.
Until at least 1996, Chilean policymakers and technical agencies framed climate change as a manageable technological and economic problem, addressing it primarily from the standpoint of emissions reduction.Footnote 63 As a result, local problems acquired ever greater importance in the face of the limited scope of global agreements between companies and governments. Insofar as they had concrete objectives that were viable in the short and medium term, national activist organisations raised local issues and problems, questioning the behaviour of Chile’s post-dictatorship governments.Footnote 64
With the transition to democracy, Chile’s environmental movement entered a new phase. The environmental activism of the time, centred around organisations like CODEFF and the IEP, sought to promote an environmental agenda in President Patricio Aylwin’s democratic administration (1990–4). Local and neighbourhood spaces assumed new forms of power and means of negotiating with the transitional government.Footnote 65 Activists mobilised around environmental issues were already beginning to play an intermediary role, voicing local demands in a framework of centralised and global political actions.
In this new context, citizen activism faced a reconfiguration of its political work in which the state also became a participant on the political stage, along with NGOs and international agents. This implied the professionalisation of NGOs and an increased role for them as institutional interlocutors. The transition to democracy meant the presence of forces more sympathetic to environmentalism in government, with some of the professionals and intellectuals from the NGOs of the 1980s taking up positions in it, while others returned to their origins in academia.
Direct interlocution (within the government) and indirect interlocution (NGOs and academia) with the state called for professionalisation and media influence. In response, research centres and NGOs presented specialised technical proposals intended to address local environmental problems and to establish a techno-scientific language which would facilitate dialogue between the political and environmental spheres of the time.
The professionalisation of environmental activism harnessed the work of professionals and activists advising grassroots movements which sought to advance grassroots demands but often lacked the professional competences to do so. They advocated agendas on behalf of the environmental movements, which sought to promote public policies to ‘institutionalise the movement’ (Gloria, October 2021).
The international climate change arena also contributed to the strengthening of Chile’s environmental institutions. The country’s increasingly institutionalised activism played an important role in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Chile’s participation illustrates how environmental activism operated as an intermediary actor, mobilising international arenas to strengthen domestic institutional capacities while simultaneously translating global climate concerns into nationally intelligible policy instruments.
Gloria’s network and other activists participated in the establishment of a regional programme on energy and climate change within the framework of the signing of the 1992 Convention on Climate Change at Rio. According to Gloria, the international context had a crucial impact on Chile’s introduction of its General Framework for the Environment Law (no. 19.300 of 1994), without which ‘we would have been put back another five years’. This law enabled Chile’s delegation to go to Rio with ‘a basic structure of three management instruments’: the requirement for a ‘compulsory environmental impact study or, in other words, [a means] to prevent economic activity from causing damage’; a ‘procedure for establishing emissions and environmental quality norms; and … [a] procedure for [establishing] decontamination plans’. Local problems such as air pollution were thus beginning to acquire relevance locally (Gloria, October 2021).
The interview with Gloria reveals an early form of glocal articulation, in which international climate negotiations not only shaped national environmental legislation but also provided legitimacy and leverage for activists seeking to institutionalise environmental concerns within the Chilean state.
With the adoption of the UNFCCC (1992) and COP1 (1995) in Berlin, Chile began to establish its first institutional climate change undertakings in the framework of international negotiations, laying the groundwork for the development of its political approach to climate change. This was reflected in institutional initiatives such as the creation of the CNACG (1996) and of the first Comité Interministerial en Cambio Climático (Interministerial Committee on Climate Change) (1999), and the definition of the political pillars of the area in the Lineamientos Estratégicos en Materia de Cambio Climático (Strategic Guidelines on Climate Change) promulgated by the CNACG in 1998.
However, the technocratic and business-oriented aspect of the institutional structure developed at this time reproduced the country’s existing development model. This was at odds with the position of environmental movements, which were critical of the model and eager to open new political spaces for the discussion of environmental matters. In contrast, the working groups that defined climate-related tasks were formed by technical bodies and representatives of economic sectors, business and state bodies related to economic development.Footnote 66 These actors failed to take into account the importance of local knowledge and specific regional and local characteristics in discussion of climate change, something that environmental movements had been advocating for years.
The tension between a technocratic, business-oriented climate framework and grassroots environmental demands became a defining feature of Chile’s emerging climate regime, situating activism in a contentious intermediary position rather than as a formal policy actor. As a result, the first environmental movements to address the climate problem faced at least three challenges. The first, which implied confronting the public and private sectors, was to question the neoliberal idea of growth.Footnote 67 Secondly, they had to act in a context in which the Concertación governments were seeking to combat poverty and inequality against a background of a lack of resources and internal financing.Footnote 68 Thirdly, the environmental movements had to counteract the state’s lack of trust in overseas organisations installed during the dictatorship, owing to their opposition to the military regime. These challenges underscore how environmental activism in Chile was compelled to navigate multiple structures simultaneously, balancing grassroots legitimacy, international connectedness and internal political acceptability. In other words, the first organisations that appeared in the late 1980s had to seek to gain legitimacy and devise strategies to avoid being regarded as ‘suspect’. According to Gloria, they did so through recourse to ‘allied’ academics and lawyers. The objective was to ‘bring professional expertise to a movement whose base was primarily linked to addressing grassroots environmental problems, but which had no professional know-how’.
Creating and Connecting Collectivities
The 1990s marked a crucial moment in which environmental activism in Chile sought to transform disparate grassroots struggles into connected collectivities capable of engaging with national and international policy arenas.Footnote 69 Anchored in an extractivist economy dependent on mining, forestry and aquaculture, both the state and private actors rhetorically cast activism as ‘anti-development’, delegitimising demands for environmental protection as a threat to national economic growth.Footnote 70 However, faced with the urgency of establishing multilateral limits, the idea of ‘sustainable development’ began to gain acceptance nationally and internationally as an appropriate framework for rapid advance. This shift occurred because the belief that climate change had scientific solutions began to crumble and it somehow needed to be reconciled with economic growth. In the organisations which Gloria led ‘the objective … was [to have] influence on public policies for a sustainable society, sustainable development in Chile’.
Climate activism faced the challenge of creating a new political consistency,Footnote 71 particularly because climate policy at both the international and national scales had primarily been designed under a top-down logic. In Chile, although the organisations did not succeed in opening a political space capable of challenging the leading role of political parties, collectives were formed that precisely identified the problematic relation between environmental degradation and the type of development pursued.
Given that, according to government policy, businesspeople were responsible for leading economic development,Footnote 72 activists opted to pursue other routes by seeking to relate environmental degradation and development. The key here was to articulate and institutionalise the environmental movements. Starting in the late 1990s, the main environmental organisations sought to influence public policy in order to change the country’s development model: ‘There was a tremendous … there was the tremendous challenge of institutionalising the movement in order to capitalise institutionally on stability as an interlocutor, and then many organisations began to make connections’ (Gloria, October 2021).
As the interviewees explained, it was difficult in the 1990s for activists to ignore the challenge of ‘economic growth’ propounded by post-dictatorship governments if they wanted to secure a place in the public sphere. They therefore concentrated on specific problems and on obtaining funding from abroad. As a result, their forms of action were not so different from those of the countries financing them. This facilitated the internationalisation of their campaigns and a shared expression of goals and values.
One effect of this situation was that, although demands were local, the main organisations were based in Santiago. According to Sandra, these were ‘the ones with most influence’ (Sandra, August 2021). These metropolitan organisations harnessed the notion of sustainability in a bid to address the issues of equity, democracy and environmental justice. Thus, the narrative began to shift:
We had to start by making this identity of a new social movement in Chile visible and cohesive, with a new issue that lacked a language. Then, institutionalise it, professionalise it and clearly provide it with the chance of a trajectory and sustainability in a context where, in Chile, national philanthropy does not exist, except for very specific cases linked to companies … There was no funding for this [environmental] sphere and it ran counter to the drive for, say, forestry expansion, mining expansion, agro-export expansion … it was a movement [that was seen as] paradigmatically dangerous. (Gloria, October 2021, emphasis added)
For the activists who participated in the origin and definition of the problem, the ‘environmental question’ meant, first, institutionalising the environmental movement in a context marked by fear. At least 80 organisations built these connections, gradually establishing a language of environmental concerns. This involved identifying common themes. Although some emerged from the regions through grassroots organisations, many referred to ‘specific [matters] of ecological action because it was a bit risky to use discourses too close to the language of philosophy or politics’ (Gloria, October 2021). This idea is reinforced in the following quote:
Here, we had to talk about pollution and health problems in Santiago … we had to talk about health impacts, asbestosis in the case of industry, or silicosis in mining or, say, the Errázuriz landfill in the Estación Central area where all of Santiago’s waste went. These were issues approached from a perspective much more focused on impacts on health and the grassroots, but trying to exclude those elements that could appear dangerously confrontational with the military sector because that was, well, risky; everyone worked under great tension. (Gloria, October 2021)
Gloria also notes that it was necessary to talk about ‘what is obvious today’ (i.e. in 2021, when she gave her interview). In other words, what were mere suggestions of environment problems in the 1980s and 1990s were repeated until they were evident:
This is the moment when the identity of a movement calling itself ecologist or of ecological action is born because we were facing environmental problems or problems that extractive activities were causing in the environment and to people’s health. I think this was very important because the concept or identity of the movement was built based on the occurrence of concrete events in the grassroots, so … and that is very interesting because it gave [us] a great deal of legitimacy in the transition … So, the political sector finally accepted it, and we worked with … different movements, women’s movements, workers’ movements. We worked to ensure that the transition had an environmental agenda, and we succeeded. (Gloria, October 2021, emphasis added)
Activists’ participation in the public sphere played a crucial role in the establishment of environmental regulation in Chile. As Javiera Barandiarán points out, in the 1990s both academics and activists drew attention to the environmental, economic and social impacts of the neoliberal policies implemented during and after the military dictatorship.Footnote 73 In this context, the environmental question gradually became established as a response to the lack of environmental legislation, with civil society assuming an increasingly prominent role. ‘The role of civil society is fundamental in the face of environmental and social problems. It’s up to us to ensure that the authorities are compelled to change their priorities … Now people are dissatisfied and environmental issues have become so evident that you can’t just blame the authorities. We, as citizens, have a role too’ (Pía, July 2021, emphasis added).
As Gloria Baigorrotegui points out, the environmental question also has to do with the mobilisation of knowledge.Footnote 74 Although the leitmotif for participation in mobilisations is defence of place, local problems raised by citizens gradually began to transcend the local sphere. This led to the appearance of more over-arching issues, such as opposition to policies promoting the privatisation of water and land and demand for the establishment and professionalisation of environmental institutions. Over time, the environmental movement shifted from specific demands to broader issues and more comprehensive umbrella groups.
Gloria explains that, at one point, she left her other jobs (at the university and as head of a foundation) in favour of ‘grassroots and political’ work. This involved ‘taking on the challenge’, as she puts it, of linking grassroots organisations related to local environmental problems and, at the time, ‘without professional capabilities’, and beginning to build networks among diverse organisations with expertise in different thematic areas. These efforts gave the movement its glocality, but were not without tensions. Sandra, for example, as an activist from an organisation outside Santiago, is more critical of the influence of metropolitan organisations: ‘You have everything at hand; the further away you are, the harder it is to have influence. In that sense, it’s easier to influence power but the most interesting things are generated at the level of the movement. It’s there where experiences are generated that contribute to more centralised discussions’ (Sandra, August 2021, emphasis added).
The relationship between ‘the grassroots’ and centralised influence is essential for sustaining environmental activism insofar as problems transcend regional boundaries and the ‘locality’. While discussions at the metropolitan level focused on building a national environmental agenda, the experiences of local communities and grassroots activism were crucial for stabilising common issues. Unlike the apocalyptic narratives and great mobilisations by organisations such as Fridays For Future (FFF) and Extinction Rebellion (XR), the involvement of activists and advocates in the climate question fosters new connections between grassroots movements and central organisations.Footnote 75 Despite the tensions, alliances with FFF and XR are seen as opportunities to collaborate. As one leader noted during a meeting of environmental and climate organisations, ‘COP isn’t the solution; it’s a space in which to address issues’ (field notes, December 2022).
These tensions between metropolitan influence and grassroots experience reveal that glocality is not a seamless whole but a contested process, in which power asymmetries shape how local demands are translated into national agendas and international negotiations.
The Environmental Movement’s Transition to the Problem of Climate Change
It is through these contested processes of linking, professionalisation and intermediation that environmental activism in Chile progressively transitioned towards the climate problem, reframing local environmental conflicts within the broader language of global climate governance.
Following the failure of UN-led multilateralism at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, the international climate change regime entered a third phase, characterised by a restatement of the problem. In other words, while consensus about the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) increased, the global discourse, both academically and politically, shifted towards adaptation as the priority. However, the international climate regime was unable to address a crisis that called for a global response.Footnote 76
In Chile, this marked the beginning of a phase of implementation of actions within the framework of climate change policy, with international support (2009–12). Environmental civil society organisations emerged with a narrative different from the idea of ‘inclusive and sustainable development’ promoted by the Chilean government.
Civil society organisations established a Mesa Ciudadana sobre Cambio Climático (Citizen Roundtable on Climate Change) in 2014, after the unification of different civil society organisations related to climate change. This occurred in a context of increasing opportunities for citizen participation and public consultation in the preparation of Chile’s response to the Contribución Determinada a Nivel Nacional (Nationally Determined Contribution, NDC) and Plan Nacional de Adaptación (National Adaptation Plan).Footnote 77 In addition, the Environment Ministry created a new division for climate change, and the Plan de Acción Nacional de Cambio Climático 2017–22 (National Climate Change Action Plan, PANCC-II) was announced.Footnote 78 According to Marcelo Mena, at the time Environment Minister under President Michelle Bachelet, this plan sought to establish the ‘first steps towards that green, low-carbon growth that fosters clean and renewable technologies and, ultimately, enables our children to live better in a Chile of the future’.Footnote 79
Although the Citizen Roundtable on Climate Change had been preparing content for a climate-focused agenda linked to COP25 (Madrid, 2019, under the auspices of the Chilean presidency) since 2014, it was in 2019 that the first network of climate change organisations was set up. Its aim was to organise an Alternative Civil Society Summit alongside COP25, which it viewed as ‘an opportunity to demand what we had to demand’ (Rocío, August 2021).
As noted above, SCAC was created in 2019 as a national platform of environmental organisations bringing together more than 80 organisations from the environmental world, grassroots movements, professional associations, unions, political organisations and academics. According to one of SCAC’s founders and spokespersons, ‘climate change as an issue was always present, but it gained more momentum within environmentalism … I’d say as from 2009, from Copenhagen onwards, and then … but still not much because it seemed very futile to engage in that space’ (Julián, September 2021). Although the members of NGOs and organisations ‘had it in their sights’, climate change had yet to become a cause for those who had spent years working on environmental problems, whether from the legal standpoint or through activism – areas that, in Julián’s case, are interconnected. In 2009, he was working as a volunteer at an important Chilean NGO focusing on the legal sphere:
At that time [the NGO where I worked was] much more focused solely on legal aspects; there was no space … But I understand that, around 2008–2009, there was something called the Red de Justicia Climática (Climate Justice Network) … Personally, I became much more involved as from 2012. That’s when we began to see its importance a bit more. (Julián, September 2021)
Both Julián and other members interviewed reported that, while there had already been collaboration between environmental organisations prior to COP25, it was that COP that prompted them to start really working together. Julián describes this as a duty: ‘COP was coming and there had to be a parallel COP, the local environmental movement had to organise a parallel COP as part of its obligations.’ Similarly for Sandra, who worked outside the Santiago metropolitan region, COP25 was crucial: ‘In the context of COP, debates and the search for organisations that could produce information intensified, and we went to Santiago and joined SCAC’ (Sandra, August 2021).
Today, SCAC’s founders see it as the main climate action platform. While they were preparing for COP25, discussions among its members focused on defining actions, as explained by a leader from northern Chile: ‘We gradually arrived at the concept of climate crisis … as a call to action, discussing issues with a broad perspective and proposing solutions’ (Manuel, September 2021).
The glocality of climate change established a significant space for the activists. Rather than a ‘wicked problem’,Footnote 80 the concept of climate change became a space for participation and learning:
The level of intensity of environmental, or, sorry, climatic phenomena is something we are seeing, we are super witnesses of what is happening … with major floods, great fires, mega-droughts. So, it’s something where you say, well, there are all the authorities or great leaders at COP26, to be held now in Glasgow, and they have to figure out what’s happening with the Paris Agreement, its implementation and everything. (Rocío, August 2021)
The climate crisis brings with it urgency, calling for swift actions to solve local problems, such as floods, large-scale wildfires and mega-droughts. When referring to the international arena, Rocío distinguished between ‘climatic phenomena’ and ‘environmental issues’. Here, Rocío initially invoked ‘environmental’ as a general category, but then corrected herself to emphasise ‘climatic phenomena’, referring to the intensified local manifestations of climate change (such as floods, wildfires and mega-droughts) which she explicitly linked to international climate governance arenas.
The organisation’s actions enable it to reconceptualise the notions and work on the basis of scientific, political and legal evidence: ‘SCAC influences, it’s organised around having an influence, and that influence, with interesting theoretical and scientific foundations … they’ve also introduced issues like the rights of nature, you can see that it has a foundation in certain concepts, the work is based on certain concepts’ (Pedro, August 2021).
The Chilean climate movement imports dynamics and concepts from the global arena while also seeking to create new narratives at home. The activists draw on languages and motivations that were already present in the environmental movement in the 1990s and even before the dictatorship, such as advocacy in a political context that has however been slow to integrate organised civil society into climate governance. The climate problem is forging new mobilising linkages in the Chilean environmental movement, creating original networks to address a problem that lacks an easy solution.Footnote 81
The emerging climate activist movement maintains dynamics from the environmental movement. Those who led Chile’s early environmental movements transitioned to the climate movement, retaining features of the former’s dynamics: university and academic networks and international cooperation within the climate movement; questioning of the development model and proposals for its transformation or alternatives; and the quest to influence public policy, which is omnipresent in the climate movement. The latter implies exerting pressure on decision-makers, with activists serving as the ‘spearhead’ to ensure that demands are taken into account in political spheres. In line with this, activists indicate the need to promote ever more ‘ambition’ and, ultimately, socio-environmental movements and scientists are seen as counterparts to the state, raising awareness of the problem and generating evidence, demanding action, negotiating with and ‘guiding’ the government. ‘What we have to do is find opportunities within the [social] effervescence to introduce certain concepts … It’s about identifying favourable junctures and opportunities within the current situation’ (Paloma, July 2021).
Activists seek influence within the institutional framework by participating in working groups at ministries and in hearings before Congress, and by supporting smaller organisations:
We cannot be indifferent to the suffering there is in the regions. It’s an opportunity to connect, to contribute information, data and networks. There is discrimination against knowledge about these issues, it’s important to be transparent … We consider local knowledge very important, as a matter of historical and epistemic justice. We also strive to ensure that all voices are heard and valued. (Sandra, August 2021)
In this sense, the challenge for the movement is to anchor climate activism in concrete issues, specific to Chile, aligning the climate cause not only with the national agenda, but also with local problems such as water scarcity:
I would say, in general, that, today, SCAC is not 100 per cent about climate. There’s a core of SCAC that remains engaged with climate. We [at our NGO] are indeed working on climate, we participate in and put forward observations to the NDC [policy committee]. I was on the Comité Asesor para la Acción Climática [Advisory Committee on Climate Policy], and we made comments on climate policy, but we [the NGO] are also [taking part] in the reform of the Código de Aguas [Water Code], the law [setting up] the Servicio de Biodiversidad y Áreas Protegidas [Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service, SBAP], the Ley de Glaciares [Glaciers Law] and the Plan de Descarbonización [Decarbonisation Plan], 2020–5. These are issues on the national agenda, not climate issues linked to [for example] COP26 [Glasgow, 2021], but they also have to do with the climate agenda, you see. Because the climate agenda includes decarbonisation, carbon budget limits – which, if we continue as we are, we won’t achieve by 2040 – and the issue of water and water scarcity. In fact, water insecurity is Chile’s main problem in the face of climate change. There’s no other. The main one is water scarcity and the scarcity is for cities, for agriculture and food security and for hydroelectric generation … it’s all interconnected. (Pedro, August 2021)
As indicated in this quote, the climate crisis cannot be confined to a single issue. Instead, it encompasses a multitude of problems on which activists must take a position.
Final Reflections
In this article, we argue that, given the breadth of the range of environmental problems, activists’ positioning at an intermediate point is not stable but, rather, calls for constant adjustment and reinvention, translating the problem of climate change into concrete actions whilst its agents also participate in international arenas. At the international level, a civil society seeking to increase its participation faces numerous difficulties, particularly in the context of a very fragile climate governance framework that is already struggling to manage this multi-scalar problem. These difficulties include a lack of resources, the crisis of multilateralism and a geopolitical situation fragmented into some states with consolidated economies and others less able to exert influence.
Chile’s military regime had an effect on the language and actions of environmental activism. During the dictatorship, activism sought to establish itself in technical terms, avoiding overly political language. It gradually formed connections with movements condemning the dictatorship’s human rights violations while efforts to access international financing taught it a multilateral language that, at the time, did not exist in Chile. Subsequently, the country’s transition to democracy provided an opportunity for activism to play a crucial role in demands for stronger environmental institutions and efforts to influence environmental policies. In this way, the environmental movement began to forge a space in the international arena while making connections and positioning itself domestically.
The emphasis on growth in the discourse of the 1990s shaped Chilean environmentalism, which had to adapt to the importance attached to the idea of development after the dictatorship. At the same time, the movement underwent a process of professionalisation and institutionalisation in a context where both citizens and public institutions regarded activism with suspicion. Its professionalisation enabled the movement to leverage the judicial system as an arena for defending environmental causes.
The environmental and climate movement incorporated professionals, scientists and experts to back its demands with technical arguments and establish its legitimacy regarding the public problem of climate change. As demonstrated here, it gradually had to seek alliances and broaden its scope to address different dimensions of the climate crisis, such as water privatisation.
In Chile, the gradual local institutionalisation of the environmental movement, the belated development of the political foundations for addressing climate change through the country’s institutional framework, and the contradictions of the leadership of the international climate change regime were critical in activism’s climatisation. This reveals the glocality of Chile’s environmental and climate movement. Despite the difficulties and challenges faced by climate activism, its ability to respond to the international arena as well as challenges at home gave it an intermediate position, neither within the scientific community nor within government. The proposals and actions of mobilised organisations overtook national policies. By connecting local and grassroots actions through networks with regional organisations in a framework of centralised policies, they open out political spaces, reconceptualising and installing discourses anchored in their own voice.
Although a language did not initially exist and had to be invented, the climate movement adopted dynamics and mobilised causes that have their origin in the environmental movement. Thanks to the consensus that climate change poses an important risk for Chile that must be managed and requires the involvement of civil society in all its diversity, organisations of climate activists responded, creating a voice and opening a space for themselves in Chilean and international negotiations.
Chilean climate activism faces a dynamic future shaped by hybrid strategies that combine protest, legal action, technical expertise and community-based professionalisation, while strengthening glocal networks and alliances with other social movements. Yet it must confront persistent challenges such as limited resources, internal fragmentation, enduring neoliberal constraints, fragile multilateralism and societal mistrust. Current trends toward flexibilisation of environmental regulations add new pressures, while the urgency of the crisis and scarcity of resources force activists to prioritise their involvement, as they cannot intervene in all arenas simultaneously. In this context, Chilean climate activism emerges as a key actor linking local struggles with global climate governance.
Several potential orientations can be identified concerning the future trajectory of Chilean climate activism. First, activists are likely to continue diversifying their actions, combining technical expertise, legal mobilisation and contestation. Strengthening glocal networks will remain key, enabling local actors to articulate their demands in international arenas while also translating global discourses into contextually relevant narratives. Building coalitions with allied movements – such as those focused on water rights, Indigenous struggles and social justice – may further expand the legitimacy and reach of climate activism. Secondly, persistent barriers will continue to shape the field. These include limited financial resources, the fragility of multilateral climate governance and the enduring constraints of Chile’s neoliberal economic model. Finally, despite these constraints, important openings exist. Growing public awareness of climate impacts, from droughts to wildfires, has heightened societal urgency. The increasing role of youth and transnational networks also provides momentum for a more inclusive and dynamic movement.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the participants in this research, particularly the members of SCAC who opened their doors to us and took the time to answer our questions, even during difficult times in the midst of the pandemic and the estallido social. We also would like to thank the anonymous referees and editors for their enriching and positive comments, which helped to substantially improve this manuscript.
Funding statement
This study was funded by ANID/FONDECYT/Regular 1240517.
