A recent study highlights a worldwide rise in efforts to suppress climate and environmental activism through laws, violence, and vilification. Indigenous land defenders face the highest risks, with over 2,100 such activists killed globally between 2012 and 2023. The report warns that repression will likely intensify under authoritarian policies, including those in the United States.
A study published in December 2025 in the journal Environmental Politics details how governments and non-state actors are increasingly repressing climate protests across 14 countries. Researchers from the University of Bristol describe a 'repertoire of repression' that includes new anti-protest legislation, misuse of legal systems, police crackdowns, public vilification, and even lethal violence. This approach, they argue, is not a side effect of climate policy but a deliberate strategy to undermine environmental movements.
The study notes that climate protests have grown steadily since 2018, prompting varied responses. In the United States and United Kingdom, laws now impose criminal penalties for actions targeting 'critical infrastructure' such as pipelines. In the Philippines, authorities use 'red-tagging' to label Indigenous activists as communists or terrorists, shifting focus from climate issues. In Georgia, USA, protesters opposing the 'Cop City' police training facility—built on deforested land—face domestic terrorism charges with sentences up to 35 years. Tragically, activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was shot at least 57 times and killed, in what experts call the first such killing of an environmental activist by US security forces.
Indigenous defenders bear the brunt, comprising 43 percent of over 2,100 land and environmental defenders murdered worldwide from 2012 to 2023, mostly in Latin America, according to Global Witness. Co-author Oscar Berglund explained, 'Since colonization, Indigenous people have defended and put their bodies in the way of environmental destruction... you often find that Indigenous peoples are leading struggles against mining or fossil fuel extraction.'
Under President Donald Trump, who re-entered office this year and exited the Paris Agreement again, repression has escalated. Companies are dropping climate commitments amid backlash against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. In October, Trump directed federal agencies to review reports from conservative think tanks linking groups like the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity to 'antifa' networks. Berglund noted, 'It’s delegitimizing these actors and making them invisible... That enables the violence against them.'
The authors outline three impacts: deterrence through legal and violent threats, public delegitimization of activists as 'eco-terrorists,' and diversion of discourse from climate urgency to 'extremism.' As authoritarian regimes rollback policies, such tactics are poised to worsen, creating a 'permissive environment' for impunity.
