Rising Tide UK

Rising Tide UK is the United Kingdom part of the International Rising Tide Network, both of which were created in 2000 to carry out direct action against the root causes of climate change, and to work towards a fossil fuel free future. RTUK takes a no-compromise position and believes that only the complete dismantling of the fossil fuel industry and a shift to low consumption lifestyles will be sufficient to halt climate change.

Rising Tide UK is formed of regional and local groups in the UK, and supports networks of similar groups around the country. Actions carried out by Rising Tide UK groups range from protests and street-theatre style events, to mass occupations of petrol stations, and blockades of key fossil fuel industrial sites.

The aim of Rising Tide UK and the International Rising Tide Network more widely is to confront the root causes of climate change, by bringing about a socially just transition to a non-carbon society. They see the issue of climate change as directly linked to colonial-style economic domination by Northern powers, which have created a globalised economy that over-uses resources for the interests of the North, while keeping down equitable development in the South. They work towards these goals through grassroots and often confrontational direct action, and supporting other groups with similar goals.

Rising Tide’s work has targeted the fossil fuel industry in particular, and aims for an end to new fossil fuel development, and a dismantling of the elements of the current economy that are built around fossil fuel. It advocates an overall economic shift to community run renewable energy, and believes that reducing consumption in the North is also necessary to achieve a just economic structure.

Rising Tide specifically argue against mechanisms such as Carbon Trading and many other elements of the ‘Clean Development Mechanisms’ which were a key part of the . It shares the view of many other environmentalist groups that these market-based mechanisms are ‘False Solutions’ that allow Northern companies to continue to emit green house gasses while gaining access to new markets in ‘Carbon Sinks’ in the South. RT UK specifically advocates an immediate 60% drop in global emissions, leading to a 90% drop, and argues that mechanisms such as Carbon Trading preclude such a drop.

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