Understand

Facing climate fatigue and denial, a backlash against green policy, and increasingly urgent warnings from scientists, the green movement is shifting into a new era.
Two environmentally-minded politicians spell out their opposing visions for where the movement should go next.
Zack Polanski is the leader of the Green Party, preaching a message of ‘eco-populism’. John Gummer is a Conservative Lord and former head of the Climate Change Committee; he thinks the most powerful tool to make change is the free market.
What is the future of the green movement?
Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Series Producer: Ellie House
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound Design and Mix: James Beard
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele, Brenda Brown, Sabine Schereck
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
Archive:
Doechii at Glastonbury, Glastonbury and Doechii filmed by BBC, 28/6/2025
Green Party Hustings at Glastonbury Speakers Forum, The Green Gathering, filmed by Zoe Broughton, 8/7/2025
Margaret Thatcher speech to the United Nations General Assembly, C-SPAN, 8/11/1989

Just Stop Oil is “hanging up the hi vis” after three years of throwing soup at paintings, interrupting theatre performances, and blocking roads. It’s 2025. They’ve been racking up arrests - and opponents - and now, the UK government has passed a string of new laws cracking down on disruptive protest.
They say they’ve achieved their aims - a ban on new oil and gas licenses - but were they policed to extinction? With their hardcore campaigning for the climate, did these activists prompt a change in law that made all green activism harder?
Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Producer: Alix Pickles
Series Producer: Ellie House
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound Design and Mix: James Beard
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele, Brenda Brown, Sabine Schereck
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
Archive:
‘Just Stop Oil is Hanging up the Hi Vis’, Just Stop Oil, 27/3/2025
Just Stop Oil Louise M25 protest, Just Stop Oil, 7/11/2022
Lord Deben on Just Stop Oil, ITV Robert Peston, 5/7/2023
Rupert Read talking about The Climate Majority Project, Some Dare Call It Conspiracy podcast, 24/4/2024

There are competing protests on either side of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. It’s 2023, on the eve of the final shutdown of the country's last three remaining nuclear power plants.
On one side, anti-nuclear campaigners and politicians celebrate their victory. This is a new, clean, dawn for the German power grid, they say.
On the other side of the gate, a small but vocal group of pro-nuclear greens condemn what they believe is a grave mistake. And as other countries pledge to increase their nuclear energy capacities, this group is playing the long game. They believe they may have lost the battle here in Germany, but they will win the war.
How did the green-on-green struggle over the German energy system go nuclear?
Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Producer: Rachel Naylor
Series Producer: Ellie House
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound Design and Mix: James Beard
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele, Brenda Brown, Sabine Schereck
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
Archive:
Saubere Energien kämpfen gegen schmutzige, Nuklearia, 13/5/2023
Footage of Fridays For Future protest in Berlin, @digitalwerber and Nuklearia, 24/9/2021

Mountain gorillas are thriving in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The formerly ‘critically endangered’ population has blossomed, hailed around the world as a conservation success story.
But to save the gorillas, humans were shut out of the forest. An indigenous community who for centuries called this area their ancestral homeland was evicted - they say, illegally. And now they are fighting to go back.
 This struggle over land, resources, and who has a voice in conservation will go all the way to Uganda's highest court.
Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Series Producer: Ellie House
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound Design and Mix: James Beard
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele, Brenda Brown, Sabine Schereck
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke

“Helicopter” - an activist yells. Then gun-wielding agents in balaclavas abseil down, onto the Greenpeace ship, to tow it to Russia.
This is the story of a campaign against oil drilling in the arctic that takes a dangerous turn. And the debate it sparks within the movement - should the organisers have better anticipated the risks of their campaign? Who is responsible for activists’ safety?
Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Producer: Alix Pickles
Series Producer: Ellie House
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound Design and Mix: James Beard
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele, Brenda Brown, Sabine Schereck
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
Archive:
Prirazlomnaya Gazprom Oil Rig Protest in the Pechora Sea, Russian Investigative Committee, 18/9/2013
Other archive footage provided by Greenpeace