Words by Nadia Bailey.

Photos thanks to Transitions Film Festival and Unsplash.

This story is brought to you by our partner, Transitions Film Festival

In a world where a handful of mega firms are responsible for a third of global carbon emissions, it can feel absurd to hope that by diligently carrying a KeepCup or riding a bike to work we can make a difference. But as one filmmaker makes clear, the individual actions of many really can drive lasting change.

The climate emergency presents us with a dire future: rising temperatures, ferocious bushfires, mass extinctions and catastrophic flooding on an antediluvian scale. Our government has consistently put the profits of the fossil fuel sector ahead of the needs of its citizens and its responsibility to the world. To keep global warming within safe limits, governments worldwide must enact massive systemic policy changes to decarbonise our future. Businesses and corporations must follow. To date, neither of these things are happening quickly enough.

In light of these systemic failures, individual action is often viewed as pointless. Worse: even to those who have committed to personal accountability, it feels pointless.

This doesn’t mean all hope is lost. When French documentarians Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent made Tomorrow, they aimed to highlight where individuals and communities have taken action where governments have only dithered. The film deftly interweaves geographic, macroeconomic, social and political factors to illustrate the power of grass-roots activism, the radical potential of micro-initiatives to drive climate action, and how individual action offers hope in the face of government inertia. The success stories showcased in Dion’s films provide lighthouse examples for others to follow, and with that comes a radical sense of agency: problems can be solved; we can all play a part. The message: individual action matters.

Now, with the release of its sequel, After Tomorrow, Dion revisits those same people and communities to ask which initiatives were a success, which failed, and what can be learned from them going forward. By focusing on empirical, solution-based data, the film taps into a powerful motivating force: while no one person can halt global warming alone, the more people who are motivated to make change in their own lives, the greater the potential for large-scale effects.

A powerful case for the success of individual action can be seen in the divestment movement. Put simply, divestment is the opposite of investment. It calls for the removal of stocks, bonds or funds from businesses or companies — in this case, the movement targets oil, coal and gas companies and the corporations that fund them. The divestment movement takes cues from historical uprisings which leveraged the power of normal people who, when united by a common cause, effected monumental social change.

Previous divestment campaigns targeting the tobacco and gambling industries have had proven positive outcomes. The same goes for the role that divestment played in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, where the anti-apartheid movement called for US colleges and universities to divest from South African companies or those with South African interests. The media coverage that the “divest and boycott” movement generated was pivotal in mobilising the critical mass needed to abolish apartheid legislation. The movement is credited with accelerating the end of apartheid in 1991.

The divestment campaign for fossil fuels was formally launched in 2012 by 350.org, with the goal of reducing financing for fossil fuel companies, and raising social acceptance for divestment from fossil fuels. This is key to the movement’s success: by getting divestment into the public consciousness, more people are likely to embrace it.

A 2017 study published in Environmental Research Letters cites investing in green energy as one of seven high-impact actions available to individuals that have the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions. While national policies and major energy transformations often take decades to change, the study notes, behavioural shifts among individuals have the potential to be adopted far more quickly and broadly. Its power multiplies — and multiplies again when public pressure influences institutions, local councils and businesses take up the cause. We begin to see it as not just socially acceptable, but as the new normal. When we lead by example, others will follow.

The movement is working. As Ben McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, wrote in a 2019 statement, the divestment movement is now the largest anti-corporate campaign of its kind in history, with commitments from endowments and other portfolios worth about $8 trillion. He noted that Goldman Sachs cited the campaign as the main contributor to driving the prices of coal shares down by sixty percent, while Shell said it had become a “material risk” to its business. According to Market Forces, individuals worth $590 million have put their banks on notice in Australia. As public awareness grows, so does public pressure. It’s only a matter of time before we reach the tipping point.

By making explicit the link between values and actions, the divestment movement highlights the radical power of individual action. Our future will only be safeguarded if, as a global society, we undergo a profound, fundamental shift in how we view our relationship with the planet, enshrined in policy and law. In the meantime, our best option is to act within the logic of the capitalist system - and that means within the language of the market. By divesting from banks, superannuation and healthcare funds which fund the fossil fuel industry, we diminish the economic value of fossil fuels - and little by little, that divestment adds up. It may be a micro-initiative, but it’s worth remembering that changing social norms are the backdrop for policy change.

If we’re serious about our future, the message is clear: each of us has the power - and the responsibility - to drive that change within our own lives and communities.

Nadia Bailey is a writer, editor and critic based in Melbourne. She's the author of three books on pop culture and, right now, she's writing her first novel.