Coca Vila, Ivó2024-01-082024-01-082023Coca-Vila I. Punishing the last citizens? On the climate necessity defence. Res Publica. 2024;30:567-87. DOI: 10.1007/s11158-023-09642-y1356-4765http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58629Faced with the inaction of liberal democracies to efectively tackle global warming, many climate activists engage in forms of protests that involve committing minor criminal ofences. They seek to shape ofcial decisions on climate policies by resorting to civil disobedience. Some of these activists, rather than accepting punishment, have successfully claimed to be acting in a justifed manner by invoking the necessity defence. The aim of this article is to show that, within the framework of representative democracies guided by the rule of law, the climate necessity defence must be rejected, since such protests do not meet the ‘non-legal alternatives’ requirement. This does not mean, however, that protesters should be punished as common ofenders. Their acceptance of responsibility and political motivation should be taken into account as a mitigating factor at sentencing.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2023 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11158-023-09642-yClimate activismCivil disobedienceNecessity defenceRule of lawPunishmentinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess