#KeepItInTheGround became the slogan for campaigns demanding fossil fuels remain unextracted to prevent catastrophic climate change, targeting new drilling, pipelines, and coal mines.

Campaign Origins

The Guardian launched Keep It In The Ground campaign (March 2015) urging Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust to divest from fossil fuels. The framing was simple: climate science showed 80% of known fossil fuel reserves must stay unburned to limit warming to 2°C, making new extraction criminally reckless.

Major Battles

The hashtag unified opposition to: Keystone XL pipeline (Obama rejection 2015, Trump approval 2017, Biden cancellation 2021), Dakota Access Pipeline (Standing Rock 2016-2017), Arctic drilling (Shell withdrawal 2015, Trump ANWR push), fracking expansion, and coal mine proposals. Activists chained themselves to equipment, blockaded construction sites, and pressured investors.

Divestment Movement

#KeepItInTheGround fueled fossil fuel divestment: 1,500+ institutions (universities, pension funds, foundations, religious organizations) representing $40 trillion committed to divesting. Campaigners argued investing in industry driving climate catastrophe was both immoral and financially risky as renewables became competitive.

Industry Response

Fossil fuel companies spent billions on lobbying, greenwashing (Shell “Make the Future” campaign), and attacking activists. The movement exposed contradiction between Paris Agreement commitments and governments approving new extraction. Keep It In The Ground crystallized activists’ conviction that climate action required not just clean energy transition but deliberate, managed decline of fossil fuel industry.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/keep-it-in-the-ground https://gofossilfree.org/divestment/commitments/