Rest is resistance

This blog was first written in June, during the intensity of the SBs in Bonn. We couldn’t publish it then as the author, a beloved member of our community, became very ill and needed to rest herself for several weeks.  In light of that,its reflections are even more relevant now as we gear up to a manic September during which will be held the fifth meeting of the Advisory Board (SNAB5) of the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage (SNLD), the second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2), the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Climate Week NYC 2025 and the 23rd meeting of the Executive Committee (ExCom23) of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), to name just a few of the many commitments facing climate activists.

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Every year, June is one of the most hectic months for the climate activist’s calendar. Halfway through the year, those who work in the climate space flock to (or fix their eyes on) the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany, for the intersessional climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , a time for state Parties to agree on the agenda of the yearly climate conferences that take place at year’s end. Situated smack right in the middle of the year, June in general, the intersessionals (or the SBs as they are known colloquially), present an important opportunity to take stock of the last six months, and recalibrate plans towards the climate meetings (known as the Conference of Parties) that will take place in November.

However, it is also very, very exhausting. The two weeks of the SBs present a sort of a marathon where everyone is required to do a sprint. Meetings that start at daybreak and end at sunset (this means a really long day in German summer parlance), collective grief and celebration over the massive heartbreaks and the occasional wins, press conferences and plenaries and rushed breakfasts. Solidarity and the subtle nod to a fellow attendee that communicates shared hope for the creation of a better, climate just world (at least you hope so, they might be a fossil fuel lobbyist).

And in the face of an increasingly warming world, it seems that the only rational response is to catch up to it before it gets worse. For the climate activist, however, the opposite is true: the more urgent the crisis, the stronger the imperative to rest.

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When an immovable force meets an unstoppable object

I used to believe in love that was sacrificial. That love, to be actionable, had to be measured by what it cost you, and that the more you bled, the more real the work. The climate movement, however, taught me otherwise. It showed me that the kind of love that fuels real change must be regenerative. It must make room for joy, laughter, mourning, and rest. Because what are we fighting for, if not for the right to simply be?

The climate crisis and its drivers, capitalism and colonialism, demands continuous pursuit for something, often at the expense of the self. The individual, it argues, is replaceable. Efficiency is what matters most; productivity is an ideal to be aspired to. It demands more and more.More time, more resources, more lives, more freedom, and it thrives in creating a culture of guilt when people choose to rest. If you cared about the climate enough, why would you choose yourself? If you thought the phenomenon was an urgency, why are you taking time to breathe?

But the truth – the big letter T Truth – is that rest is not a luxury in this work. It is the work itself. It is how we declare that our bodies are not expendable, and how we build movements that last longer than moments.

Rest, however, is not just rest in and of itself. It has to be cognisant of the reality that rest remains a privilege. That the climate crisis takes away indiscriminately, and that those in its frontlines are facing the brunt of its impacts, often with their lives. Therein lies what might seem like a contradiction, but which calls for further reflection.

Because yes, rest is a privilege, but it is also resistance. And nowhere is this tension more acute than for activists from the Global South. Because when you are forced to reckon with the mundanity of the crisis, of waking up to flooded homes, to unbearable heat, or to category 5 typhoons ravaging your neighbourhood, there is no room to pause. There is no time to exhale. The luxury of a burnout sabbatical, of retreat spaces and mental health stipends, often belongs elsewhere: north of the equator, or to those with passports that open more doors than they close.

And yet, even within this relentless context, Global South activists are reimagining what it means to rest. Not as escape, but as insistence. Insistence that their lives matter. That their communities deserve not just survival, but softness. That even amid fire and flood, there must be time to grieve, to dance, to care. Because if the system wants them to burn out, choosing to stay lit from within, even briefly, with defiance, is itself a radical act. For the Global South activist, to rest is to resist being consumed and erased by the crisis and the systems that perpetuate it. It is a refusal to let burnout become the currency of care; it is a radical claim on dignity, longevity, and hope.

And as with all resting, the point is to take turns, however resting looks like. One that feels regenerative and restores.

Knowing that the work will always continue, but looking after each other and ourselves, and caring amidst a planet whose leaders demand selfishness, will always be the most powerful thing we can do.