  Great socio-economic transitions see the demise of certain industries and the
rise of others. The losers of the transition tend to deploy a variety of
tactics to obstruct change. We develop a political-economy model of interest
group competition and garner evidence of tactics deployed in the global climate
movement. From this we deduce a set of strategies for how the climate movement
competes against entrenched hydrocarbon interests. Five strategies for
overcoming obstructionism emerge: (1) Appeasement, which involves compensating
the losers; (2) Co-optation, which seeks to instigate change by working with
incumbents; (3) Institutionalism, which involves changes to public institutions
to support decarbonization; (4) Antagonism, which creates reputational or
litigation costs to inaction; and (5) Countervailance, which makes low-carbon
alternatives more competitive. We argue that each strategy addresses the
problem of obstructionism through a different lens, reflecting a diversity of
actors and theories of change within the climate movement. The choice of which
strategy to pursue depends on the institutional context.
