In 2019, the world witnessed an exceptional wave of climate protests. In this case study, we scrutinise who participated in the protests staged in Belgium. We ask: did the exceptional mobilising context of the 2019 protest wave also bring exceptional protesters to the streets? Were thanks to the unique momentum standard barriers to protest participation overcome? We answer these questions by comparing three surveys of participants in the 2019 protest wave with three surveys of relevant reference publics. Our findings show that while the Belgian 2019 protest was in many ways exceptional, its participants were less so. Although participants – especially in the early phase of the protest wave – were less protest experienced, younger and unaffiliated to organisations, our findings simultaneously confirm the persistence of a great many well-known socio-demographic and political inequalities. Our conclusion centres on the implications of these findings.

In 2019, the world witnessed an exceptional wave of climate protests. In this case study, we scrutinise who participated in the protests staged in Belgium. We ask: did the exceptional mobilising context of the 2019 protest wave also bring exceptional protesters to the streets? Were thanks to the unique momentum standard barriers to protest participation overcome? We answer these questions by comparing three surveys of participants in the 2019 protest wave with three surveys of relevant reference publics. Our findings show that while the Belgian 2019 protest was in many ways exceptional, its participants were less so. Although participants – especially in the early phase of the protest wave – were less protest experienced, younger and unaffiliated to organisations, our findings simultaneously confirm the persistence of a great many well-known socio-demographic and political inequalities. Our conclusion centres on the implications of these findings.

The study of populist radical-right parties has boomed in recent years. Analyses of the discourse of these parties have gone beyond the focus of immigration policies and have turned to their climate communication. Previous research identified populism and the radical-right host ideology as key ideological drivers of their climate scepticism. This study questions which of these ideological features are dominant in the climate discourse of the Belgian populist radical-right party Vlaams Belang. A qualitative data analysis shows that their ideology is most aptly described as conservative and authoritarian. Populism is not salient, in contrast to what previous research has found for other populist radical-right parties. The presence of nationalism is confirmed, but nativism is irrelevant. The results indicate that Vlaams Belang adapts and transplants its core ideology to its climate discourse, but we cannot take the prevalence of populism or nativism in their climate discourse for granted.