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Corona’s mandatory pause is over: thousands of people have gathered across Germany to demonstrate for climate protection. Support comes from many quarters, including politicians who have been criticized by “Fridays for Future.”
After months of the crown-related recess, protesters from the “Fridays for the Future” movement took to the streets for the first time. Thousands of people across Germany gathered in the morning for the “sixth global climate strike”.
Before the pandemic, climate strikes had regularly reached six-digit figures in Germany. According to “Fridays for Future”, 1.4 million people took to the streets in Germany for actions on the occasion of the United Nations climate summit in September 2019. In the first months of the corona pandemic, activists they largely took the protest online.
Demonstrations allowed in Hamburg, canceled in Munich
Today, the actions are planned in 400 locations in Germany. There are demonstrations in 2,500 cities around the world. In Berlin, a sit-in will take place in front of the Brandenburg Gate with around 10,000 protesters. The rally in Munich was canceled due to the high number of infections there.
In Hamburg, the administrative court issued an urgent decision allowing 3,500 people to participate in each of the three planned demonstrations. The city had opined that, due to protection against infection, only a maximum of 1000 participants were accepted per elevator.
Green leader Robert Habeck welcomed the activists’ commitment. It’s “great” that “Fridays for Future” is mobilizing. “Today is another sign that society has deeply recognized that politics must change,” he told reporters in Berlin. He called the term climate protection “almost a bit disparaging.” “We are talking about the protection of humanity and we are running out of time.”
Minister of the Environment “grateful” for the movement
Federal Minister of the Environment, Svenja Schulze, said she was “grateful” for the “Fridays for Future” movement. When he took office in 2018, he was still prophesied that “I will never get away with a CO2 price or a climate protection law. Now both are a done deal.”
Schulze emphasized that despite the Corona crisis, climate protection remained on the agenda and was even strengthened. Climate protection plays “a central role in the federal government’s Corona stimulus package, for example, with even greater funding for the switch from combustion engines to electric motors.”
Activists criticize the Law on renewable energy sources
“Fridays for Future”, however, accused the federal government of inaction. The amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Law is “in no way” compatible with the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement, said “Fridays for Future” spokesperson Luisa Neubauer at the Südwestrundfunk.
It was also due to the Federal Minister of the Economy, Peter Altmaier, that “the energy transition hit the wall.”
Altmaier, however, said in the Deutschlandfunk, believes that the manifestations of the climate protection movement are appropriate and correct. “This issue should be on the agenda.” “We have a huge long-term transformation ahead of us in Germany. And if we don’t make all these industries climate neutral, then they will no longer be able to function successfully in the long term.”
Altmaier: take employee concerns seriously
But you also have to show reliability towards the economy. Looking ahead to the corona pandemic, he said he advocated taking worker and employee concerns seriously, but still pursuing ambitious reduction targets.
Neubauer wrote to Altmaier on Twitter: “Exactly, and because warm words do not reduce emissions even today, we are taking to the streets today. Against a policy that protects coal rather than the future, for climate justice and 1.5 degrees. “.
Support for the demonstrations also came from the left: “Anyone who wants a future with climate justice clearly cannot trust the Berlin government,” said the group’s climate policy spokesman, Lorenz Gösta Beutin. The pressure of the climate movement is still necessary.
