Fridays for Future: Neubauer accuses the government of blocking climate protection

Before the next global climate protection day of action this Friday, the activist from Fridays for Future, Luisa Neubauer, accuses the government coalition of blocking the fight against global warming. SPD, Greens and FDP threatened to miss the crucial point of political concession away from the crises, she told the German Press Agency in Berlin.

There were “worrying parallels” to the grand coalition of Union and SPD. The transport sector stands out. “Transport Minister Volker Wissing is boycotting scientific findings and is thus jeopardizing compliance with the climate targets overall,” she said.

Greenhouse gases in traffic well above target value

The FDP politician is criticized, among other things, because he aggressively promotes the rapid expansion and construction of motorways. Fridays for Future and other environmental organizations are calling for all highway projects in Germany to be stopped.

According to estimates by the organization Agora Energiewende, the climate-damaging greenhouse gases in transport have risen to 150 million tons of CO2 in 2022 – eleven million tons more than permitted under the Climate Protection Act. In the meantime, 48.2 million cars have been registered in Germany – of which only 0.6 percent are purely electric cars.

Across Germany, Fridays for Future is planning more than 230 campaigns, in a good 40 cities together with Verdi. The union called for warning strikes that day.

“A dangerous business as usual”

Neubauer criticized that the federal government could not find an appropriate answer to the climate crisis. “While the winter drought is sending serious warning signals to our neighbors Italy and France and the population is suffering from severe restrictions such as the rationing of private water consumption, oil and gas heating systems continue to be installed in Germany, and in many federal states not a single wind turbine has been installed this year approved.” All of this is not a diversion, but “a dangerous way to continue”.

Protests are also to be held in hundreds of places on all continents around the world. It’s the 13th global climate strike, the motto is #tomorrowistoolate (“Tomorrow is too late”). A core demand on politicians is to stop the financing of all oil and gas projects worldwide in order to avert the impending climate catastrophe and to meet the 1.5 degree target. What is meant is the goal agreed at the 2015 UN climate conference in Paris to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times.

Storms, droughts, floods, heat waves

But the earth has already warmed up by around 1.1 degrees, in Germany even by 1.6 degrees. Depending on the region, the fatal consequences are more frequent and more severe storms, droughts, floods and heat waves.

For Germany, Fridays for Future demands, among other things, a coal phase-out by 2030, 100 percent renewable energy supply by 2035 and the immediate end of subsidies for fossil fuels and an expansion freeze for motorways.

The climate demos were inspired by the Swede Greta Thunberg, who first sat down in August 2018 at the age of 15 for a “school strike for the climate” in front of the parliament in Stockholm.