(The choice of words was changed in the first sentence: climate protests)
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Before the global climate protests by Fridays for Future this Friday, the activist Luisa Neubauer accuses the governing coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP of being too hesitant about climate protection. “Instead of a progress coalition, we are currently experiencing a standstill coalition,” she said in the podcast “The State of Affairs,” which was released on Thursday morning. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also sees Neubauer personally as having a duty: “We’re still waiting for the chancellor’s word of power on the climate crisis, on getting started properly.”
Many people had placed very high hopes in the traffic light coalition. But the fact that so little is being done about the speed limit and other climate protection measures causes “a certain political resignation” among many. Neubauer complained that politicians were “noticeably reluctant to change anything”. “So little is happening right now, so much is being blocked.” It’s fatal, she said. “Because it is precisely in these years that we decide how many catastrophes can still be prevented.”
Across Germany, Fridays for Future is planning more than 230 campaigns, in a good 40 cities together with Verdi. Frank Werneke, head of the trade union, and Neubauer called in a joint guest contribution for the editorial network Germany (RND/Thursday) “employees from local transport and climate activists, all together” to “for a climate and socially just mobility turnaround” on the street to go. “The climate movement and unions can no longer be played off against each other.”
Werneke and Neubauer also called for a speed limit in the post. This is necessary in order to meet the climate targets in the transport sector. In addition, local public transport must be significantly expanded. This requires more staff. Verdi has called for public service warning strikes in several federal states on Friday, with the focus on local public transport.
Otherwise, Fridays for Future calls for Germany to phase out coal by 2030, 100 percent renewable energy supply by 2035 and the immediate end of subsidies for fossil fuels and a stop to the expansion of 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./toz/DP/jha