The climate protection movement Fridays for Future is calling for protests again this Friday in the fight against global warming. Demonstrations and rallies have been announced on all continents. 250 campaigns are planned in Germany alone. The Verdi union, which has called for warning strikes in local transport in several federal states, is also there. Verdi and the activists are demanding more money for the expansion of buses and trains so that climate-damaging car traffic decreases.
Activist Luisa Neubauer told the German Press Agency in Berlin that the demos were intended to put pressure on the governing coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. “It’s time to act now, politics must finally switch to a real crisis management mode.” The federal government owes the population a plan on how to “radically reduce” emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases in Germany by 2030 and how to protect people from the climate catastrophe.
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 current call for a strike complains that terminals for the import of liquefied gas are being built in Germany at a rapid pace, while the expansion of renewable energies is still faltering.
Ukraine war fueled energy crisis
At the international level, one of the key demands 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.
Earth has already warmed up by about 1.1 degrees, in Germany it is even 1.6 degrees. Depending on the region, the fatal consequences are more frequent and more severe storms, droughts, floods and heat waves. The international call for a strike states that every dollar that flows into the financing of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal is “stained with blood”.
According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), climate-damaging subsidies, which make oil, gas and coal cheaper worldwide, have skyrocketed in the past year. Fueled by the energy crisis in the wake of the Ukraine war, subsidies broke the one trillion US dollar mark for the first time – twice as high as in 2021.
“Achieved more than you ever thought possible”
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.
From Neubauer’s point of view, the climate protection movement that emerged afterwards has achieved impressive success – despite the difficulties during the Corona crisis and the current strong focus on the Ukraine war. “With a united civil society, we have achieved more in the past four years than was ever thought possible,” she said. “Without us, there would be no historic climate judgment from the Federal Constitutional Court. We fought successfully for a climate law. The coal phase-out is in sight, and climate targets are now a matter of course for every company.” Large unions have also joined Fridays for Future, as have churches, she said.
