In an open letter, more than 240 politicians and representatives from science, religion and society called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to do more to protect the climate. “The longer we hesitate, the more drastic the consequences of our waiting. It is our duty to act now,” says the letter that was available to “Spiegel” on Wednesday before the start of the open online recording.
It also said: “We belong to the last generation that can stop what threatens us: the global loss of our control over the man-made climate crisis,” it says in the call, based on the climate movement “Last Generation”.
“Now speed up enormously”
“Climate is not an ‘issue’. Climate is a cross-party, state-supporting and historically unprecedented task,” write the initiators, according to “Spiegel”. Adjusting the infrastructure is a mammoth task. “For this massive conversion, it is important that we now increase the speed enormously,” emphasize the authors. It is about converting the energy supply, insulating buildings, enabling mobility without fossil fuels and saving energy: “Immediate, comprehensive, decisive action is required. We, the undersigned, would like to see this action from you as the politically responsible person,” says in the paper.
According to the report, Heinrich Strößenreuther, Chairman of the Climate Union, the Mayor of Constance Ulrich Burchardt, former Secretary of State for the Environment Jürgen Becker and the former CDU General Secretary Ruprecht Polenz signed from the CDU. City leaders from the Greens were among the signatories, including Katja Dörner (Bonn), Belit Onay (Hanover), Uwe Schneidewind (Wuppertal) and Stefan Fassbinder (Greifswald). Several politicians from the SPD and Left Party, prominent environmentalists and the energy expert Claudia Kemfert also joined.
Criticism of the lack of traffic turnaround
In the MDR-Aktuell podcast on Wednesday, Kemfert sharply criticized Scholz’s climate policy. For them he is the climate catastrophe chancellor. What he announces only sounds good, but is not convincing. In fact, the traffic light coalition has switched to an announcement policy when it comes to climate protection. “I’m missing the truth here, the transparency,” she added. She described the softening of the climate targets for individual areas as highly problematic and that there was no traffic turnaround. In the case of 144 accelerated motorway projects, it was of no use to build solar panels next to them: “A lettuce leaf in a burger is not a change in diet,” she commented on the project.
Last week, the SPD, Greens and FDP agreed in the coalition committee on climate protection, among other things, to accelerate the expansion of the motorways at 144 points, invest billions in the rail network and relax the climate protection rules. The acceleration of motorway projects and the softening of the rigid climate targets for individual sectors were criticized by environmentalists. Following the agreement, leading politicians from the Greens made it clear that the agreed measures were not enough to meet the climate targets in the transport sector.
