With its own emergency program for traffic, the Fridays for Future organization wants to help the sector, which has been hitting the climate targets for years, on the jumps.
In it, the activists demand, among other things, a speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour on motorways or the expansion of local public transport (ÖPNV) and rail. In addition, their program provides for car-free inner cities and the expansion of cycling infrastructure. In addition, the organization reiterated its demands for the resignation of Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
In 2022, the transport and building sectors once again exceeded the maximum annual emissions specified in the Climate Protection Act. The climate protection organization announced that the sectors had not submitted an immediate program to reduce the amount of emissions in the following years by the deadline on July 17.
“Both sectors have broken the climate protection targets and now have to make adjustments, but at the same time both ministries are not doing that,” said Pit Terjung from Fridays for Future. Lawyer Caroline Douhaire spoke of a “breaking of the law”.
Traffic is the biggest construction site when it comes to climate protection, said Terjung. That’s where the least has happened in the last few decades. In 2022, the transport sector, with around 150 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, was eleven million tonnes above the 139 tonnes permitted for the year.
