Tens of thousands of climate demonstrators, led by children and young people, demonstrated in Berlin and across Germany on Friday to demand more action from the Olaf Scholz government to achieve climate goals.
• Also read: Protection of forests: Emissions credits are burdened by a study
• Also read: Greta Thunberg will be tried at the end of September for disobeying the police
• Also read: Nature magazine is accused of favoring studies that adhere to a one-sided climate “narrative.”
This 13th “global climate strike,” organized by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future” movement, was themed “The End of Fossil Fuels.”
Around 250 demonstrations have been announced across the country.
In Berlin, according to the AFP police, around 12,000 people gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate at midday before marching through the city center.
Photo AFP
In Munich (south) there were around 8,500, in Hamburg (north) at least 10,000, as the police announced, citing local media.
“The clock is ticking”, “no Planet B”, “Today profits, tomorrow the end of the world”… Under the sun and in a good-natured atmosphere, the demonstrators in Berlin used dozens of worried slogans, swinging a few meters from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s official residence removed.
Photo AFP
“Olaf, your lies kill,” read the sign carried by a young woman. His friend Paul Günther, 19, wanted to denounce “the dishonesty of our Chancellor in the face of the climate crisis,” he told AFP.
“A council of experts calculated that the government’s objectives were too weak and that they could not even achieve them with what it was doing,” assured the geography student.
Photo AFP
The young man is close to the civil disobedience movement “Last Generation” and wants to “block streets” in Berlin on Monday. “We clearly need more pressure to get the government to act,” he believes.
The government is “not doing enough” to “achieve its climate goals,” added Birgit Martens, a 65-year-old retiree from Berlin, who is demanding that the center-left coalition, which also includes the Greens, “implement” what it really promised”, especially “in the area of transport”.
The federal government has ambitious climate goals, but activists doubt it will be able to keep its promises, including meeting 80% of the country’s electricity needs with renewable energy by 2030.