“Break the Chains of Fossil Capitalism”, a banner on top of a circus tent calls for breaking the “chains of fossil capitalism”. There are tents on the meadows all around, and mostly young people are strolling around. Activists from the climate justice movement have been meeting for the “System Change Camp” at the Altonaer Volkspark in Hamburg since Wednesday. In addition to workshops and networking meetings with like-minded people from other countries they have announced actions of civil disobedience in northern Germany.
A few activists in the coastal town of Brunsbüttel kicked things off on Thursday. They blocked a factory gate of the fertilizer manufacturer Yara. The activists belong to “Ende Gelände”, an alliance from the climate justice movement that has been known since it was founded in 2015 for spectacular blockades of coal infrastructure: white painter’s suits in front of monstrous coal excavators in huge pits.
Last year in Brunsbüttel, the movement wanted to make the thematic leap with a blockade, instead of coal it should be about gas. A terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) was planned in the Elbe in front of the city. The campaign took place in August 2021, when LNG was still a niche topic. At that time, the activists called for the phasing out of all fossil fuels, which also includes liquid gas.
Now, in August 2022, the situation has changed fundamentally: The federal government has accelerated the approval process for LNG terminals in order to become independent of Russian gas more quickly. Terminals off Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven, among others, are scheduled to go into operation at the turn of the year.
They now want to use “the full range of civil disobedience”.
In addition, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) also wants coal-fired power plants to run longer because of the consequences of the Russian war of aggression. “Of course we all put our heads together and ask ourselves what’s going on?” says Luka Scott, spokeswoman for Ende Gelände. All of this seems like a setback for the climate movement, but Scott emphasizes that their alliance has been successful in recent years: “Ende Gelände has managed to keep coal and the climate crisis present.”
The war-related gas crisis, in turn, shows, according to spokeswoman Scott, that “gas is war energy and gas is an accelerant of the climate crisis”. From their point of view, a very acute crisis, the war in Ukraine, is currently leading to major setbacks in the fight against another crisis, the climate crisis.
In addition to the location and the new topic, another point is different for the activists: Ende Gelände is, at least on paper, ready for an expansion of the forms of protest. The reference to this can be found in the “Action Consensus”, which the alliance publishes before each action. It is a voluntary commitment, intended to make civil disobedience reasonably calculable for the activists and the police. A key change was made to this: Activists could “over [ihre] Presence out of service”.
So now Ende Gelände wants to use “the full range of civil disobedience,” says Scott — or at least keep the option open. This may also include property damage. However, whether this would still be covered by the term “civil disobedience” is controversial. The Hamburg police have not yet answered inquiries about the new forms of action by the climate activists.
In any case, they continued their days of action on Friday near Wilhelmshaven. 300 of them have been blocking the construction site of the LNG terminal there since midday. The work had to be temporarily suspended. Another group of activists was stopped by the police on their way to Brunsbüttel. Nothing was initially known about possible acts of sabotage on Friday.
With the days of action, the activists from Ende Gelände want to use the public focus on fossil fuels to make their position heard. New places, new actions should help – even if the spectacular coal mine pictures are missing. They have announced further promotions for the weekend.