The activists of Fridays for Future are calling for their eighth global protest for more climate protection this Friday. As the organization announced on Thursday, at least 1400 “climate strikes” and actions are planned in more than 80 countries. In all EU countries, activists want to take to the streets to demand a more ambitious climate protection policy from those in charge.
In Germany, too, climate protection activists want to send a clear signal just two days before the federal election on Sunday and raise awareness of the issue. So far, more than 450 campaigns have been registered in all federal states. The organizers are expecting particularly large rallies in Hamburg, Berlin, Freiburg and Cologne. The initiator of the movement, the Swede Greta Thunberg, will be a guest in Berlin and will take to the streets at lunchtime together with the German activist Luisa Neubauer.
According to Fridays for Future, civil society organizations such as environmental associations and churches have also joined the protest under the motto “All for the Climate”. In addition, more than 4,000 companies are also expected to participate. The last worldwide protest was on March 19th of this year.
2021 was the most expensive for insurance companies since the Fukushima nuclear disaster
The French climate expert Laurence Tubiana warned of the high financial consequences that hesitation in climate protection policy could have for society. Worldwide, this year was already the most expensive year for natural catastrophe insurance since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, said the economist and managing director of the European Climate Foundation on Friday to the German press agency. Tubiana said it could also be the most expensive year in a long time for German insurers, given extreme weather events like the flood this summer.
Veronika Grimm’s economy criticized the discussion about climate policy in the election campaign as being one-sidedly geared towards national measures. “Unfortunately, we often have very national and fragmented discussions in Germany during the election campaign, so we are not on the right track,” she said Augsburger Allgemeine. “It would be counterproductive to make Germany climate-neutral if at the same time companies emigrate, our innovative strength decreases and emissions only shift, i.e. other countries emit more emissions.”
The German Teachers’ Association criticized the participation of schoolchildren in the protests. “We reject compulsory schooling to be lifted in favor of political actions – for example as part of a so-called climate strike,” said President Heinz-Peter Meidinger to the German editorial network. He justified this with the endangerment of the necessary political neutrality of the state, which is responsible for running the school.
“Otherwise the question arises, for which political actions one would get free from school and for which not. Can one then also take school free at a demo against world hunger, for peace in the world, for the liberation of Palestine or against” foreign infiltration ” ? “, says Meidinger. The school should not distinguish between “good” permitted and “bad” prohibited actions. “To skip classes now for a strike is not appropriate,” Meidinger told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Students who missed a class test or exam risked a six.
Neubauer called on the next federal government to act: “The coming legislative period is historic. In the next four years, climate protection must be implemented faster, more equitably and more consistently than ever before,” she told the German press agency.