Climate protests
No more sticking: Last generation wants to stop roadblocks
Demonstrators from the climate protection group “Last Generation” and other groups block the Straße des 17. Juni in Berlin
© Paul Zinken / DPA
They stuck themselves to roads and caused traffic blockages: The last generation caused a lot of anger among drivers with this form of climate protest. But sticking and blocking should now be an end.
After a good two years of road blockages using glued-on activists, the climate protection group Last Generation wants to do without them in the future. “From now on we will protest in a different form – but it will remain unignorable. From March we will call for disobedient assemblies across the country. “Instead of dividing ourselves into small groups and blocking roads, we will hold disobedient assemblies together with many people.” , the group shared in one Statement on Monday in Berlin. The “chapter of sticking and roadblocks ends with this.”
In addition, they want to “confront those responsible for climate destruction more directly in the future” and to “confront politicians and other decision-makers publicly and in front of cameras,” it said. “On the other hand, we will increasingly visit places of fossil destruction for our protest, as was the case in the past with protests at oil pipelines, airports or the RWE company premises.”
Hundreds of pasting campaigns by the last generation in Berlin alone
The Last Generation linked their change of heart and the new form of protest with an appeal to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “We will call on him to speak publicly and honestly about climate destruction and the necessary change of direction.” Details on this should follow.
On January 24, 2022, the group began its road blockades for a radical climate change. There were also protests in museums, stadiums and ministries. The Berlin police alone counted 550 actions last year, and the capital’s public prosecutor’s office has now conducted 3,700 cases. Many of those affected were outraged by the activists, and even Green Party politicians considered their actions counterproductive. But things have been noticeably quieter around the last generation for some time now. It is in the shadow of the loud farmers’ protests and now also the large demonstrations against right-wing extremism. She canceled her next planned “mass blockade” on February 3rd in favor of an action against the right.