/ / Greta Thunberg criticizes Merkel’s policy: “Germany has a historical debt to settle”

Greta Thunberg criticizes Merkel’s policy: “Germany has a historical debt to settle”

November 02, 2021

Updated:

  • fromAndreas Schmid

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Greta Thunberg was a guest of the climate activist Luisa Neubauer in the podcast. The Swede also spoke about Germany’s climate policy – and criticized it clearly.

Glasgow – Greta Thunberg and Luisa Neubauer are currently in Scotland. The two climate activists are guests at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow. Before that, the world’s most prominent activist Thunberg and the Hamburg-born Fridays for Future activist Neubauer spoke to each other in a podcast. It was also about the role of Germany.

Greta Thunberg: “Germany has a historical debt to settle”

“As an industrial nation, we have to be faster than many other countries in reducing greenhouse gases,” says Neubauer. “The climate crisis is not just happening because we are emitting greenhouse gases today. There is the climate crisis as we are experiencing it today, because we have been burning fossil fuels since the beginning of industrialization. ”Germany is therefore one of the main causes of global warming. “If you add up the emissions that countries have so far emitted through coal, oil and gas, then Germany comes in fourth. Just three countries have contributed more to the climate crisis than we have. ”

Thunberg also sees Germany as a “major global player when it comes to climate change”. According to the Swede, the Federal Republic “not only has a great opportunity, but also a great responsibility that it has to pay due to a historical debt”. The Swede also criticized the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Had she got up and taken on responsibility, it could have had eternal consequences and could have changed the entire global narrative of the climate emergency.” But one can only speculate about that.

Traffic light coalition: Neubauer calls for a clear commitment to the 1.5 degree target

A rethink in climate policy could altogether “change the entire global narrative”. However, that does not happen. According to Thunberg, Germany remains a “textbook example because it is obvious what is going wrong”. The 18-year-old relates her criticism of climate policy to the coal industry, for example. Neubauer had already made the traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP responsible and called for a binding coal phase-out in 2030 at the latest. In the podcast episode, too, Neubauer made the possible future government responsible.

“What we are now observing with the current coalition negotiations is no ordinary formation of a government.” According to Neubauer, the coalition talks are taking place “in the midst of an unchecked, all-encompassing, ecological crisis – that has to change the way we negotiate.” It should not be easy only about “doing more climate protection than the last government. Open bracket: Much less is not possible either. Close the bracket. ”

The benchmark is compliance with the international climate protection targets, especially the 1.5 degree target. At the Paris climate conference six years ago, the participating states agreed to limit global warming to well below two degrees, ideally 1.5 degrees, compared to the pre-industrial era. Neubauer: “We mustn’t forget that.”

Climate activists would have an influence on politics. The greatest achievement of Fridays for Future is global mobilization, said Thunberg. That also has an impact on politics. “Maybe we don’t influence politicians directly, but by influencing their children or voters we reach them indirectly.”

Luisa Neubauer: “The government’s promises are not enough in front and behind”

Initially, the 42-minute podcast episode “Greta Thunberg – how do we manage the climate revolution?” Was about the climatic conditions of summer 2021. Both the flood disaster in Germany and record temperatures such as in Spain or forest fires played a role. Leading scientists agree that climate change has an impact on the weather and thus also on extreme weather events such as heavy rain.

At the beginning of the podcast, Neubauer made it clear: “The government’s promises are not enough to protect livelihoods. And the question is: Do we let the climatic escalation of the last few months continue, do we capitulate to the consequences of global warming, which are moving us more and more in all parts of the world – or are we pulling the rip cord, intervening and preventing the worst consequences of the climate crisis? And that by making a real, climate-political system change in the months and years to come, which we now have left. ”With the start of a presumably new coalition, Germany has a“ historic chance ”of change. However, Neubauer also warned: “The next government will be the last that can get us on the path to complying with the 1.5 degree limit.”

Video: Greta Thunberg: “No more blah blah!”

World Climate Conference: Greta defends radical forms of protest

Thunberg and Neubauer are currently guests at the climate conference in Glasgow. At the beginning of the event, the two activists also criticized the current climate policy, especially that of the rich industrial nations. Six years have passed since the historic Paris Agreement – and emissions are higher than ever today, Neubauer told the German Press Agency. “This conference has to be the moment when this trend is reversed.”

Greta Thunberg also defended more radical forms of protest in a BBC interview. Sometimes it is necessary to anger some people in order to draw attention to topics, said the 18-year-old Swede. “The school strike movement would never have become so well known if there had been no friction, if some people hadn’t been pissed off,” said Thunberg. But it is important that no one is injured during the demonstrations. (as)


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source https://pledgetimes.com/greta-thunberg-criticizes-merkels-policy-germany-has-a-historical-debt-to-settle/

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