Fridays for Future rally in Berlin: ‘no half measures’ on climate

Berlin (dpa) – Thousands of Fridays for Future activists marched through central Berlin on Friday to press the case for measures to halt global warming as coalition talks to form Germany’s next government proceeded in the capital.

A police spokesman put the gathering at the Brandenburg Gate at “a high four-figure number” suggesting the youth movement organizers would hit their target of 10,000 despite rainy and windy conditions.

The rally held under the slogan “You leave us no choice” took the march to the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) before returning to its starting point at the Brandenburg Gate.

Luisa Neubauer, a leader of the movement in Germany, said outside the SPD building: “And as we stand here to say: ‘Dear Government, Dear Coalition Partners, 1.5 degrees,’ then we mean it. That’s not up for negotiation. We’re not interested in half measures.”

Further rallies were held in the states of Thuringia and Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The SPD, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) continued their talks on Friday after last month’s election led to no party getting an absolute majority in the Bundestag.

During exploratory talks, the parties agreed to proceed to a formal coalition-building format. One of the measures they were in agreement on was to lower the voting age to 16 from the current 18 in what has been seen as a response in part to the strength of the Fridays for Future movement.

Ahead of the beginning of the talks, Fridays for Future’s German branch had called for radical action on climate change.

“We are not talking about greening the government’s work, we are talking about comprehensive changes to the system that are pending,” Neubauer said at a press conference called at Berlin’s Natural History Museum on Wednesday.

The movement is calling for a budget that commits to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and for Germany to commit at least 14 billion euros (16.3 billion dollars) a year to international efforts in this regard.

Fridays for Future is calling for a commitment to stop using natural gas by 2035. It also demands an end to the use of coal by 2030 and of internal combustion engines by 2025.

The construction of new motorways and other main roads should also be halted, they say.