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UN Chief Praises 'Moral Voice' of German Climate Activists Targeted in Police Raids
"It is clear that a lot of the progress that we have seen on awareness on climate change and positive movement on climate change is due to the fact that people have been demonstrating peacefully throughout the world."
May 30, 2023
The spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday commended climate activists in Germany after police raided their homes following months of traffic-disrupting protests against the government's failure to adequately address the climate emergency.
"Climate activists—led by the moral voice of young people—have continued to pursue their goals even in the darkest days," the spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York. "They need to be protected and we need them now more than ever."
"It is clear that a lot of the progress that we have seen on awareness on climate change and positive movement on climate change is due to the fact that people have been demonstrating peacefully throughout the world," he added.
"The government's approach is intended to intimidate and create fear. But we cannot and will not allow ourselves to remain in this fear."
Last Wednesday, around 170 masked and armed police officers raided the homes of activists from the Germany-based international direct action group Letzte Generation—or Last Generation—in seven German states while shutting down the organization's website and freezing multiple bank accounts.
Among those targeted were Last Generation spokesperson Carla Hinrichs, who said around two dozen armed police broke down the door of her apartment in Berlin's Kreuzberg district while she was in bed at around 7:00 am, with one officer pointing a gun at her.
"I'm afraid that this state is sending its civil servants with weapons drawn to storm my apartment," Hinrichs said in a video posted on Twitter. "But I'm even more afraid that it is letting us speed into this disaster without doing anything."
\u201cBREAKING: German police are staging the world's first nationwide raid on climate activists. The goal: shut down a group called "Last Generation" that engages in peaceful protest to save the planet.\n\nWill they also arrest the fossil fuel executives?\nhttps://t.co/W5RxXfmDmq\u201d— Steven Donziger (@Steven Donziger) 1685012163
No arrests were reported. However, authorities accused seven activists of raising at least $1.5 million to finance "criminal acts."
Police also claimed two Last Generation members are suspected of plotting to sabotage an oil pipeline running from the southern state of Bavaria to the Italian port of Trieste.
Last Generation has become a household name in Germany due to the group's nationwide acts of civil disobedience. Last week, activists blocked 12 streets in the capital Berlin, gluing themselves to the road and to vehicles, and enraging motorists and many other people.
In January, Last Generation was at the center of protests against the expansion of an open-pit coal mine in Lützerath, a depopulated village in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Members of the group made headlines last year after they threw mashed potatoes on a protected Claude Monet painting in the Museum Barberini in Potsdam.
\u201cClimate protesters from Last Generation threw mashed potato at Claude Monet\u2019s Les Meules (Haystacks) at Potsdam\u2019s Barberini Museum.\u201d— VICE World News (@VICE World News) 1666625542
Last Generation has also held protests in countries including Austria and Italy, where members poured charcoal in Rome's Trevi Fountain to demand an end to government fossil fuel subsidies.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democratic Party called Last Generation's protest tactics "completely crazy."
In response, Last Generation asked when police would target "lobby structures and confiscate government fossil funds."
"The government's approach is intended to intimidate and create fear. But we cannot and will not allow ourselves to remain in this fear," the group said on its new website. "The federal government is leading us into climate hell and is stepping on the accelerator."
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Celebration as Last German Nuclear Plants Power Down
"The United States would do well to follow this example, rather than continue to fund nuclear power, the slowest, and most expensive of all energy choices," asserted one activist.
Apr 17, 2023
Environmentalists in Europe and beyond cheered as Germany's last three nuclear power plants went offline over the weekend, a controversial move the country's environmental minister hailed as the start of "a new era of energy production."
The Associated Pressreports the Emsland, Neckarwestheim II, and Isar II nuclear plants were shut down shortly before midnight Saturday after decades of protests and pressure by anti-nuclear campaigners.
"Millions of people worked towards this day for years," Greenpeace Germany managing director Roland Hipp wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday by Common Dreams. "People who protested against reprocessing plants, nuclear waste transport, unsafe nuclear waste storage facilities, and the construction of new nuclear power plants. Those decades of resistance were worth it."
"The German nuclear phaseout is a victory of reason over the lust for profit; over powerful corporations and their client politicians," Hipp added. "It is a people-powered success against all the odds."
\u201cThe last remaining German nuclear power stations finally shut down two days ago.\n\nGermany's nuclear phaseout has made the remarkable growth of renewables possible.\n\nThere's work to do, but a 100% renewable energy system is within reach.\u201d— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace International) 1681725933
Germany's nuclear shutdown—which was originally scheduled for completion by the end of 2022—was postponed as part of a compromise by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a member of the Social Democratic Party, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent fuel shortages.
The phaseout—a key component of Germany's plan to produce 80% of the country's power from renewable sources by the end of the decade—is highly controversial, as numerous experts including former NASA climate scientist James Hansen urged Scholz to keep the reactors online.
Opponents of the phaseout argued that Germany's plan to replace the roughly 6% of electricity generated by the three shuttered nuclear plants with renewables, gas, and coal—the latter of which fuels more than 30% of the country's power—poses a greater climate risk than keeping the reactors in operation.
"Germany recognizes that renewables are cheaper, faster, and safer than nuclear power and come without a lethal waste legacy."
However, German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, a member of Alliance 90/The Greens, argued that "the risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable."
Last week, Lemke visited Fukushima, Japan, site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster—the worst since the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine in 1986, when the country was part of the Soviet Union.
Juergen Trittin, parliamentary leader of Alliance 90/The Greens, said that "we are putting an end to a dangerous, unsustainable, and costly technology."
\u201cNuclear power is over now in Germany. Renewables easily filling the gap. If France got its act together and stopped needing to import German lignite electricity, the Energiewende would move even faster.\u201d— Beyond Nuclear International (@Beyond Nuclear International) 1681561606
Linda Pentz Gunter, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Nuclear, said in a statement that "the renewable energy revolution needed to save us from the worst of the climate crisis is a matter of political will, not technical know-how, and Germany's weekend shutdown of its last three nuclear reactors marks a strong step in that direction."
"The nuclear phaseout opened the way for renewable energy growth in Germany," she added. "Germany recognizes that renewables are cheaper, faster, and safer than nuclear power and come without a lethal waste legacy. The United States would do well to follow this example, rather than continue to fund nuclear power, the slowest, and most expensive of all energy choices."
Germany's neighbors remain heavily dependent upon nuclear power. France derives about 70% of its electricity from 56 nuclear power plants, while such facilities provide Switzerland and Belgium with between 30% and 40% of their electric power.
During a Group of Seven meeting that included Germany over the weekend, Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States announced a new nuclear power alliance and G7 ministers put out a statement that says "those countries that opt to use nuclear energy recognize its potential to provide affordable low-carbon energy that can reduce dependence on fossil fuels, to address the climate crisis, and to ensure global energy security as a source of baseload energy and grid flexibility."
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