Inundating citizens about the climate crisis is "as bad as doing nothing," European Parliament President David Sassoli has warned. He believes shaming regions still dependent on coal could create a social tinderbox.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/F. Seco
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European Parliament President David Sassoli has called for the climate transition to be "made fair" to those communities still reliant on fossil fuel industries.
In an interview with Germany's Funke Media Group, Sassoli warned that overwhelming European citizens with information about the need for climate protection would be "as bad as doing nothing."
He said policies that, for example, ignored people in regions dependent on coal, could be "enormously socially explosive," and would not work in the long term.
Sassoli's interview, to be published in full on Friday by Germany's third-largest newspaper and magazine group, welcomed the European Union's plan for a Green Deal, which aims to make the bloc climate neutral by 2050.
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The Italian politician called for the €100 billion ($111 billion) climate transition budget to be earmarked for those areas that will be worst impacted by the move to greener fuels.
He said the success of the policy would depend on whether the ambition can be seen as an opportunity — with major political backing for environmental innovations, economic growth and jobs.
Sassoli said the EU must show other countries that "the European way not only leads to more climate protection but also brings many other advantages, for example, in terms of innovation or energy independence."
China, among other nations, is watching "with interest" the EU's climate protection plans, he added.
Climate crisis slogans with punch
Protest slogans have marked green campaigns since "Give Earth a Chance" banners flew at the first Earth Day march in 1970. As climate crisis protests have intensified, some powerful phrases are driving the movement.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/S. Khan
'School strike for the climate'
This now iconic image of Greta Thunberg holding a placard reading "School strike for the climate" was taken outside the Swedish parliament on a Friday in November 2018. Just 15 at the time, Thunberg and her action have since led to the emergence of "Fridays for Future," a global climate crisis movement that has attracted millions of young people around the world.
Image: picture-alliance/DPR/H. Franzen
'MeToo said Mother Earth'
This slogan, seen in Berlin at an anti-coal rally in 2017, links the #MeToo hashtag that represents sexual harassment and abuse of women with the abuse of Mother Earth and the planet's natural environment. It was created by activists gathered in the German capital to demand an end to power plants fueled by coal, the world's most carbon-heavy, climate change-inducing fossil fuel.
Image: Getty Images/S. Gallup
'We can't eat money'
Climate crisis activists blocked traffic in the London financial district during environmental protests by the Extinction Rebellion campaign in April 2019. In addition to signs reiterating the climate emergency, "We can't eat money" has become a popular slogan for Extinction Rebellion, which correlates unfettered capitalism and climate change.
In October last year, activists marched together in the direction of the Hambach open-pit coal mine in Germany's Rhineland region, where coal mining threatens a pristine forest. Despite Berlin agreeing to phase out coal by 2038, this protest banner linked the core anti-coal message with a broader political, social and economic meaning.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Young
'If you don't act like adults, we will'
As schoolchildren have taken to the streets to fight the climate crisis across the world, an ever-growing range of slogans have peppered the demonstrations. At this March 15 "Fridays for Future" protest in Hong Kong, one student (far right) summed up how the irresponsibility of older generations has forced them to take action.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/A. Wallace
'Denial is not a policy'
Students in Cape Town, South Africa also took part in the global March 15 protest — one of some 200 around the world — as part of a worldwide student strike against government inaction on climate change. In addition to holding up placards against ongoing climate change denial, the students chanted slogans such as "Stop denying! Our earth is dying."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/N. Manie
'Our future in your hands'
When 25,000 people turned up in Berlin to protest at a rally earlier this year, the streets were flooded with placard-waving school strikers who also carried messages on their bodies. These campaigners coupled stickers on their foreheads — one reads "Warning Warming" — with coordinated hand slogans reading "Our future in your hands."
Image: AFP/Getty Images/T. Schwarz
'There are Co2nsequences'
As the "Fridays for Future" protests moved to Aachen near the German-Belgian border in late June, one banner highlighted the inevitable repercussions of burning carbon dioxide at a time when atmospheric carbon levels have reached their highest point in recorded human history.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
'There is no planet B'
This popular rallying slogan for climate activists was popularized by, among others, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who stated at a 2014 climate summit in New York that "There is no plan B because we do not have planet B." The slogan is also the title of a 2019 book by author Mike Berners-Lee that illustrates how humanity can sustainably "thrive on this — our only — planet."
Image: Getty Images/A. Berry
'March now or swim later'
The founder of the school strike protests, Greta Thunberg, joined a demo in Hamburg on March 1, just a few weeks after she told business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos: "I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act." This slogan at the Hamburg rally embodies the movement's calls for urgent action.
Image: Reuters/M. Mac Matzen
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His statement came as young people around the world in the Fridays for Future movement have called for massive changes to reach climate neutrality, protect the environment and keep the average global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, the limit scientists predicted would prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.
Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU's executive branch, announced the European Green Deal — a play on the vast New Deal infrastructure program launched in 1933 by former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help the United States recover from the Great Depression.
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Profound economic restructuring
Von der Leyen hailed the plan as Europe's "man on moon moment," and predicted that EU economies would undergo a profound restructuring and would require billions of euros of investment.
But the deal has received huge opposition from eastern European countries. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — which are reliant on coal-fired power plants — have yet to commit to the goal of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
The EU plan also includes a "carbon border tax" on polluting foreign firms in selected industries from 2021.
