Thousands of students have protested in the German city to urge immediate action on climate change. Police have vowed to prevent other activists from blocking access to one of Germany's largest open coal mines nearby.
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Germany's growing climate movement demanding action
A burgeoning climate movement has taken hold worldwide. In Germany and other countries, young people are fighting against environmental destruction and unresponsive politicians, demanding change to head off a crisis.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Young
Striking for the future
"Why study, if our future is being destroyed?" This sign features a sentiment shared by increasing numbers of German students, who have joined young people worldwide in using Friday school strikes to call for action on climate change. The movement was inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who began her protests alone in front of the Swedish parliament in August 2018.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
No time to wait
With the 2015 Paris climate accord, nearly all of the world's countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by 2100. The hope is that this target will prevent the worst effects of climate disasters. Concerned by the dire predictions from climate scientists, more and more people have called for immediate action.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Youth pressure
Despite urgent warnings, politicians have dragged their heels on important climate decisions. It's become clear that Germany will miss its targets for 2020. Climate protection was an important factor in the European elections in late May, with the Greens winning more than 20% of the vote in Germany alone, more than double previous results. Among 18-24-year-olds, 34% backed the party.
Image: DW/G. Rueter
Coal struggle in Hambach
Germany's climate movement is fighting on many fronts. In recent years, activists have fought to preserve Hambach Forest in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, building treehouses to prevent the old-growth forest from being felled to make way for the mining of lignite, or brown coal. Energy giant RWE has launched legal action, and police have cleared the camp several times.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/O. Berg
Victory, for now
In September 2018, a few days after the camp was removed again, a court ruling suspended the clearing of the forest until late 2020, after a lawsuit by environmental group BUND. RWE has argued that the forest has to be cut in order to ensure the coal necessary for Germany's electricity supply. Around 50,000 activists celebrated the victory.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T.Hase
Making headlines
Protests organized by groups such as Ende Gelände have increasingly been making headlines. Thousands of young activists have come out to staged events, blocking railway tracks used to deliver coal to power plants near Cologne and occupying huge coal excavators, as seen here in the open-pit mine in the east German town of Welzow in 2016.
Image: picture-alliance/Zumapress/J. Grosse
20 more years?
In January 2019, after seven months of negotiations, a coal commission set up by the federal government to work out Germany's plans to phase out coal power released its findings. It recommended that Germany should continue coal mining until 2038, at the latest —far too late for the country to meet the targets of the 2015 Paris climate accord.
An increasing number of young people in Germany are demanding that the government find a way to meet the 1.5-degree target. The emerging Fridays for Future movement has been getting support from longtime environmentalists, teachers, academics and parents. They have called for all German coal-fired power plants to be shut down by 2030, and for renewable energy initiatives to be vastly expanded.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/T. Schwarz
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Around 40,000 protesters from 15 countries rallied in the western German city of Aachen on Friday as part of a student movement demanding bold action to combat climate change, organizers said.
Many of the "Fridays for Future,"demonstrators carried signs and banners with slogans like "your greed costs us our future," ''climate justice: that's what we want," and "If Earth was a bank, you would have rescued it long ago."
Luisa Neubauer, an environmental activist, said the students were "not giving up, we stand for cross-border climate protection."
One of the most high-profile attendees was YouTuber, Rezo. The Aachener native has used his channel to criticize the government's climate policies.
Strong police presence
A large police deployment was noticeable in the city, although officials said that no incidents had been reported so far.
The protest is close to one of Germany's largest lignite mines. Thousands of climate activists are preparing to block access to the vast open coal mine over the weekend.
The site has witnessed large-scale protests in recent years after owner RWE planned to destroy the nearby Hambach Forest in order to expand the mine.
Local media reported that thousands of people were preparing to block access to the mine over the weekend.
Activists accuse Germany of not doing enough to battle climate change, demanding that Berlin start winding down coal consumption and implementing progressive policies to become CO2 neutral in the near future.
Although Europe's most populous country has long promoted the use of clean renewables, it will likely miss its climate goals because of a reliance on cheap coal from mines near Hambach.