German Chancellor Angela Merkel received Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday, who started an international youth movement with her weekly school strikes, which started exactly two years ago. They discussed how climate change could be mitigated. Thunberg is accompanied by other members of the Fridays for Future movement, including our fellow countrymen Anuna De Wever and Adelaide Charlier, but also the German Luisa Neubauer.
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Merkel’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, said it is an “informal exchange of views” on climate issues of national and international importance. Germany is currently president of the European Union. Climate policy is central to that presidency.
But that didn’t stop activists from denouncing “political passivity” in the climate crisis in a commentary in the Guardian newspaper in the run-up to the meeting. The activists are also expected to hand Merkel an open letter signed by 125,000 people. It calls for more action from European leaders, including a stop on investments and subsidies in fossil fuels.
So, exactly two years ago, on August 20, 2018, Greta Thunberg started her first “school strike for the climate”. It has since become a signpost for the call for radical action against climate change. Time magazine named her Person of the Year 2019 – four years after Merkel.
Merkel himself would not speak to the press after the meeting. The activists, on the other hand, will give a press conference this afternoon. They are unlikely to be satisfied with Merkel’s pragmatism on climate.
Germany agrees with the European Commission’s proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 55 percent compared to 1990 levels. But climate activists believe that even this more ambitious goal is insufficient. The activists also piped Germany’s plan to phase out coal by 2038.
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