AFP UK

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a closed-door meeting of world leaders Monday on the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York to boost climate commitments.

The roundtable comes less than six weeks before a major United Nations climate meeting, COP26, in Glasgow, aimed at ensuring the world meets its goal of holding century-end warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“UNGA is the last big moment in the international calendar ahead of COP26,” Britain’s UN ambassador Barbara Woodward said in a statement. “Climate change will be the UK’s top priority.”

Woodward said Britain would press countries to “cut emissions, particularly phasing out coal, and revitalising and protecting nature.”

A senior UN official said Wednesday that over the past two years, leaders had conducted climate discussions at the G7 and G20, but there had not been a forum for leading economies to speak with the hardest-hit countries.

Asked why the meeting was closed-door, he said: “It’s not intended in any fashion to be a meeting in the shadows,” but a way to facilitate frank dialogue “rather than pre-prepared statements or reverting to established positions.”

The meeting will include leaders from the G20, as well as developing and small island nations, and will be partly in-person, partly virtual. 

It’s not yet known who or how many will attend, including, crucially, whether the leaders of the world’s top two polluters — Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden — will take part. 

Guterres has laid out three climate priorities. First, the UN is asking countries to strengthen their commitments to reach net zero emissions by 2050 under the 2015 Paris agreement.

Second, it wants developed countries to fulfill a promise to raise a $100-billion climate action fund.

Third, it wants a “significant breakthrough” on financing for adaptation projects for hard-hit nations, to protect them against events such as droughts, floods and sea-level rise. The UN wants adaptation finance to account for 50 percent of all climate finance.

Last month, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the Earth’s average global temperature will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels around 2030, a decade earlier than projected three years ago.

With only 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming so far, an unbroken cascade of deadly weather disasters bulked up by climate change swept the world this summer, from asphalt-melting heatwaves in Canada to rainstorms turning China’s city streets into rivers.

This month, record-breaking rainfall from Hurricane Ida devastated New York and New Jersey, killing almost 50 people.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a closed-door meeting of world leaders at the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York on Monday to boost climate commitments.

The roundtable comes less than six weeks before a major UN climate meeting, COP26, in Glasgow, aimed at ensuring the world meets its goal of holding century-end warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“UNGA is the last big moment in the international calendar ahead of COP26,” said Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, in a statement. “Climate change will be the UK’s top priority.”

A senior UN official said Wednesday that over the past two years, leaders had conducted climate discussions at the G7 and G20, but there had not been a forum for leading economies to speak with the hardest-hit countries.

Asked why the meeting was closed-door, he said: “It’s not intended in any fashion to be a meeting in the shadows,” but a way to facilitate frank dialogue “rather than pre-prepared statements or reverting to established positions.”

The meeting will include leaders from the G20, as well as developing and small island nations, and will be partly in-person, partly virtual. 

It’s not yet known who or how many will attend, including, crucially, whether the leaders of the world’s top two polluters — Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden — will take part. 

Guterres has laid out three climate priorities. First, the UN is asking countries to strengthen their commitments to reach net zero emissions by 2050 under the 2015 Paris agreement. 

Second, it wants developed countries to fulfill a promise to raise a $100-billion climate action fund.

Third, it wants a “significant breakthrough” on financing for adaptation projects for hard-hit nations, to protect them against events such as droughts, floods and sea-level rise. The UN wants adaptation finance to account for 50 percent of all climate finance.

The meeting comes as a new report by the World Resources Institute and Climate Analytic published Thursday showed that the world is on a trajectory to warm by 2.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century under countries’ current reduction commitments.

But if G20 countries, accounting for 75 percent of global greenhouse emissions, set ambitious goals, global temperature rise at the end of the century could be limited to 1.7 degrees Celsius, the report said.

Last month, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the Earth’s average global temperature will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels around 2030, a decade earlier than projected three years ago.

With only 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming so far, an unbroken cascade of deadly weather disasters bulked up by climate change swept the world this summer, from asphalt-melting heatwaves in Canada to rainstorms turning China’s city streets into rivers.

This month, record-breaking rainfall from Hurricane Ida devastated New York and New Jersey, killing almost 50 people.

Devastating Australian wildfires released twice as much climate-warming C02 than previously thought — but also triggered vast algae blooms thousands of miles away that may have soaked up significant extra carbon, according to studies published Wednesday. 

Severe summer heat and drought helped spark the fires from late 2019 to early 2020 that killed 33 people and tens of millions of wild animals, while destroying vast swathes of eucalyptus forest.  

These “Black Summer” fires, which enveloped Sydney and other cities in smoke and ash for months, were known to have released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but the exact amount was difficult to quantify. 

To find out, researchers in the Netherlands used new satellite technology that can monitor the gases released during a fire on a daily basis. 

They produced estimates of overall emissions as well as carbon dioxide released, concluding that the amount was more than twice previously estimated from five different fire inventories. 

“We found that the CO2 emissions from this single event were significantly higher than what all Australians normally emit with the combustion of fossil fuels in an entire year,” said Ivar van der Velde of the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, lead author of the paper published in the journal Nature. 

While it was still uncertain, he said “given current trends in global warming, we believe it is quite possible that we will see more of these types of large wildfires in Australia, and possibly elsewhere. 

“This will likely contribute to even more CO2 in the atmosphere than expected.”

Wildfires are consistent with a warmer world, as climate change makes droughts and heatwaves more frequent and intense. 

Depending on the amount of C02 that is drawn back into plants as they regrow, the emissions could help drive further warming. 

– ‘Fertilise the ocean’ –

The fires also released aerosols transporting nitrogen and iron particles that can spur ocean “blooms” of microscopic algae, called phytoplankton.

In a separate study in Nature, researchers found that high levels of iron pumped into the air by the fires were blown huge distances, eventually causing a significant increase in phytoplankton in the Pacific Ocean thousands of kilometres from Australia.  

Previous studies have suggested wildfires could seed algae blooms, said co-author Joan Llort, of the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. 

But he said the “most surprising thing was the magnitude” revealed in the research, with blooms covering an area larger than Australia itself.  

Phytoplankton perform a crucial role in the global climate, taking in C02 as they photosynthesise in a process similar to plants. 

Part of that carbon eventually sinks into the deep ocean and is stored. 

“Our results provide evidence that iron from wildfires can fertilise the ocean, potentially leading to a significant increase in carbon uptake by phytoplankton,” said co-author Nicolas Cassar, of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. 

But he said finding out whether the amount to which the fire emissions could be offset by C02 absorbed by micro algae blooms seeded by the fires is the “Holy Grail” of the research and still uncertain.

Ebola, which could reappear years later in survivors according to a study published by the journal Nature on Wednesday, has killed more than 15,000 people since 1976.

Here is a factfile on the widely feared disease:

– Origins –

Ebola is a viral haemorrhagic fever that was first identified in central Africa in 1976. The disease was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire. 

Five of the virus species are known to cause disease in humans — Zaire, Sudan, Bundibugyo, Reston and Tai Forest.

The first three have resulted in serious outbreaks in Africa.

– Transmission –

The virus’ natural reservoir animal is suspected to be a species of fruit bat, which does not itself fall ill but can pass the disease on to primates, including humans. Humans become exposed to the virus if they kill or butcher infected bats for food. 

Among humans, the virus is passed on by contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions or organs of an infected or recently deceased person. This can include touching a sick or dead person, and likely also sexual intercourse.

Those infected do not become contagious until symptoms appear. They become more and more contagious until just after their death, which poses great risks during funerals.

Death rates are high, at around 50 percent on average of those infected, and up to 90 percent for some epidemics, World Health Organization (WHO) data show.

According to the study published Wednesday, it is possible that Ebola remains dormant in survivors before reappearing several years later and potentially causing a new outbreak.

– Symptoms –

Following an incubation period of between two and 21 days, Ebola develops into a high fever, weakness, intense muscle and joint pain, headaches and a sore throat.

The initial symptoms are often followed by vomiting and diarrhoea, skin eruptions, kidney and liver failure, and sometimes internal and external bleeding.

– Treatment –

A vaccine developed by the US group Merck Sharp and Dohme was found to be very effective in a major study carried out in Guinea in 2015.

It was pre-qualified by the WHO and more than 300,000 doses have been used during a vaccination programme in the DR Congo.

A second experimental vaccine developed by the US group Johnson & Johnson was introduced preventively in October 2019 in areas that had not been affected by the virus, and more than 20,000 people were inoculated.

– Worst epidemic (2013-2016) –

The worst-ever Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in southern Guinea before spreading to two neighbouring West African countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 

That outbreak killed more than 11,300 people out of nearly 29,000 registered cases, according to WHO estimates. 

– 10th and 11th DR Congo epidemics –

The 10th epidemic began in August 2018 in the North Kivu province of DR Congo. The WHO declared it a global health threat in July 2019.

DR Congo authorities declared it over in June the following year after around 2,280 people had died, making it Africa’s second-worst Ebola outbreak.

That month in the Equateur province, an 11th Ebola epidemic began and it was declared over in November, with 55 deaths.

– DR Congo, Guinea –

The DR Congo said in February 2021 that a resurgence of the virus had been identified in an eastern part of the country.

Vaccines were rolled out and the 12th epidemic was declared over in May, at a cost of six lives.

Guinea also reported an “epidemic situation” in its southeast in February. After the rapid use of vaccines, the official end of the second epidemic was declared in June after 12 deaths.

– Ivory Coast: False alarm –

On August 14, Ivory Coast announced its first known case of the disease since 1994, in an 18-year-old Guinean woman recently arrived in Abidjan. 

But after new studies by the Institut Pasteur in France, the WHO announced at the end of August that the patient had not had the disease and there was “no evidence” of Ebola in the country.

The government of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory, faced an outcry on Tuesday over the culling of more than 1,400 white-sided dolphins in a day in what was said to be the single biggest hunt in the northern archipelago.

“There is no doubt that the Faroese whale hunts are a dramatic sight to people unfamiliar to the hunts and slaughter of mammals,” a government spokesman told AFP. 

“The hunts are, nevertheless, well organised and fully regulated,” he said.

Traditionally, the North Atlantic islands — which have a population of around 50,000 people — hunt pilot whales and not dolphins, the spokesman said. 

“There are usually a few of them in the ‘grind’, but we normally don’t kill such a large number,” said a local television journalist, Hallur av Rana.

The “grindadrap” is a practice whereby the hunters first surround the whales with a wide semi-circle of fishing boats and then drive them into a bay to be beached and slaughtered. 

Photos showing the bloodied corpses of more than 1,000 Atlantic white-sided dolphins on the beach sparked outrage on social media.

“It looks quite extreme and it took some time to kill them all, while it’s usually pretty quick,” av Rana said. 

According to av Rana, some 53 percent of the islands’ population are opposed to hunting dolphins.

There are however no plans to abolish the “grind”, which authorities insist is a sustainable way of hunting.

Sea Shepherd, a charity that campaigns against the hunting of whales and dolphins, described it as a “barbaric practice”. 

According to local estimates, there are around 100,000 pilot whales in the waters around the Faroe Islands and around 600 were killed last year.

As the sound of gunfire erupts near her office, Celia Umenza takes the briefest of pauses from discussing her battle against farming expansion and mining that threaten indigenous land and water in Colombia.

Death is a constant companion for indigenous defenders of nature in the violence-ridden country, and Umenza has already survived three attempts on her life.

While speaking to AFP, bursts of gunfire and explosions reverberate in the mountains near her office in Toribio, in the rural Cauca department.

She stops speaking for just a moment before resuming the interview, seemingly indifferent to the looming threat that has become a part of life for many in Colombia.

In a report released Sunday, the non-governmental group Global Witness said Colombia was the most dangerous country for land and environment defenders for the second year in a row in 2020, accounting for 65 of the 227 killings reported worldwide.

“We have the threat of government repression, of retaliation by the guerrillas and also by the paramilitaries,” said Umenza, 48.

The most recent attack on her life was in 2014.

“A neighbor was driving me in a van… they riddled the van with bullets,” she said.

According to Global Witness, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for environmental activists since 2012, when its records begin.

A third of deadly attacks were on indigenous peoples, and many were linked to opposition to logging, mining, agribusiness, hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure threatening natural resources that communities have relied on for generations.

– ‘Preserving the water’ –

Since the 1970s, the indigenous peoples of the Cauca region of southwest Colombia have been fighting an expansion by sugarcane growers they say are driving them from the fertile lowlands they rely on for survival, and destroying the forest.

“We no longer have those forests that used to exist, we no longer have that fauna, that flora. It is really worrying,” said Umenza.

The dispute is also about water, she said. 

Unlike the native vegetation, she explained, the sugar cane “draws a lot of water and little by little” has been drying up the streams.

In its report, Global Witness said 17 people worldwide were killed in 2020 for their activism against agribusiness, and 20 in disputes over water and dams.

“Companies have been acting irresponsibly for decades, contributing to, and benefiting from, attacks on land and environmental defenders,” it noted.

– In the crosshairs –

Near Toribio, where Umenza lives and works, illegal gold mining contaminates water with mercury. Further north, pesticides used in the cultivation of marijuana poison the soil.

Both illegal activities finance dissident FARC guerillas, who rejected a peace pact with the government in 2016 to end a near six-decade civil war, as well as fighters of the last remaining rebel group the ELN and paramilitary forces that are still active.

According to the Global Witness report, paramilitary and criminal groups have increased their control of rural areas through violence.

“Those seeking to protect their land and environment are increasingly being caught up in the crosshairs of this violence –- with those protecting indigenous land particularly at risk,” it said.

Frequently the victims are community members seeking to benefit from a government program to convert illegal coca crops, from which cocaine is derived, into legal ones. 

The situation was worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, with official lockdowns leading to defenders being targeted in their homes, and government protection measures being cut.

To make matters even more complicated, Umenza says legal companies benefit from the illegal gold extraction, buying at low prices.

She is protected by the Indigenous Guard, a self-defense organization that confronts perceived intruders armed with batons and two-way radios, but no guns.

“In the indigenous territories we have fortunately managed to keep mining out,” said Umenza.

But the price is high, with one member of the Guard killed every week so far this year, she added.

– ‘A moving target’ –

Umenza says she has received countless death threats since 2001.

The first attempt on her life came in 2005, she says by FARC guerillas, who shot at her while she was walking in the countryside.

Five years later, continued threats forced her to move — the first of several involuntary relocations, the most recent of which was in January this year.

In 2011, the government’s National Protection Unit assigned a vehicle escort to protect Umenza and four other threatened people in the Toribio region.

A few months ago, it offered her a bodyguard and a bullet-proof vest.

She “did not accept because walking around in the vest makes me feel more vulnerable,” like a moving target, she told AFP.

Since 2009, Umenza’s three children have been living far away for their own safety, and she says their father left her because he “could not stand” the constant threats, attacks and regular uprooting.

She has a new partner today — but she is realistic about her happy ever after. 

“It is not easy living with someone who today takes you on the run, and tomorrow, who knows,” she said.

Thousands of seabirds that wash up on Atlantic coasts every year could have been starved to death by cyclones that whip up “washing machine” waves, a new study says, with experts warning the phenomenon could worsen with climate change.   

Puffins, auks and guillemots — hardy little birds that nest in the Arctic — head south each year to more hospitable but isolated islands off Newfoundland, Iceland or Norway. 

But many are found washed up on beaches in mass die-offs that scientists now think are caused by violent winter cyclones that prevent them from feeding.

“Imagine winds blowing at 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph), waves 8 metres high (26 ft) and turbulence in the water that disturbs plankton and schools of fish the birds feed on,” said David Gremillet of the French CNRS research institute, which coordinated the study published Tuesday in Current Biology.

“They’re caught in a big washing machine,” he told AFP. 

Unable to fly clear of the storms, some of which last days, the birds likely cannot dive into the sea to feed or are perhaps unable to see their prey in the troubled waters.

With small reserves of body fat, an auk can die if it goes 48 hours without eating.

Gremillet said that scientists had suspected that storms were responsible for killing the birds. 

“But what we didn’t know was where and how,” he said.

– Emaciated –

  

To find out, an international research team decided to track birds from 39 different colonies in the North Atlantic.

Focusing on five species, they equipped more than 1,500 puffins, auks, seagulls and two types of guillemots with global location sensors.

Clipped to the animals’ feet at their various summer nesting sites, the sensors then tracked the birds’ winter migration.

By looking at about a decade’s worth of bird movement data and comparing it to winter weather patterns scientists were able to determine where the birds ran into cyclones.

They used models to estimate how much energy the birds were using to fly through the storms and ruled out cold or exhaustion as the killers.

So Gremillet said the most likely explanation remains “that the weather conditions are so horrible that the birds are not able to feed”.

When tens of thousands of dead puffins and guillemots washed up on French shores in 2014, their bodies were particularly emaciated, said the study’s main author Manon Clairbaux of the University of Montpellier.

Worldwide populations of these birds have declined by half since the 1970s due to habitat loss, pollution, competition with fishermen and accidental capture among the main threats.

And Gremillet said that cyclones, which are expected to increase in “frequency and intensity” with climate change, could become a bigger threat.

Though little can be done to prevent the killer storms, experts say mapping them allows conservationists to push for added protection — like reduced commercial fishing — for habitats in their paths.

“It’s important to understand the dangers that threaten them,” said Clairbaux.

In late August, six young climate activists set up tents on a stretch of grass between the Reichstag and the chancellery in central Berlin, refusing to eat.

More than two weeks later, some look pale and emaciated. One collapsed on Tuesday. Another broke down in tears as medics performed a daily check of their weight and blood pressure.

But they have still not achieved their chief objective — a meeting with the three main candidates vying to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor when Germany goes to the polls on September 26. 

“The climate crisis kills. We are on hunger strike for an unlimited period of time,” a banner strewn across one of the tents proclaims in large red letters.

The activists want to meet conservative Armin Laschet, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz and the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock.

All three parties have made climate policy a key issue in their campaigning, and the Greens have even pledged to make climate neutrality the top priority of the next government.

But the activists say it’s not enough. For Jacob Heinze, none of the major parties is prepared “to take the necessary measures to protect us, the younger generation, from the catastrophe” that is unfolding.

– ‘Time bomb’ –

The activists also want the next German government to set up a committee of citizens representing the whole spectrum of society to develop measures to protect the environment. 

The hunger strike is a “last resort… in the face of the extreme seriousness of our situation”, the 27-year-old told AFP, long hair tied back from his gaunt face.

Just hours later, he was taken to hospital after collapsing.

Hannah Luebbert, a 20-year-old activist who is part of the support team, told AFP he was released later Tuesday and he immediately returned to the hunger strike.

Asked about the man’s wellbeing earlier, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert wished him a “quick recovery”, but warned against drastic action as part of the demonstration.

“Hunger strikes for the climate or for a meeting with politicians can endanger your health. Everyone needs to be aware of that,” he told reporters. 

“Every proposal, every approach in the political debate about climate protection is welcome, but please without endangering yourself.” 

Luebbert said the urgency of the issues required more than conventional marches or sit-ins.

“We are sitting on a time bomb,” she said. “If we don’t change things quickly, in a few years it will be too late.”

For evidence of this, according to the activists, you only have to look at the deadly floods that swept through western Germany in July, which experts have directly linked to climate change.

Global warming will also bring famine, they say, hence the idea of voluntary starvation. 

“Food security is not something we can take for granted. We are heading for wars over the distribution of food, water and land,” said Heinze. 

The school and university students aged between 18 and 27 from all over Germany believe they belong to “the last generation” that can still take action. 

– ‘Grim and hard’ –

After that, they say, scientific research has shown that the dramatic consequences of global warming will become irreversible. 

For them, civil disobedience movements like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future do not go far enough. Some have already carried out drastic stunts such as scaling political buildings or chaining themselves to the streets to block traffic.

“But we have seen that these different forms of action have not led to any change” at the political level, Luebbert said.

On the 15th day of their strike, the activists decided to up the ante by giving up the vitamin drinks they had been taking.

“I think we’re noticing the aftermath and next week is going to be really grim and hard,” said Henning Jeschke, an activist who has posted several videos of the action on Twitter. 

The only response they have had so far is a phone call from Baerbock. “But even with the Greens we will not meet the climate targets we have to meet,” said Luebbert.

A small nocturnal marsupial that once roamed the Australian mainland has been brought back from the brink of extinction after a decades-long conservation effort, authorities said Wednesday. 

The Eastern Barred Bandicoot populated the grassy plains of Victoria state’s southwest until it was all but obliterated by non-native foxes, feral cats and habitat destruction.

By 1989, there were just 150 animals left in the region, mostly scrounging an existence in rusted-out cars at a rubbish dump.

Over the past three decades, multi-million dollar captive breeding and rewilding programmes have revived the mainland Australian population to an estimated 1,500 — bumping it off the state’s “extinct in the wild” list.

“We are excited to announce the change in conservation status for the Eastern Barred Bandicoot from extinct in the wild to endangered –- it is an incredible first for Australia,” Victoria state Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said.

A closely related sub-species can also be found on the southern island of Tasmania, where it is classified as vulnerable.

The announcement is a rare conservation win in Australia, which environmentalists say has the world’s worst mammal extinction rate.

Amy Coetsee, threatened species biologist at Zoos Victoria, said it offered “hope that with persistence, determination and the support of government, volunteers and communities, we can win the fight against extinction”.

Conservation teams created several predator-free sites for the bandicoots — some fenced and others protected by trained dogs — as well as moving animals to fox-free islands.

The areas were populated with bandicoots largely bred in captivity by Zoos Victoria, which is now ending that breeding programme on account of the success.

Coetsee said the organisation was “100 percent confident” that the Eastern Barred Bandicoot was now secure in the wild.

There are about 20 known species of bandicoots in Australia and New Guinea, several of which are classified as endangered or extinct.

In late August, six young climate activists set up tents on a stretch of grass between the Reichstag and the chancellery in central Berlin, refusing to eat.

More than two weeks later, some look pale and emaciated. One collapsed on Tuesday. Another broke down in tears as medics performed a daily check of their weight and blood pressure.

Neither have they achieved their chief objective — a meeting with the three main candidates vying to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor when Germany goes to the polls on September 26. 

“The climate crisis kills. We are on hunger strike for an unlimited period of time,” a banner strewn across one of the tents proclaims in large red letters.

The activists want to meet conservative Armin Laschet, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz and the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock.

All three parties have made climate policy a key issue in their campaigning, and the Greens have even pledged to make climate neutrality the top priority of the next government.

But the activists say it’s not enough. For Jacob Heinze, none of the major parties is prepared “to take the necessary measures to protect us, the younger generation, from the catastrophe” that is unfolding.

– ‘Time bomb’ –

They also want the next German government to set up a committee of citizens representing the whole spectrum of society to develop measures to protect the environment. 

The hunger strike is a “last resort… in the face of the extreme seriousness of our situation”, the 27-year-old told AFP, long hair tied back from his gaunt face.

Just hours later, he was taken to hospital after collapsing.

“We are sitting on a time bomb,” said Hannah Luebbert, a 20-year-old activist who is part of the support team. “If we don’t change things quickly, in a few years it will be too late.”

For evidence of this, according to the activists, you only have to look at the deadly floods that swept through western Germany in July, which experts have directly linked to climate change.

Global warming will also bring famine, they say, hence the idea of voluntary starvation. 

“Food security is not something we can take for granted. We are heading for wars over the distribution of food, water and land,” said Heinze. 

The school and university students aged between 18 and 27 from all over Germany believe they belong to “the last generation” that can still take action. 

– ‘Grim and hard’ –

After that, they say, scientific research has shown that the dramatic consequences of global warming will become irreversible. 

For them, civil disobedience movements like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future do not go far enough. Some have already carried out drastic stunts such as scaling political buildings or chaining themselves to the streets to block traffic.

“But we have seen that these different forms of action have not led to any change” at the political level, Luebbert said.

Gathered in a circle on the lawn, some of the activists chose to remain inside the tents that have become their makeshift homes. On the 15th day of their strike, they decided to up the ante by giving up the vitamin drinks they had been taking.

“I think we’re noticing the aftermath and next week is going to be really grim and hard,” says Henning Jeschke, an activist who has posted several videos of the action on Twitter. 

The only response they have had so far is a phone call from Baerbock. “But even with the Greens we will not meet the climate targets we have to meet,” said Luebbert.