“Not easy time” – of the tree to break: Is the climate movement dead?

“As soon as I have children, they need to know that I am not sacrificing at school” This punishment was often heard on Friday for future demos at that time. Pupils who have the foresight for such a complex and non -sedible subject on young years that even many adults and politicians are afraid and like to suppress them. They heard with anger and determination and could no longer be ignored by the older one.

A youth protest conquers the world
August 20, 2018: The start signal for the first single climate protests of the Swedish Greta Thunberg, who later found the whole world as head of the movement and found it worldwide. It was only at the start of the Gaza war due to the anti-Semitic symbol policy. Finally, “Friday’s for future” (FFF) grew from the strike in the early day. Since then almost seven years have passed and during this time the organization has experienced a development with many different phases. And today?

A warning interview: climate change and migration
Shortly before the elections of the Bundestag in Germany, the subject seems dead, the movement seems exhausted. “It’s not an easy time, everyone gets it with us,” admits FFF spokeswoman Pauline Brünger in the NTV interview. This is clearly visible in the political debate, because climate protection plays a rather subordinate role in the election campaign. Instead, the polarizing power spoker dominates the controversial asylum policy in Germany. With the help of the voices of the AfD Chancellor -candidate Friedrich Merz poured out a trade union application in the Bundestag, which, according to Brünger, would exceed “100 red lines”.

Asylum is a human right, but instead of developing effective measures for migration and integration, the constitutional law is constantly disputed. It is not a allocation, but according to Brünger the climate debate runs in the “completely wrong direction”. Scientists are already warning against a climate -related stream of refugees, because extreme weather conditions, such as the flood of the century in Austria last fall, increase and took their livelihood for many.

For this reason, FFF has also increasingly organized demos of right -wing extremism in recent years, and the subject of related. “There is certainly a danger that you work on the topics of others, but it makes no sense to talk in the past,” said the 24-year-old climate activist.

FFF, too, was side by side with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to demonstrate against the right from the right in Germany:

FFF seems to have to justify itself today that the struggle for the climate is in the foreground. The MDR reports on a shrinking movement in Magdeburg. The Südkurier asks whether the movement has given up the fight against climate change. And in the SWR, the local spur must explain that on Friday for the future no interest has lost. Here too, Brünger justifies himself: “Everyone has this with us and we also wonder internally: how do you deal with it?”

Corona as a turning point: how the pandemic of the movement damages
The movement has probably been given cracks with the start of the Corona Pandemie. At the height of the protests, according to Brünger in 2019, more than a million people were on the street on a single Friday. The movement was taken into account with the risk of infection of the lockdown, which is why the FFF movement had to clearly press the pause button. When asked why there was no way to mobilize many people for the climate protests afterwards, there is no clear answer for Brünger. Over the years that could not have been “” could not be maintained “, that would have been an” illusion “.

Nevertheless, one could also look at success to take to the streets, despite the visible fatigue of the population for the climate. “We had a big moment, a lot has happened. However, the successes can only be seen in a delay, “explains the FFF spokeswoman. It would take a few years for social changes to be deposited in laws. In any case, the subject is still relevant, which has made clear a report on the World Economic Forum in Davos on the greatest worldwide risks: five of the ten largest are climate.

Nevertheless, there is a certain exhaustion of the subject: at the moment it is more likely to be observed, instead of dismissal or even progress. Brünger also sees a shift in the discourse: “Nobody wants to talk about the climate anymore”. So have people overloaded since Corona due to negative headlines? Does this clearly unapproachable and complex subject solve such stress actions, so that, according to Brünger, “right voices and conservative liberals talk about the success of recent years”? The 24-year-old warns to ignore these voices because they could perform their promises with a government participation.

An open offer for all generations
Despite everything, Brünger and her movement do not give up: “If you want to take to the streets with us, you only have to match two points: we want you to be able to live on this planet for longer that politics meets this responsibility. We fight for that.

Farmers who work for their harvest or older CDU voters who would not really feel well protected against heat waves would give the debate new energy. Perhaps this is the turning point where older generations are finally ready to hear the young person for their worries.