Blocked highways, slogans deployed in a lake or on a bridge: climate activists targeted the German auto show, the IAA, on Tuesday, where Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected in the middle of the election campaign. From 8 a.m. (6 a.m. GMT), around fifteen Greenpeace activists immersed themselves up to their breasts in a lake located in front of the convention center where this important meeting of the sector is being held this week. At arm's length, they held up banners calling on politicians and car manufacturers to do more in the fight against climate change.
At the same time, small groups of activists deployed “Block IAA” banners from highway bridges around Munich, leading to road closures and traffic jams.
Two people were filmed as they were rappelled over a highway lane.
At least two motorway signs were also disguised with slogans such as "Chaos on the roads: exit in 2000 meters".
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Other actions are announced Thursday and Friday, before a demonstration Saturday which should bring together several thousand people in Munich. The show is presented this year as a showcase of the great challenge of electrification for the sector and wants to give a platform to “mobility” rather than cars, with in particular more than 70 brands of bicycles. But this new concept has not calmed the claims. "The IAA tries to represent change in terms of mobility, but behind that hides a lobby that wants to slow down this change," accused Benjamin Stephan, German spokesperson for the environmental NGO. The show "represents companies that are worsening the climate crisis, and who are changing their business model far too slowly," he added.
Greenpeace and the environmental NGO DUH announced on Friday a legal offensive against Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW to force manufacturers to stop selling thermal models from 2030.
