Neubauer attacks Scholz in an interview: No climate chancellor, but "fossil chancellor"

Created: 10/21/2022, 6:08 p.m

By: Ruth Herberg, Friederike Meier

In an exclusive interview, climate activist Luisa Neubauer talks about the failures of traffic lights, strategies against fainting and what she learned from her grandmother.

Ms. Neubauer, have the Greens now betrayed the climate movement?

The Greens do not make climate policy for the sake of the movement, but for the sake of the world.

To boil it all down to an issue between the Greens and Fridays for Future misses the point: that it is rather a conflict between politics and reality.

You speak of politics for the sake of the world.

At their party conference last weekend, the Greens voted against a moratorium on Lützerath.

In my opinion, it was wrong that the base was faced with such a decision.

Robert Habeck and Mona Neubaur had created facts independently with the deal.

For the delegates, voting for Lützerath, i.e. for climate justice, meant stabbing their own party leadership in the back.

However, the close voting result also shows that the party was not closed.

Interview with Luisa Neubauer: Greens should remain firm

Chairwoman Ricarda Lang has defended herself: Faced with the choice of doing something that is not perfect or doing nothing at all, you will decide to act imperfectly.

Can you understand that?

I understand that this is a complicated political situation for the Greens.

But I don't think it helps anyone to make far-reaching political decisions without a scientific basis.

They refer to the agreement with RWE on phasing out coal in NRW by 2030.

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Yes.

There it was argued that 280 million tons of CO2 would be saved.

This number apparently comes from RWE.

And, according to independent calculations, the early phase-out in 2030 would, in case of doubt, save no CO2 at all.

The fact that the Greens agreed to this is a big mistake, also for political trust.

The fact that Christian Lindner is more successful in protecting the speed limit than the Greens in Lützerath cannot be explained to anyone.

Luisa Neubauer at the federal party conference of the Greens.

© Philipp Mertens/Imago

But don't the Greens have to make such compromises as long as they are in government?

In order to be able to reach a compromise, bargaining chips are needed.

The Paris climate agreement and the 1.5 degree limit have already been negotiated.

With the so-called compromise, however, they have become a bargaining chip.

In addition, attempts are being made to degrade the village of Lützerath as a symbol, to a cuddly toy of the climate movement.

However, Lützerath stands for millions of tons of CO2 that can no longer be excavated.

"Fridays for Future" wants 100 billion euros for the climate

"Fridays for Future" activists are meeting with Christian Lindner at the end of October to talk about a 100 billion special fund for climate protection.

How did the meeting come about?

We put forward our demand for a special fund for the climate of 100 billion euros about a month ago.

We then immediately asked for talks with Christian Lindner, Robert Habeck and Olaf Scholz.

Christian Lindner has accepted.

Did Mr. Habeck and Mr. Scholz also agree?

Mr. Lindner was the first, we will follow up with Mr. Habeck and Mr. Scholz.

What do you expect from the meeting?

The federal party conference of the Greens has included the demand for 100 billion for the climate.

The idea that you can't take on new debt in 2023 is no longer tenable.

Therefore we look forward to a constructive meeting.

Luisa Neubauer: Olaf Scholz a "fossil chancellor"

Chancellor Olaf Scholz showed in this week's nuclear debate that he can certainly put his foot down.

What do you expect from him in climate protection?

He had climate chancellor written on his posters.

However, we are experiencing a fossil chancellor.

Scholz agrees that endless new LNG infrastructure is being built, even though we cannot meet our climate targets with it.

He goes to the biggest dictatorships and asks for new oil at any price.

In the long term, we will not solve fossil crises and fossil wars with fossil fuels.

We know that we need temporary solutions this winter, but we must not slip into new dependencies.

How do you rate the traffic light's carbon footprint so far?

Many people are reassured by the fact that individual things are going well.

Nobody questions that either.

You can see that work is being done on the expansion of renewables, on moor protection, on animal welfare.

During this time, however, there is no decision that does not have some ecological consequences - in transport policy, in building policy, in health policy.

It would be the government's job to ensure that every decision is ecologically sound.

But that also means that a chancellor does not only exercise his power after the other two partners have been fighting each other over a few months of nuclear power.

They have also called for a wall of protection from the right-wing anti-climate front.

What are you afraid of?

There is a tendency to say: maybe that won't work in this coalition, we'll have to wait for another one.

But there will never be a coalition in which it is easier.

When we see in which direction Friedrich Merz and his colleagues are slipping rhetorically, we don't want to imagine what it would look like if he came to power.

This means that preparatory work must also be done in the next three years.

Neubauer wrote a book with his grandmother

How exactly?

It has to be thought more in terms of mechanisms.

What rules ensure that the climate goals remain in place under other governments, even if they say that the climate crisis is not that big of a problem after all?

Fixed, annual sector targets are important for this.

To person

Luisa Neubauer (26)

is a climate activist and the best-known face of the "Fridays for Future" movement in Germany.

The geography student lives in Göttingen and Berlin.

"Against Fainting"

is the name of the book she wrote with her grandmother Dagmar Reemtsma, who was born in 1933.

It was published by Klett-Cotta and costs 24 euros.

You wrote a book with your grandmother.

What did you learn from her?

My grandmother is much more likely to assume that people who make bad climate policy decisions are badly informed.

That means she is incredibly benevolent towards politicians, but also towards fellow citizens.

She practices what is called leap of faith.

This is such an enriching counter-model to the ubiquitous cynicism of the climate crisis.

But there are many from the boomer generation in particular who seem to find it very difficult to imagine a different way of life.

Do you experience the topic primarily as a generational conflict?

Not necessarily.

What my grandmother and I mostly discuss is the lethargy in terms of world consciousness.

Every generation is affected and everyone can defend themselves against it.

The boomers certainly have the worst reputation when it comes to the climate, but that too can be changed.

Everyone can take part in the climate protest

What lethargy do you mean?

There is a tendency to limit the activism to a youthful period.

But it's about finding a lasting activist attitude to the world and asking yourself again and again: Am I contributing to everything continuing as it is or even getting worse?

With groups like "Azubis for Future", "Architects for Future" or "Pädagogen for Future" we want to show that in every area of ​​life and in every phase of life there is the possibility not to suppress the world, but to embrace it.

Traffic light coalition: The Scholz cabinet at a glance

View photo gallery

The consequences of the climate crisis were once again clearly evident this summer.

Why did fewer people come to the climate strike in September than in 2019?

In Berlin we stood on the streets with 36,000 people, in Germany we had a quarter of a million.

Less than 2019.

In 2019 we had to get 1.4 million people onto the streets so that Groko would whisper “climate protection” for once.

We don't have to anymore.

Since then we have achieved an incredible amount.

But the world has also changed a lot.

Protest is not necessarily better, more important and more successful because of the mass of people that are there, it's about the context.

Incidentally, it has also become more difficult for people to take to the streets today because the crises make you so powerless.

Many people are currently very worried about their existence.

The climate crisis, on the other hand, is relatively abstract.

Tell that to the people who lost their relatives in the Ahr Valley, who had to evacuate their homes in Brandenburg.

It is a huge drama that people are currently having to decide where to put their worries.

No one should run out of food at the end of the month.

Exactly this moment, when so many crises overlap, would be one in which the government could say: We will take this burden off your shoulders.

Here is our immediate climate protection program, which by the way still doesn't exist, although it was announced for September.

“Rich countries must take financial responsibility”

The next climate conference will take place in November.

What do you expect from the meeting and do you expect anything at all from UN climate conferences?

26 past climate conferences have made it pretty hard to have high hopes.

But it must be a conference in which the perspectives of Africa are clearly in the foreground.

And of course it is about the financing of so-called loss and damage.

Rich countries must take financial responsibility for climate catastrophes in poorer countries.

From your point of view, what would be the minimum that one would have to agree on in order for it to be a good result?

Germany must make clear commitments regarding loss and damage and position itself on the human rights situation in Egypt.

It is unacceptable that happy negotiations are going on there while Egyptian climate activists are in prison.

There are an estimated 65,000 political prisoners in the country.

Suppressing the climate crisis “takes an incredible amount of strength and energy”

You just mentioned the feeling of powerlessness.

How do you get out?

When I talk about powerlessness, I'm talking about an emotional impasse that makes you feel like no matter what I do, I don't make a difference.

My grandmother and I explored different feelings of powerlessness in our book.

Through loss, through war, past and future.

What they have in common is that the moment we recognize this impotence, an important step has already been taken.

Fainting comes from an asymmetry.

I don't have the power I need to assert myself in a situation.

On the other hand, it does not help to suppress the problem, on the other hand it needs empowerment.

It is important to get together.

That can mean I find someone else and talk about it.

Or I join a group or take part in actions, initiatives, lived change.

These are possibilities

And what helps to stop suppressing the climate crisis?

Many think that I have a tough job because I keep talking about the climate crisis.

I think those who spend their time pushing away the climate crisis have a much harder job.

That takes an incredible amount of strength and energy.

In contrast, what becomes possible when you wriggle out of it is so incredibly liberating and affirming.

The world then not only reveals itself in all its horrors, but, at least that is my experience and that of my grandmother, we can also experience the world in all its beauty in a completely different way.

(Interview: Ruth Herberg and Friederike Meier)