(3 Mar 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin, Germany - 3 March 2023
1. Wide of Fridays For Futures demonstration
2. Various of demonstration
3. Mid of sign reading (English): “Our earth is on fire”
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Darya Sotoodeh, Fridays For Future spokesperson:
“Today we are here to demand (a) socio-ecological transformation. And today we specifically demand the German government to invest into the public transport and support the workers.”
5. Mid of protesters with banners marching
6. Mid of protesters holding sign reading (English): “Act now”
7. Wide of protesters marching with signs
8. Close of sign reading (English): “Rich must pay for their emissions”
9. SOUNDBITE (German) Jakob Schäuffelen, director:
“I would like society and politics to understand that it's about our survival on this planet, that we can't continue as we are.”
10. Pan left to right of sign reading (German): “Stick to climate targets”
11. Various of demonstration
12. Protesters marching with banner reading (English): “International alert; military dictatorship in peril”
13. Various of demonstration
STORYLINE:
Thousands of climate protesters, young and old, gathered Friday in Berlin and other German cities to demand tougher government action against global warming, particularly when in curbing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector.
A small pro-business party that controls Germany's Transport Ministry, the Free Democrats, has pushed back against efforts to impose a general speed limit, phase out combustion engines and massively invest in public transport.
The refusal has frustrated the party's larger coalition partners — Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens — as well as climate campaigners who say Germany is missing its own emissions targets.
Among them was director Jakob Schäuffelen, 55, said he was protesting because of his children and grandchildren.
"We can't continue as we are," he told the Associated Press, urging politicians to "understand that it's about our survival on this planet."
Asked about Friday's protests, a spokesman for Scholz said the German government takes its climate goals “very seriously.”
The protests in Germany are part of a global “climate strike” called by the group Fridays for Future, which drew inspiration from Swedish activist Greta Thunberg's protests outside the parliament in Stockholm.
Darya Sotoodeh, a spokesperson for the group, accused Germany's transport minister of placing too much focus on the country's car industry, at the expense of affordable public transport.
Last year the government agreed to introduce a nationwide public transit ticket costing 49 euros ($52) a month, but bus and train companies say it is not sustainable without further government subsidies.
Public transit labor unions, whose members went on strike in parts of Germany on Friday to demand higher wages, expressed support for the climate protest.
The rise in global carbon emissions last year was partly blamed on a rebound in air travel as pandemic restrictions eased.
The International Energy Agency also warned this week that the trend toward ever bigger cars is a growing problem for the environment.
Scientists warn that international efforts to limit the average worldwide temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times are failing.
AP video by Liv Stroud
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