German Climate Activists Advocate Debt Relief For Poorer Countries

Posted by Eric Ojo Europe, Latest Headlines Tuesday, October 18th, 2022

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Disturbed by the current socio-economic challenges facing many low-income countries across the globe, Climate activists have staged a peaceful protest in Germany, calling for debt relief for poorer countries.

The group held the protest inside the German Finance Ministry in Berlin, the capital on Monday, demanding a meeting with minister Christian Lindner.

According to police, they stood and sat in the entrance area and on a balcony of the large building in central Berlin.

The group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) and others tweeted videos showing young people holding up banners in the building.

“We demand that the richest countries of the Global North begin to pay their climate debt. The unconditional cancellation of all illegitimate global South debt is part of repairing hundreds of years of injustices,” tweeted one of the protest groups.

They criticized the minister for making what they described as “empty promises.”

According to the activists, demonstrators also stuck themselves with glue to parts of the ministry building.

The ministry said that Lindner spoke to the demonstrators, who then departed peacefully.

Lindner tweeted: “In Washington we met African countries to discuss debt. We’ll stay on it. So I didn’t need the [protest] action, but it didn’t disrupt the service”.

Meanwhile, demonstrators blocked motorway exits in several places in Berlin again in the morning, in what has become a regular form of climate protest.

Berlin’s Senator of the Interior, Iris Spranger, criticized the false fire alarms by climate activists in recent days, for example in the Reichstag parliament building, in a Bundestag office building and at a major world health congress.

“People are playing with human lives here. It’s not funny and we don’t find it funny either”, the senator stressed.