Speech by Linda (Fridays for Future)

Hello you beautiful people, dear fellow fighters, nice that so many have come here today.

Honestly, I'm often angry and frustrated right now. Angry and frustrated that our federal government not only practises climate protection far too slowly, but is even actively inititing backwards. Because instead of finally investing in power grids and storage facilities for renewable energies, it wants to build 30 to 40 new natural gas power plants.

And that's exactly what I want to talk about today: natural gas! Because natural gas is somehow difficult to grab. This is transparent, gaseous, not as obviously dirty as coal. There are no rish ugly coal mines and excavators. The problem is: Unfortunately, Edgas is just as much, sometimes even more harmful to the climate than coal.

Although the combustion of natural gas releases less CO2 than coal, natural gas consists to a large extent of methane. Unfortunately, this is also a greenhouse gas and this escapes during production (especially much in fracking) and when transporting natural gas into the atmosphere. Although methane is breaking down faster in the atmosphere than CO2, it is 80 times more harmful to the climate in 20 years! This means that this is what the climate crisis is now driving very strongly and driving us away from the so important 1.5 degree target.

And all this not to ensure security of supply or as a bridge technology, but because we have a former gas lobbyist as Minister of Economics with Katherina Reiche, who jeopardises our future for her old friends and short profit. Gas power plants are expensive, take years to finish and then they have to run for decades to be worthwhile for the corporations at all. This means that those who plan new gas power plants today are planning fossil energy by at least 2050! But in 2050, we should have been climate-neutral for a long time. This is not bridge technology, this is a lie to continue making profits at the expense of our future.

We are currently in terms of gas in a period that is comparable to 2017/18. Gas companies are actively trying to keep quiet about the fossil rollback, to greenwash, but you can't expect us to sit idly by while you secretly unpack the next fossil climate killer. The people in this country want climate protection. According to polls from this year, even every second CDU voter wants more climate protection from their party. And we must make this unmistakeably clear to Merz and Co.

So yeah, I'm frustrated. But I'm not just standing here today out of frustration and because it's good to shout all this into the microphone. I stand here because I have hope, because we have already won so many things as a climate movement. The coal phase-out, which, mind you, has also been decided by a CDU-led GroKo. The European Green Deal, which has lowered the temperature to which we are heading with EU measures by over one degree! Söder even hugged (or harassed - a matter of opinion) a tree at the time. The fact that so much effort, so much greenwashing has to be practised, to present gas somehow only as a transitional solution, as something clean, climate-friendly, shows how successful we were. The fossil corporations are afraid for their profits. Fear of us, because we don't put up with this nonsense. And that's exactly how it is: WE DON'T LET OURSELVES LIKE THIS SLACK ANYMORE!!!!!

Protests come and go in waves and we will come back very strong. It is so important to continue fighting even now at a time when there are more headwinds and climate protection is not the basic political consensus. We are not left-wing terrorists who like to stick somewhere for fun with joy. We are the majority of society that wants the specific goals to be adhered to. 1.5 degrees is not an ideological, fanatical goal, it is what all climate scientists have been telling us unanimously for decades. And they also tell us unanimously that we will not achieve this if we start new fossil projects in 2025.

And because we don't put up with this, we will not only demonstrate today but from now on every Friday, for 7 weeks until the next global climate strike on 11/14. So write in bold in the calendars, next Friday the 26.09. it starts. We meet every week at 3 p.m. on the QR Code Square. Because in November is not only the World Climate Conference, where we are currently threatening to go empty-handed, but next year there are also local elections and also here, locally in Würzburg, we can and must do even more. Every week we will present a demand that we have here locally.

So let's be loud. Let's not give in. And now I want to hear everyone again, so that everyone can understand why we are here today:

EXIT GAS ENTER FUTURE