The climate activists from Fridays for Future call on the transport minister to resign.Image: dpa / Jörg Carstensen
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Although Germany narrowly achieved its climate goals last year, the construction and transport sectors are still the problem children. Only in the transport sector have emissions actually increased again. The ministry of Volker Wissing (FDP) has still not submitted an immediate climate protection program.
The Greens in particular are annoyed by the Minister of Transport. Stefan Gelbhaar criticizes that the transport sector would negate climate protection measures in other areas Deutschlandfunk. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only pointed out in mid-March that global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees in the first half of the 2030s.
The climate protection activist from Fridays for Future, Luisa Neubauer, certifies that Transport Minister Volker Wissing has failed in the fight against global warming. With a petition, she calls on the minister to resign.
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In the past year, it has become clear that Wissing is engaged in “well-documented refusal to work,” she told the dpa news agency. Instead of living up to his primary responsibility in the cabinet and implementing coalition promises and international commitments, his work fell through the internal reviews of an expert commission with a bang.
Neubauer, who is a member of the Greens, also criticized that the climate targets in traffic had been radically “undermined”. This was shown by the Federal Environment Agency’s official estimate of greenhouse gas emissions last week. “This failure must have consequences,” she demanded. “We expect Chancellor Olaf Scholz to put his foot down and demand Volker Wissing’s resignation.”
In the Petition it says: “Volker Wissing has now had more than a year of valuable time to prove that he wants to do justice to this office. But now it has to be over.” Over 150,000 people have now signed. Since time is running out, Germany would not have another legislative period to waste on a “transport minister who refuses to do his job.”
With a view to the urgent warnings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the rapidly escalating climate crisis, Neubauer also referred to the democratic duty of all federal ministers to comply with their own laws, such as the Climate Protection Act. The UN goals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are clear, and the federal government has also decided to comply with the 1.5 degree limit.
(With material from the dpa)
