Iris ter Schiphorst
on the criminalisation of climate activists (2022)
Berlin Talks, Academy of the Arts, 01.12.2022
The Last Generation has dominated the headlines for weeks. Man-made global warming and the climate catastrophe that threatens us all have been fatally sidelined in the public debate.
Within the Akademie der Künste, the Music Section and the intersectional working group 'Sustainability' are working intensively on this situation. We observe with great concern the increasing and disproportionate 'criminalisation' of activists in the media and parts of politics.
In its judgement of April 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court clearly enshrined climate protection in the Basic Law and obliged the state to protect the climate in the interests of intergenerational justice. Of course, we are all aware of the difficult situation in which politics currently finds itself (keyword: Ukraine war, transformation of society/conversion to renewable energies, etc.), especially after the inactive years of the previous government. Nevertheless, far too little is being done - measured against what is necessary - to prevent the devastating effects predicted and calculatedby scientists (including the Club of Rome) , which would result from exceeding the 1.5 degree target alone.
Current and future generations will experience horrific existential scenarios in the near future, scenarios that in some cases are already determining or destroying the lives of an infinite number of people outside Europe. In this respect, the activists of the Last Generation are right in their despair and their feelings of powerlessness that drive them to this form of civil resistance!
We therefore believe that it is more than necessary to resolutely oppose the criminalisation of the Last Generation and even more: we consider it necessary to promote their cause, climate protection, with all the means at our disposal in order to initiate a more substantial and sustainable discussion in society about the necessary transformation - and to hold politicians accountable.
This also includes focussing on social inequality. In the observation period from 1990 to 2019, the richest one per cent of people were responsible for almost a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions globally. (During the same period, not only did 'affluence' increase drastically, but the per capita emissions of that class also grew, with the richest 0.01 per cent even increasing by 80 per cent).
The Club of Rome is therefore right when it claims in its latest study: "We cannot save the world without the rich footing the bill. "
As you can see, it is up to politicians to take appropriate measures such as wealth, corporate and inheritance taxes (on the richest 10 per cent) to ensure greater distributive justice and thus to raise the money that is urgently needed to finance social and ecological restructuring.
Let me end with a quote from climate expert Hans Otto Pörtner from the Alfred Wegner Institute:
"We need a social mobilisation that has it all... We have waited so long that we no longer have time to make compromises in the wrong direction."
With this in mind, let's all get active, each and every one of us with our own means. And let us 'incidentally' harvest the "low fruit", to quote Mr Pörtner once again.
A "low fruit" is, for example, the introduction of a speed limit, which is exactly what the Last Generation is calling for.
Thank you very much.