The tone has tightened.

In a Facebook post by the Fridays for Future group Hamburg you can see a picture of the flood disaster in which the laughing Armin Laschet has been mounted.

"Mr. Laschet, face the crisis!" Is written next to it ("Address the crisis!").

The Union's candidate for chancellor can also be seen in a contribution by Fridays for Future Germany: “This is how Laschet destroys our climate” is written above it.

It is said that he is blocking wind power, criminalizing activists and tearing down entire places for the coal.

Laschet and the flood are also the focus of protests in various cities.

Timo Steppat

Editor in politics.

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The 18-year-old activist Annika Rittmann accused the CDU politician on Friday at a press conference of the nationwide movement in Hamburg of “a lack of disaster control and a lack of seriousness”.

Think of the victims in Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, she said.

“We sit here not only in mourning, but also in hope.

We can now decide who will rule Germany for the next five years. ”She probably meant four years.

"Neither party has a plan for 1.5 degrees," said Rittmann, alluding to the goal of the Paris climate agreement.

The climate activists demand that Germany must get out of coal by 2030 and become climate neutral by 2035;

The CDU / CSU and SPD are aiming for a climate-neutral economy in 2045, while the Greens are concentrating primarily on earlier interim goals.

"Clearly due to climate change"

Activists cite the flood disaster as an expression of a failed climate policy.

At the Fridays for Future press conference on Friday, economist Claudia Kemfert said that the flood was "clearly due to climate change".

A statement by the Scientists for Future research group, which is closely linked to the movement, also states that climate change has a "demonstrable part of the flood disaster in west and south-east Germany".

A detailed attribution study on the amount of the contribution of climate change to the flood disaster is still pending. The German Weather Service is currently carrying out calculations like this in cooperation with international scientists; the results should, as it is said on request, be available in mid-August. "Nevertheless, the current state of research allows it to be clearly stated that man-made global warming undoubtedly contributed to the severity of the flood event," write the Scientists for Future.

The climate activist Luisa Neubauer wants to move the Union in particular to more concrete measures in climate protection in the coming weeks.

She thinks it is very likely that the Union will be involved in the next federal government.

The election manifesto of the CDU / CSU is an expression of the fact that there is no majority for the necessary climate protection.

But she recognizes such a majority in the Union's electorate.

The aim is therefore, she said in the FAZ podcast for Germany, to build up pressure.

She does not have a desired coalition.

“The focus on the party colors is not crucial.

We will have to change so much in such a short time that completely new questions arise.

How does a policy work that can withstand the size and speed of the climate crisis?

This will require the size and creativity of all parties. "

Warning of the "complete overestimation" of the Greens

The idea that Fridays for Future is a kind of run-up organization of the Greens, according to Neubauer, stems from the "idea that the Greens are the sole agents of the Paris Agreement".

This is a “complete overestimation of a single party”.

As long as climate protection policy is outsourced to a single opposition party, it will not work.

Regarding the debate about the Greens as a ban party, Neubauer said that beating the Greens would not go well for long.

"Many other parties got away with criticizing the Greens' proposals without making their own."

The greatest concerns of Germans are climate and nature conservation.

Even if you do “liberal or conservative climate protection”, the bottom line is to reduce emissions.

You can't "make up for it".

"Mr. Laschet can say that there is no speed limit with us.

Then he also has to explain how he wants to save the necessary emissions in a different way.

Should fewer cars drive, but at a high speed? "

In the coming weeks, the movement wants, as various activists report, to focus the debates on concrete measures and intermediate goals.

The aim is not to let the Union get away with the "empty promise" of climate neutrality in 2045.