00:01Fridays for Future have been at the heart of the climate movement for seven years.
00:06But now the movement is changing.
00:09It's no longer only about mass school strikes or disruptive blockades.
00:14New initiatives have emerged.
00:16Groups that try to meet people where they are and listen to their concerns.
00:20One of these groups is Klimaneustart, which means climate reset.
00:24Instead of organizing large demonstrations, young activists take to the streets of Berlin.
00:28The aim? To speak directly with citizens about their concerns and wishes regarding the climate crisis.
00:34It's to give a voice to the people who feel unheard and to combat political disillusionment.
00:42The answers are collected and quantified using an app developed by the group.
00:47It transforms everyday concerns into concrete data that can be presented to politicians and decision makers.
00:52We create charts that show exactly how many people in which districts share a particular opinion.
00:59This allows us to say, for example, that 80% support the transition towards sustainable construction.
01:05In the app we can break it down further, specifying exactly what people want in the transition, such as more climate neutral renovations.
01:14This method reflects a growing trend in climate activism. The goal to bridge the gap between citizens and policy makers, giving ordinary people a voice and shaping climate policies.
01:28And even Fridays for Future Activists welcome this new approach.
01:31I think what's really important for the climate movement is trying out things and then looking what works and going that direction.
01:40But to understand why these new approaches are emerging, we need to look back at where it all began.
01:45The modern climate movement took off in 2018, when then 15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg staged a one-person protest outside her parliament.
01:54From that solitary strike grew Fridays for Future, a global movement of children and young people who left their classrooms every Friday to demand urgent climate action, with scientists also joining the cause.
02:05At the beginning of the Fridays for Future movement, there was the impression that politicians were not taking the students' protests seriously or even disparaging them.
02:16Scientists have credibility in society. Studies have shown this again and again.
02:22That's why it's so important that scientific voices speak out and say the concerns we see on the streets with Fridays for Future are justified and politics is not doing enough.
02:32At its peak in 2019, Fridays for Future saw millions of people taken to the streets. And that had a palpable impact.
02:43Fridays for Future has achieved a lot in a relatively short time. The European Green Deal was one result.
02:52Several municipalities have also declared a climate emergency. Even in the UK, the climate emergency has been recognized.
02:59Germany's federal climate law was also revisited. These are real successes.
03:06But the climate movement soon started to see dwindling support. And when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it drifted from public attention.
03:15Extinction! Rebellion!
03:17Movements like Extinction Rebellion, which emerged in the United Kingdom, embraced civil disobedience as a core strategy to keep the climate crisis on the agenda.
03:26By blocking streets, occupying public spaces and staging theatrical interventions, they forced the public and politicians to confront the urgency of the climate emergency.
03:36In Germany, Letze Generation or Last Generation adopted similar tactics. Blocking roads by gluing themselves to asphalt, throwing paint at famous paintings and other highly visible disruptions became their signature.
03:54We managed to push the issue of the climate crisis into media, into talk shows, into conversations with politicians.
04:03Civil disobedience is a massively successful strategy to bring politicians, to bring societies to act on an issue that has big moral consensus, like the climate crisis.
04:13Supporters say that without disruption, the crisis is too easily ignored, and conventional protests fail to translate into political action.
04:22But does civil disobedience do the trick?
04:25Putting this back on the agenda, after it had essentially died down following Fridays for Future, that can definitely be seen as a success, or at least an effect of these protests.
04:36But the long-term successes have not materialized.
04:44There's an organized opposition to certain more far-reaching climate measures.
04:51And we're essentially in a phase where this conflict is de-escalating, dying down, because the opponents have dealt some quite significant blows.
05:04Critics have mainly focused on the last generation's tactics, which have been controversial.
05:10They argue they alienate the public, cause frustration, and may even undermine the broader climate movement.
05:16In the UK, some climate activists have even received lengthy prison sentences for repeated acts of civil disobedience.
05:23What we can see clearly here is that society currently applies very different standards when it comes to protests.
05:30The comparison between the farmers' protests and the last generation is a very good example of this.
05:41Society evaluates them quite differently, even though the forms of protest are similar.
05:46Or in fact, the farmers' protests were even more radical than those of last generation.
05:55It's also clear that this counter-positioning, this weakening of the climate movement, has largely worked by portraying them as violent.
06:04Geopolitical crises like the Russian war in Ukraine, the Israeli offensive in Gaza, and US trade terrorists have also pulled political attention away from the climate emergency.
06:17A German poll earlier this year showed that voters were more concerned about issues like domestic and social security, migration and economic growth.
06:28But another survey showed most people wanted to see more ambitious climate policies from their parties.
06:33The message that the climate crisis is serious has reached society.
06:38A study published last year shows that over 80% of people globally see the climate crisis as a serious problem and believe too little is being done at the political level.
06:49So yes, it has truly arrived in society, but in politics you don't really get that impression.
06:54In 2015, governments agreed to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees as part of the Paris Agreement.
07:05Since then, average temperatures have risen, and countries across the world are experiencing more frequent and worse extreme weather events.
07:12Like heatwaves, drought, heavy rain leading to flooding, and wildfires.
07:18The world has even recently surpassed its first climate tipping point.
07:23Now it will take immense effort to prevent the dying off of many coral reefs.
07:29We're not on the 1.5 degree path. That goal can no longer be reached.
07:34It's unrealistic to claim that there's still hope for that.
07:38Still it's crucial to stop climate change as quickly as possible and reduce emissions.
07:42Every tenth of a degree makes a difference.
07:45The more emissions we produce, the higher the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere rise,
07:51and the more the climate changes, shifting away from the balance that's been favorable to humans.
07:57And there will be more areas in the world that are simply no longer habitable.
08:06Today, climate activism is no longer a single method.
08:09It's a spectrum of strategies responding to an unprecedented crisis.
08:14Mass strikes continue with Fridays for Future, while disruptive actions push boundaries.
08:20And new grassroots initiatives focus on dialogue and citizen engagement.
08:27This is important, to keep the topic in the public eye and to have an internal structure.
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