German Govt Reaches Climate Plan Deal As Protests Heat Up

Berlin, Sept 20 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Sep, 2019 ) :Chancellor Angela Merkel's government reached a deal Friday on a broad climate plan for Germany, a coalition source said, as tens of thousands of protesters rallied demanding more environmental protection.

After marathon overnight talks dragging more than 18 hours, the coalition reached "an agreement with many measures and an annual monitoring mechanism" on meeting climate targets, said a government source.

The plan, which covers a slew of measures from tackling emissions in the energy and industrial sectors, to incentives for zero-emission electric vehicles or public transport, was due to be unveiled at a press conference later Friday.

As the politicians emerged red-eyed from the session, across Germany, protesters were out in the streets with colourful banners and posters with slogans like "make rainforests great again" or "I want a hot date, not a hot planet".

In the biggest international wave of Fridays for Future climate strikes to date started by Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, a major bridge in central Berlin was blocked off by demonstrators who strung red and white tape across the streets, while in the financial capital Frankfurt, sit-ins were underway.

After two blistering summers and thousands of youths joining school strikes week after week, climate has shot to the top of the political agenda in the EU's biggest economy.

For Merkel's coalition government, the stakes are also rising.

With the economy already projected to slide into recession in the third quarter, balancing the interests of its crucial export industries while not alienating young voters with their green demands was proving to be a tough balancing act.

The EU's biggest economy is set to miss climate targets for next year but has committed itself to meeting the 2030 goal of a 55-percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.

Export powerhouse Germany accounts for around two percent of the worldwide emissions blamed for heating the Earth's atmosphere, melting ice caps, rising sea levels and intensifying violent weather events.

Merkel, a scientist by profession, was once known as the "climate chancellor" as she pushed forward a green energy transition that vastly increased clean renewables such as wind and solar power.

However, many of those gains have been eroded by an increased reliance on dirty coal, in part to offset the phase-out by 2022 of nuclear power that Merkel decided after Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster.