Hunger strikers push parties for climate pledge

Green party, activists portray Sunday’s election as last chance for Europe’s biggest economy to change course

BERLIN — After three-and-a-half weeks on a hunger strike, Henning Jeschke is frail and gaunt, but determined to go on, still hoping to pressure the three candidates for chancellor of Germany into meeting him for a debate about the climate crisis ahead of Sunday’s general election.

For the first time in Germany, climate change is perhaps the most dominant issue in an election campaign, especially for young voters.

It’s at the center of televised debates among candidates, and five of the six main parties offer plans with varying degrees of detail for slowing global warming.

But young climate activists — who pitched a protest camp in a park in Berlin’s government district last month — fear politicians’ promises will quickly dissipate after the vote or give way to pressure from special interests.

Jeschke and six others launched a hunger strike Aug. 30.

By late Thursday, Jeschke was the only one from the original group to remain on a hunger strike, even doubling down by now also refusing liquids, a protest organizer said. The others had dropped out, most this week, amid appeals from politicians and public figures not to endanger their lives.

Jeschke said Wednesday that he was not ready to give in. He was resting on a mattress in the centre of the camp, propped up on one elbow and taking occasional sips of tea.

The hunger strike is an act of despair, he said, because he and his fellow activists believe that “in this time of climate collapse, there are no honest conversations, that party programs are insufficient and that we urgently need to take action against the climate catastrophe.”

The 21-year-old from the northeastern town of Greifswald, who quit his political science studies for full-time activism, has already lost 24 pounds and said his parents are worried.

“My mother is at home in tears, my father comes to visit again and again, but they also see that it’s necessary,” he said.

Lena Bonasera, 24, who joined the hunger strike Monday, said the activists first met during Fridays For Future protests, as part of the international youth-led movement launched in 2018 by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

The Oxford-educated Bonasera, who also vowed to stop taking liquids Thursday, said she halted work on her dissertation on civil disobedience to make time for the campaign.

“I asked myself, ‘why me,’ and my mom also asked this,” she said of her decision to risk her health for her beliefs. “But once you allow yourself to feel how terrible the climate crisis really is, then I have no choice but to act this way.”

At this point, it’s unlikely the candidates — Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats, Armin Laschet of the center-right Union bloc or even Annalena Baerbock of the pro-environment Greens — will visit.

They have urged the strikers to end their protest amid health concerns, instead offering private meetings after the vote, presumably to avoid encounters that could go off the rails. Baerbock spoke to the strikers by phone and expressed empathy for their frustration, A spokeswoman for Scholz said he met with some of them and their supporters after a campaign stop near Berlin.

Youth activists plan to stage large-scale international protests today against climate change, weeks before leaders gather for a UN summit in Glasgow. Thunberg is expected at the Berlin rally, taking place just two days before an election that the Greens and climate activists portray as the last chance for Europe’s biggest economy to change course.

The hunger strike has made some ripples, even if there won’t be a pre-election debate.

Climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who has advised Pope Francis, Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, spoke to the protesters by Zoom this week, urging them to start eating again and offering to connect them to decision-makers after the election.

In an open letter, Schellnhuber lent legitimacy to the warnings, writing that Earth will warm by close to 3 C this century if current climate policies continue, and that there is even an outside risk large parts of the planet will become uninhabitable.

“This risk may be small, but would we push our children into a school bus that had a 5% chance of being predicted to be fatal?” he wrote in the letter.

The Greens offer the most comprehensive program for making Germany carbon neutral with a mix of government incentives and penalties for polluters. Scholz’ Social Democrats also propose government-driven change, but with more time to phase out coal and combustion engines.

In the other camp, the Union bloc and the pro-business Free Democrats argue that market-driven innovation should take the lead.

The race between the parties remains close, with the Social Democrats a few percentage points ahead in the polls.