Thousands of climate protesters, young and old, gathered on Friday in Berlin and other German cities to demand tougher government action against global warming, particularly when in curbing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector.
A small pro-business party that controls Germany’s Transport Ministry, the Free Democrats, has pushed back against efforts to impose a general speed limit, phase out combustion engines and massively invest in public transport.
The refusal has frustrated the party’s larger coalition partners — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens — as well as climate campaigners who say Germany is missing its own emissions targets.
