BERLIN (Reuters) – Fifteen climate activists glued themselves to the asphalt of motorways in Germany, causing rush hour traffic jams on Monday, in the latest protests demanding a law against food waste and cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
A total of 252 protesters have taken part in a series of road blockades over the past two weeks, 69 of them fusing themselves to the asphalt to make it harder to remove them, according to German climate activist group “Last Generation”.
A Reuters video showed frustrated motorists held up on the capital Berlin’s main A100 motorway on Monday getting out of their cars and dragging some of the activists out of the way by their hoods and backpacks.
A total of 42 activists took part in motorway blockades in Berlin and in the southwestern city of Freiburg on Monday, according to Last Generation.
Freiburg police launched investigations against 11 people and Berlin police were verifying activists’ identities and checking if they could be placed in custody.
The activists, who also placed food on the A100 motorway that had been discarded earlier, last week blocked roads and motorways in Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart on several occasions.
A Berlin police spokesperson said she could not immediately say how many people had been detained since the beginning of the protests. Last Generation’s website said 50 people were in custody in various German cities by the end of day on Friday.
“By planning to achieve climate neutrality by 2045, the German government is breaking its constitutional obligation to protect our lives,” activist spokesperson Carla Hinrichs said in a statement.
“By 2030, we will exceed 1.5 degrees (average rise in global temperatures). The government is not only breaking international law but committing a crime against humanity by deliberately heading for a world hotter by 2, 3, 4 degrees with billions dying of hunger,” she said.
(Reporting by Christian Mang and Zuzanna Szymanska, editing by Mark Heinrich)
