Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said that shutting down Germany's remaining active nuclear power plants "would be a mistake." "If they are already operating, I think it would be a mistake to close them and resort to coal," was the evaluation of the Fridays for the Future founder.
For Thunberg, the German government's crisis strategy of taking coal-fired power plants off reserve "is a bad idea" as long as "the other stuff" is still around. The aim of Olaf Scholz 's government is to reduce the production of electricity from gas in view of the current situation.
The plan calls for two of the three remaining nuclear power plants to remain as emergency backup beyond the scheduled shutdown date at the end of 2022. The extension would be until mid-April 2023 at the latest and under certain conditions. Something that "depends on what happens," would seem appropriate to Thunberg.
Treating climate change like Covid
For the activist "there are other ways forward. With renewables", as opposed to the recovery of coal-fired power plants. Although she recognizes "the need to protect citizens from energy costs that are too high," Thunberg considers it dangerous to continue investing in fossil energy. In this sense, Greta criticized that the population "has become dependent and has created a society in which we are not able to look beyond one year into the future. This is not sustainable.
Thunberg regrets that the climate crisis "has not yet been treated as a global emergency," as was the case with Covid. For the 19-year-old, not even war should make us lose sight of the consequences of climate change. "All wars are a disaster. On many levels. But we have to be able to deal with different things at the same time."
