Thousands of people have gathered in the German city of Bonn ahead of next week’s Cop23 conference, which ratifies the Paris climate deal.
The protesters are calling for the measures set out in the accord to be implemented faster; namely a move away from coal to renewable resources.
Carrying colorful banners with slogans that read: “Revolution, not pollution,” “Frack off our land” and “Climate or coal chancellor?,” participants in Saturday’s anti-coal march in Bonn criticized the German government’s reliance on coal-powered plants for the country’s energy.
Größte #Klimademo , die Deutschland je gesehen hat – heute in #Bonn vor Beginn der #COP23 am Montag pic.twitter.com/n8OrnvFugo — UN-Klimasekretariat (@UNKlima) November 4, 2017
Größte #Klimademo , die Deutschland je gesehen hat – heute in #Bonn vor Beginn der #COP23 am Montag pic.twitter.com/n8OrnvFugo
— UN-Klimasekretariat (@UNKlima) November 4, 2017
The former West German capital of Bonn is set to host the two-week climate conference, known as COP23, starting on Monday.
Demonstrators also highlighted the irony that this year’s conference is being held 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Europe’s biggest source of CO2 emissions – the large open-cast mines near Cologne and eastern Germany’s Lausitz region.
Around 25,000 people are expected to attend the UN climate change conference in Bonn; a huge logistical challenge for Germany which has never hosted an intergovernmental gathering of this size.
