The German climate group is challenging the establishment’s “greens”

Doris Vollmer is clearly new to politics. He snorts his power points and leaves the name of a fellow candidate blank. But German physics also catches the attention of its audience as it makes a glass of balanced water on the podium. Imagine, she says, that this is raising global temperatures.

“Come up! It’s going up, ”he shouts. Water splashes the stage as the glass falls. “You can’t put water back in the glass. An inflection point cannot be reversed. . . Politicians want to follow the old strategy: negotiate, negotiate. But you can’t negotiate with nature. “

It was an unusual speech from one of Germany’s last national parties: the Klimaliste, or “climate list.” The Vollmer party chair and its colleagues, scientists and activists wearing jeans and Birkenstocks, may seem easy to write.

But they represent the double-edged sword that Germany’s growing climate activism could become the rising green party in the September federal election.

Although Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock is making a credible candidacy to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor, the party once ridiculed as a chaotic cohort of hippies and idealists is attacked from the opposite flank: for being too established.

“There needs to be a new kind of party. A party that listens to science. This involves people. That recognizes the global challenge, “says Alicia Sophia Hinon, a Berlin candidate for the Klimaliste.

It’s not a criticism that the Greens usually make. But under the stewardship of Baerbock and his co-leader, Robert Habeck, a long-standing party between his left-wing “fundis” and centrist “reals” has become a streamlined, determined political force to attract the conservative and cautious center of Germany.

Most of the bases have followed, reluctantly. But some have rebelled, worried that the Greens have softened their climate goals, and if they form the next coalition government – most likely with Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) – they could commit even more.

“The Greens are thinking in terms of power politics,” says Alexander Grevel, a Klimaliste militant in Stuttgart. “We’re here to pressure the Greens to do more for the weather.”

Klimaliste’s goals are less a divergence of green policies than an intensification. While the Greens are looking for carbon neutrality within 20 years, the Klimalists want it “as soon as possible,” in a maximum of ten years. The Greens want a carbon tax of 60 euros per tonne; the Klimaliste says it should be 195 euros.

Political analysts such as Andrea Römmele of the Hertie School in Berlin say the Green Party is still on track to join the government, but warns that making too many commitments would strengthen Klimaliste and other advocates, creating a political challenge for long term for the match.

“If they give in a lot, especially for business,” he said, “there will be more space on the left side of the party spectrum.”

The voters Klimaliste claims to represent may not be a great electoral force, but they are influential. Student-led protests by Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion made climate policy at the top of the national agenda, forcing politicians to react.

They helped raise the German Greens to the best results of the European Parliament in 2019 and even won a recent case to tighten climate legislation in the constitutional court. In March, Klimaliste’s candidates in the Baden-Württemberg regional elections, the only state led by the Greens, pushed the party to once again limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

Both parties agree that this pressure is useful.

“I’m happy to have people who keep us sharp,” says Reinhard Bütikofer, a member of the European Parliament of the Greens in Germany. “Helps highlight big issues.”

The Klimaliste, in just over a year, will field only 70 candidates through Germany’s direct voting list. If they win at least three seats, they can create a parliamentary group to join investigations and legislative committees.

The Baden-Württemberg elections, however, suggest that even a small presence can hurt green causes politically. The Greens were on a seat to form a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats and pave the way for stronger climate policies, but instead they had to form a government with the CDU. Some greens blamed the Klimaliste.

“Some of us were crying,” a green politician admitted in private. “We have lost votes in three counties. . . Strategically, it’s really stupid [of them] do it right now. “

Grevel does not apologize. Since the Greens gained this regional leadership a decade ago, he argued, not only have they changed their renewable energy goals, but they have lagged behind some CDU-led regions.

The Greens claimed that Baden-Württemberg, the center of the German car industry, was a bigger challenge and a more conservative state to reform.

“A program that never comes close to governing can be as radical as you want it to be, but it will achieve nothing, ”said Bütikofer.

None of that worried the Greens a few months ago, as they rose to the top of the polls after Baerbock’s nomination. Now they have fallen At 10 points from the CDU, affected by reports of errors in his resume, allegations of book plagiarism and confusing campaigns.

In a protest of Berlin Fridays for Future (weekly until the election), few openly support the Greens. “We’re not here as a support vehicle for the Greens,” shouts a college student, wrapped in a ground flag in a “Dance Demo,” where socially distanced dancers retreat to techno rhythms. “We are related to climate justice.”

Hinon wants to take advantage of this impetus to shake up all German leaders, green or not: “We want to take the street to parliament.”