Volkswagen (VW) faces new charges of “fuelling the climate crisis.” A young German climate activist and the heads of Greenpeace Germany has filled a lawsuit against the company.
Among their calls were two goals for 2030, ending the production of internal combustion engines and reducing carbon emissions by at least 65 percent from 2018 levels.
Martin Kaiser, Greenpeace Germany’s executive director, said car manufacturers such as VW “need to take responsibility and act much faster to phase out the highly-polluting internal combustion engine, and decarbonise their activities with no further delay”.
“Negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow indicate that the 1.5-degree target is at stake and can only be met with a bold change of course in politics and business,” Kaiser said in a statement. He also pointed to the ongoing UN climate change summit which aims to limit the rise in average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial levels.
“But while people suffer from floods and droughts triggered by the climate crisis, CO2 emissions from transport continue to rise,” he said.
Climate Challenge
A majority of European Union citizens think their government will fail to tackle climate change, which Europeans view as the biggest challenge facing humanity this century, a survey published by the European Investment Bank showed.
The first release of the 2021-2022 EIB Climate Survey explores people’s views on climate change in a rapidly changing world.
The results from this release focus on how people perceive climate change and the actions they expect their country to take to combat it.
In all countries surveyed, climate change is the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21st century.
The majority of EU citizens (58%) and Britons (55%) believe that their country will fail to drastically reduce its carbon emissions, as pledged in the Paris Agreement.
75% of EU citizens, 69% of Britons and 59% of Americans believe they are more concerned about the climate emergency than their governments.
The majority of EU citizens (51%) say government inactivity is why the climate crisis is so difficult to solve.