Climate activist Luisa Neubauer at ZEIT RECEPTION Davos: We need to find a more rational way to deal with the crisis situation
Hamburg, 22nd January 2020: At a reception hosted by the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT and CMS, climate activist Luisa Neubauer discussed the current state and handling of climate activism with Jochen Wegner, Chief Editor of ZEIT ONLINE.
Luisa Neubauer commented on whether people she meets in Davos are serious about climate change: “Suddenly, many people we meet, not all of them obviously, because we all saw Trump, feel obliged to talk about the climate, and to confirm that they really believe in it – which is kind of sweet, actually”, she said. “What we can do is to take this as seriously as it gets and then expect actions. Because in times where everything you say and you do gets reported, it allows us to come back to that”. Neubauer: “It would have been difficult to ask Siemens to stop investing or to stop collaborating in the Adani mine in Australia, if Siemens wouldn’t in the first place have claimed they wanted to be climate neutral.” She continued: “But once they did it, we were the ones to come up and be like ‘by the way, this doesn’t add up. You can’t claim to be climate champion and then invest in a coal mine’”.
Neubauer is convinced that “you need people to act, to work together, that’s the only way we got. And obviously that doesn’t work when you kind of crawl together in your own country and then say you want to protect it while actually you’re being part of the so machinery that is fueling the crisis. It doesn’t work that way. So yes, we do need very smart collaboration, we need very smart solidarity, even.” She continued: “Some countries are more asked to act than others just because we share a burden but we have different resources”.
Luisa Neubauer showed concern about scientists who talk about the real danger of the climate crisis being called apocalyptic: “I wish we found a more realistic way, a more rational way to deal with the crisis situation.” She continued: “The risk is as high as scientists say it has been when they were about to drop nuclear bombs – this is where we are. This is not being apocalyptic but realistic”.
The ZEIT RECEPTION Davos was held on the occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT in cooperation with CMS invited leading representatives from the world of business to a roundtable discussion and reception. Other speakers were Werner Baumann (CEO, Bayer AG), Oliver Bäte (CEO, Allianz SE), and Laura Rudas (Executive Vice President Strategy, Palantir Technologies Inc).
For more information regarding the event: www.convent.de/davos
