About the month long campaign in Germany
The first internationally agreed climate target is lost. There is no plausible pathway to stay below 1.5°C. This would require global emissions to peak before 2025 and be reduced by 43% by 2030. Even that would likely lead to 1.5°C being exceeded within the next ten years. The most optimistic scenario reported by the IPCC rests on the hypothetical deployment of large-scale carbon dioxide removal technologies to drag temperatures back down.
It is our responsibility to state the physical and ecological reality vs. political fiction to society. There is the very real possibility of global cataclysm, and we demand that those in power act accordingly.
What are we demanding?
Admit failure: There is no viable pathway for staying below the global 1.5°C warming limit. Governments are breaking their commitment enshrined in the Paris Agreement to pursue efforts to stay below 1.5°C of warming. Global emissions hit an all-time high in 2021 while governments spent more subsidising fossil fuels in 2021 than they did in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed. Senior academics accept there is no viable pathway for staying below 1.5°C. The IPCC’s most optimistic scenario for staying below 1.5°C requires global emissions to peak before 2025 and be reduced by almost half (43%) by 2030. Even that would likely lead to 1.5°C being exceeded in the next ten years. The world has simply run out of time.
Immediate safety measures have to be implemented – internationally and nationally.
Initiate a just transition of the German transport sector through a speed limit on motorways and affordable public transport (9€ ticket). The German transport sector is in tight grip of the car industry lobby. Almost no greenhouse gas emission reductions have been achieved. However, during an energy and cost of living crisis, saving fossil fuels through a speed limit and making mobility cheap is not only logical but imperative.
Cancel debt: Demand the world community cancel financial debt owed by countries that have done the least to cause climate change. A 1.5°C+ world will soon become a reality for everyone. But for billions of people living across the global south, th...
Why Germany?
Germany is a powerful country in the EU and one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The German economy has benefited much more than others from burning fossil fuels and exploitation of resources. And although there is much wealth, Germany fails badly at achieving its climate and biodiversity targets.
More than 70 years ago, Germany completely rebuilt itself and developed into an international role model. We appeal to that positive spirit of achieving enormous change! Today, it has everything to lead by example into a safer world. Why would Germany further postpone the transformative change that is needed to counteract climate and biodiversity breakdown?
Outside Europe: There will be solidarity actions on other continents.
Unite Against Climate Failure - The Coalition
Scientist Rebellion is part of a coalition of nonviolent civil resistance groups that combine their strengths for achieving the above listed safety measures.
Coalition partners: Letzte Generation, Debt for Climate, Jetzt oder Nie – Eltern gegen die Fossilindustrie
Further Reading
1,5 Grad, es war schön mit dir! – Treibhauspost
Klimaforscher Schellnhuber: „Das Langfrist-Ziel heißt Klima-Reparatur“ – Frankfurter Rundschau
Ways you can get involved
Donate to Scientist Rebellion
One way you can support us is by donating. Your donations fund our ability to mobilize globally, our ability to have big impactful and visible actions that lead to real change. A united academia needs to urge world powers to act like we are in the emergency we are in.
Donate →Ways you can get involved
Calling on a united academia
Leading climate scientists privately admit that the IPCC pathway for staying below 1.5°C is now lost. Citizens need to know this urgently. A united academia can help usher us into much needed emergency mode transformations.
Sign the Letter →