Climate justice activists claim police brutality has reached new levels during the recent Ende Gelände operation in Hamburg, Germany.
Activists are targeting the fossil gas infrastructure and the Yara fertilizer plant in Brunsbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein to fight climate injustice.
The Port of Hamburg came to a standstill on August 13, 2022, with severe economic disruption for several consecutive days between August 11 and 14.
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Activists occupy the construction site of a planned LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony. And blocked rail lines and bridges used to import and process fossil gas, oil and coal.
Since 2015, Ende Gelände has primarily targeted lignite in Germany, joining other groups such as the Hambacher Forest occupation successfully in driving coal phase-out in Germany.
However, the new coalition government of the Social Democrats and Greens has made it clear that they intend to follow the UK government’s sprint to gas.
The Green Party-led initiative intends to build 12 LNG terminals in the Hamburg region and run them by the energy company until 2043.
Similar to the UK, the German government is using the Ukraine war as an excuse to ramp up fossil fuel consumption, including increased fossil gas imports and the possible reopening of decommissioned coal-fired power stations.
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Ende Gelände draws attention to the lie that fossil gases are “transition fuel” or “green”, showing that natural gas remains a major contributor to climate change in terms of releasing methane, which has a much larger impact on climate change than carbon dioxide.
Activists argue that domestic renewables are better for energy security and that rising domestic energy bills are a crisis of capitalist distribution. While the fossil fuel industry receives billions of dollars in subsidies, millions of people will fall into fuel poverty this winter.
Ende Gelände also draws attention to the economic neo-colonial aspect of the dramatic increase in natural gas imports. In increasing gas imports while also moving away from Russian gas, Germany will increasingly rely on fracking gas from North America as well as gas from Latin America and Africa, with huge costs for those affected by it.
Many anti-mining ecological activists in the global South were murdered and severely suppressed under the colonial capitalist system in which the German government participated.
Ende Gelände works closely with anti-colonial and racial justice groups to advocate for action against gas in solidarity with the global South.
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Around 3,000 people attended the camp – the first large Operation Ende Gelände camp since 2019. Although there have been two mobilizations since 2019, mass camps were not held until this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Local authorities have repeatedly tried to take down the camp, but have been rejected twice in court.
