Controversy over the goal of the climate movement
Boris Palmer takes on Luisa Neubauer
7/5/2023 1:54 am
Boris Palmer is back in Tübingen City Hall – and in the media. In the “Welt” he publishes a letter to Luisa Neubauer. He accuses the “Fridays for Future” activist of taking the wrong approach to climate policy by not focusing on energy companies as opponents.
Immediately after his break, Tübingen’s Mayor Boris Palmer wrote an open letter to the climate activist Luisa Neubauer, in which he accused her of leading an unwinnable fight against “fossil”. Palmer returned to his workplace in the Swabian university town at the end of last week. This was preceded by a four-week break, which he had ordered himself after a scandal surrounding his statements on the sidelines of a migration conference at the end of April.
Palmer confirmed that on the day he resumed work, he wrote the page-long letter to Neubauer, which is published today in the “World” appears. He refers to a speech by the “Fridays for Future” activist during his break, which she gave as part of her “Tübingen media lectureship”.
The former Green Party politician accuses Neubauer that her criticism of a “fossil” lifestyle is “nothing more than a frontal attack on the Western model of prosperity.” He points out that human progress in crucial areas of life would not have been possible without the use of “easily and cheaply available fossil energy sources”. Palmer writes in the “Welt” that Neubauer is pursuing the wrong approach to climate policy and is thus provoking a “new opposition”. “Out of a powerful but isolable opponent, namely the energy companies, you have unnecessarily created a ubiquitous, overpowering opponent, namely almost everything on which the global economy and society is based,” Palmer said literally.
Guarantee for controversy
In April, in a verbal argument before a migration conference in Frankfurt am Main, when he was confronted with shouts of “Nazis out,” Palmer replied: “It’s nothing other than the Jewish star.” Companions and party friends then turned away from him. Palmer then apologized for giving the impression that he was relativizing the Holocaust. He announced a break to “gain enough distance and gain strength”.
After the escalation of his controversial statements, he also left the Greens. Palmer has been mayor of Tübingen since 2007, and he won the last election in 2022 with an absolute majority. With statements about refugee policy, he repeatedly caused controversy and was exposed to accusations of racism. However, his management during the corona pandemic and his municipal environmental policy also attracted nationwide attention and recognition. He wrote to Neubauer that their approach was “in no way helpful” for his goal of making Tübingen climate-neutral by 2030.