Thunberg shows up at COP31 in Antalya as German climate protests draw smaller crowds

Thunberg resurfaces in Antalya

Greta Thunberg, now 23, turned up without an announcement at the 31st UN climate conference (COP31) in Antalya, Turkey, and queued for an accreditation badge like everyone else. A British journalist who was there reported that some people in line asked for a photo, while others did not recognise her at all. Her last appearance at a COP came five years ago, when heads of state invited her onstage to be lectured and then promised targets that were rarely kept. Now she attends as an ordinary participant, having travelled to the Expo Center by bus and train. She has dismissed the talks as a "greenwashing circus".

A clip that reopened the question

The attention centres on a 27-second excerpt from a documentary by German filmmaker Hubertus Koch, filmed this summer, which circulated online shortly before Thunberg left for Turkey. The full film runs a good hour and a half and shows the two sitting cross-legged in a Palestinian restaurant in Berlin. Koch tells her that German Fridays for Future activists were out on the streets for the climate again, and Thunberg bursts out laughing, asking whether they are still doing that. The reaction stands out against her own start in 2018, when, aged 14, she held a plywood sign and staged a sit-in outside the parliament in Stockholm.

Protests in Berlin and across Germany

Fridays for Future called for protests at about 70 locations across Germany to coincide with the conference. On the evening of 13 November, several hundred people gathered at dusk in front of the Chancellery, where large illuminated letters spelled out "Pay Your Climate Debt". The march then moved with lanterns through the government quarter. Police put the number at about 1,000 participants, while Fridays for Future spoke of about 3,500 people on the streets of Berlin.

Police estimate1,000

Fridays for Future estimate3,500

Police estimate

1000 people

Fridays for Future estimate

3500 people

Data from the article text

Participants acknowledged the smaller turnout. A 74-year-old man said the appeals were wearing thin because nothing changes, and a 22-year-old female student who attended her first protest said young people were missing from the crowd.

Chancellor's absence and German climate aid

Chancellor Friedrich Merz is skipping the conference this year, which Luisa Neubauer of Fridays for Future called "the worst possible signal to the global community". About 80 heads of state and government attended this week, with few from the EU, according to Spiegel Online, and Emmanuel Macron and Narendra Modi also stayed away. Environment Minister Carsten Schneider is the only federal minister attending in the second week, while Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan is not coming, even though her ministry handles climate finance. Earlier summits drew up to four German ministers during the former traffic-light coalition. Radovan announced in October that German climate aid fell by 23% last year, after the Merkel and Scholz governments had pledged at least six billion euros a year in climate finance from the budget by 2025.

What is at stake in Antalya

UNEP calculations cited by N-tv put current climate policies on course for 2.8 degrees of warming by the end of the century. Around 190 states are taking part in two weeks of negotiations in Antalya, which are due to conclude on 20 November. The talks centre on the fight against warming and on more help for vulnerable states to adapt to its consequences. Neubauer said the people in the negotiating rooms could not be relied on, and she put it bluntly:

“They have produced a climate hell that we do not accept. We refuse to grow old in a 2.8-degree Celsius heat hell.”

Demonstrators in Berlin also urged Germany and other industrialised countries to provide more money so developing countries can adapt to rising temperatures.