A police officer removes glue from the hand of a "Letzte Generation" (Last Generation) activist that reads "save oil instead of drill oil", blocking a road under the slogan "Let's stop the fossil madness!" for an end to fossil fuels and against oil drilling in the North Sea, in Berlin, Germany, July 15, 2022. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Last generation climate activists are planning a new wave of protests this fall. “We will start the next phase of action again at the beginning of October and do these blockade actions again,” announced the activist Lina Eichler in an interview with the German Press Agency. “We’re mobilizing towards that until we reach critical mass, these thousands of people.”

The group was formed after a climate hunger strike in Berlin exactly a year ago and has been organizing motorway blockades for months. Activists stick themselves to the road, which has caused long traffic jams and annoyance for motorists.

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In Berlin, various exits of the A100 city motorway were affected. The public prosecutor’s office investigated more than a hundred blockers and requested penal orders from the court. All cases involve coercion and resistance to law enforcement officials.

The activists also turned off valves on oil and gas pipelines. Recently, protesters have also attached themselves to works of art in museums, such as last Thursday in the picture gallery in Berlin. Two activists taped their hands to the frame of the painting “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). The police arrested the two women.

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At the weekend, the “Last Generation” disrupted the top game in the Bundesliga. The aim of the actions is an immediate move away from oil, coal and gas, the combustion of which releases a lot of climate-damaging carbon dioxide.

The group receives financial support from the Climate Emergency Fund in California. The fund makes “strategic investments in new organizations like the last generation that want to disrupt daily life to put massive pressure on governments,” said Margaret Klein Salamon, head of the foundation.