© Claudia Kollwelter
The young division of the Mouvement Ecologique, known as "move", conducted a symbolic demonstration outside the Chamber of Deputies on Friday.
In reference to the ongoing yearly UN climate conference currently taking place in Brazil, the young members of the climate association "move" placed two replica coffins outside the Chamber of Deputies as a protest.
Spokesperson Alex Uehmen explained: "In one coffin, we have the world we want to preserve, with nature, biodiversity, and things such as democracy, human rights, everything that represents our society. In the other coffin we have things standing in our way, so to speak, such as fossil fuels that destroy the environment. Things like profits being valued over climate protection, the way profits are used to block climate-friendly policies or things like lobbyism, for example."
Sophie Thiry of Mouvement Ecologique emphasised that it was finally time to do something concrete. "Our forests, our oceans, they're not being looked after. We are calling for the super-wealthy to pay higher taxes, for fossil fuel industries to pay taxes, for less reliance on fossil fuels and less deforestation."
The young protesters agreed they had had enough of empty promises from politicians and that much more needed to be done to tackle climate change.
