This June, Berlin recorded its hottest day ever. It meant mad dashes to nab an overpriced air conditioning unit and endless sweaty nights soundtracked to the drone of labouring fans. But flame-filled ‘this is fine’ memes and sunburnt trips to the lake hide an uncomfortable reality. Climate change is here, and its effects are becoming more extreme. While weather patterns become increasingly erratic, awareness of the climate crisis wavers. Even as science drums up solid evidence that global warming is progressing at an alarming rate, political will and public concern appear to be dwindling. The days of burying our heads in the sand are over – for one, because the sand is too hot to bury anything in. So why do we keep avoiding the flaming obvious?
Mercury Rising: The Science Behind the Stats
To better understand the situation, it’s important to get into the numbers. On June 27, temperatures in Berlin soared to 39.9°C. To combat the stifling heat, the police deployed water cannons, spraying crowds at Brandenburger Tor with high-powered jets usually reserved for dispersing demonstrations. Groups of parched mates set up shop outside local Spätis, downing budget beers while watching the World Cup late into the night.
But this only paints a jovial picture of what’s been simmering away for decades. Research from the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) shows that Germany has warmed 2.5°C since systematic data collection began in 1881. That might not seem much, but it’s roughly double the global average. In fact, 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2000, with 2022 to 2024 being the three hottest. This year’s heatwave triggered DWD alerts on June 18, marking one of the earliest and longest heat-warning periods since the system’s launch in 2005.
The human cost of all this is very real. Heat is by far the leading cause of death among extreme weather events. At the time of writing, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has registered 11,900 deaths attributed to hot weather across Germany this year alone, with 9,600 of those occurring during June’s heatwave.
Large cities like Berlin are hit harder due to the urban heat island effect, a meteorological phenomenon in which developed areas experience much higher temperatures because they lack green spaces and waterways to help cool the air, while sealed surfaces such as roads and buildings absorb heat. This disproportionately affects marginalised and vulnerable groups, such as low-income, unemployed and homeless people, as well as children, older folk and those with chronic illnesses.
Berlin is already feeling the impact. Of the city’s 3.9 million inhabitants, 19% are over 65. This age group is growing rapidly, raising the number of those most at risk of heat-related complications. Hydrologists at the Technischer Universität (TU) pointed out that, due to hotter summers and reduced rainfall, agriculture and industry in the city and Brandenburg are using up more water. This puts immense strain on replenishing natural groundwater, which, in turn, has resulted in the Spree carrying 70% less water over the last 40 years. Worryingly, Berlin relies entirely on groundwater for its drinking water supply, putting it at high risk of future shortages.
Anne Zimmer is a research associate at Berlin-headquartered Climate Analytics. Referencing the NGO’s own climate risk data, she claims that “heatwave days are projected to skyrocket for Berlin if mitigation is not taken very seriously”. Earlier this year, she co-authored an extensive report on heat risks in Germany that projected that, by 2100, Berlin will experience more than a tenfold increase in the number of days above 31°C. This aligns with research released by the Senate, which matter-of-factly admitted that if things don’t change, by the turn of the century, Berlin will have the same climate as Toulouse does today.
Climate Politics: An Ode to Fossil Fuels
Given the data, why aren’t alarm bells ringing in governmental circles? A worrying trend has emerged: climate change just isn’t as much of a priority as it was years ago. In Germany, Chancellor Merz’s CDU-SPD grand coalition has pivoted towards shoring up Germany’s economy. Although assurances were made that climate and clean energy policy wouldn’t suffer, all signs suggest that they’re on the back burner. In addition, geopolitical events like the wars in Ukraine and Iran have forced attention back on fossil fuel security.
The climate crisis hasn’t gone away just because nobody’s talking about it anymore.
Claudio Forner, head of climate policy at Climate Analytics, says that the government is at significant risk of damaging its ability to cut emissions across the board. “Germany’s CDU-SPD coalition government has weakened the country’s climate ambition and slowed emissions reductions in several key sectors. It’s approved nine GW of new gas-fired power capacity by 2031, repealed the previous government’s Buildings Energy Act and allocated approximately €2 billion to temporarily reduce taxes on petrol and diesel following the fossil energy crisis.”
Recent figures show that Germany barely met its emissions-reduction targets in 2025, with net emissions falling by just 0.1% towards 2030 and 2045 climate goals. These targets were set in accordance with the Paris Agreement, which aims to hold temperature increase under a 1.5°C threshold by the latter half of the century. Forner puts this inertia down to a “weakening climate policy environment pursued by the current administration, with each decision making it more difficult for Germany to meet its targets and, more importantly, delaying a transition that increasingly makes economic sense”.
Ensuring that the economy doesn’t suffer at the expense of climate policy is a prominent line of reasoning in government. It’s particularly so for the current Minister of Economic Affairs
, Katherina Reiche, a divisive figure alleged to have ties to the gas lobby due to her former role at Westenergie, a subsidiary of energy giant E.ON. But according to opposition politicians, it’s an argument that doesn’t quite stack up.
Werner Graf is a parliamentary group leader for Die Grünen, a Party whose founding principle is built on protecting the environment. He believes Reiche’s policies are “threatening not only our climate targets but also the German economy. While the German automotive industry has already failed to capitalise on the shift towards electric mobility, Reiche is now catapulting us back into the fossil fuel era. Anyone who wants to replace heat pumps with oil and gas heating systems, while at the same time putting the brakes on the expansion of renewables, is gambling with our future.”
Echoing Forner’s comments, Graf suggests that framing the debate as climate change versus the economy is doing more harm than good. “It oversimplifies complex interrelationships and falsely suggests that climate protection leads to economic damage,” he says. “In fact, climate protection is seen as a key prerequisite for long-term economic success. Investment in renewable energy and climate-friendly technologies creates new markets and secures jobs for the future.”
It’s a huge fuck-up, to be very honest. I hope people understand what’s happening right now.
Closer to home, it’s a similar story. In Berlin, the Senate is run by a CDU-SPD coalition, mirroring the current alliance steering the country. It follows that politics in the capital follow similar priorities to Merz’s government. Before leaving office, the previous Senate passed a key piece of legislation known as the Klimapakt. However, according to Graf, its remit to reduce emissions by state-owned companies doesn’t go far enough. “On closer inspection, it becomes clear that many of the measures were already planned by the state-owned enterprises and don’t involve any additional funding. Yet that is precisely what we need to achieve our climate targets.”
That said, there is hope. September’s elections were an opportunity to effect change, at least on a local level. Die Linke, the winning party, along with Die Grünen are the two parties with the most concern for the climate crisis. Graf says that work must be done to undo the current Senate’s backtracking. “This means that cuts to climate protection funding must be reversed. We need political leadership once again in the transition to sustainable heating, energy and transport, and we need a Senate that puts climate protection back at the centre of its agenda.”
A Drop in the Vox Pop?
Beyond the rarified debates and halls of power, you’d think those on the ground were more down to earth about the situation’s urgency. But much like waning political drive due to shifting priorities, it also appears that public opinion is less preoccupied with climate concerns. A Germany-wide YouGov poll revealed that in late 2021, 33% of respondents ranked climate change as a top-three national priority. By mid-2026, this had dropped to 16%. Similarly, an ARD poll from 2025 found that only 13% of the public ranked environmental issues ahead of issues such as the economy, immigration, social welfare and foreign conflicts.
Could it be that the climate crisis seems more distant than the inflation crisis and a cost-of-living crisis? Graf believes that many people are consumed with problems as they unfold in real time. “When households struggle to cover basic expenses, long-term challenges like climate change can seem less immediate, even though their importance remains unchanged. Recent crises have further reinforced this shift in priorities.” The thing is, these are symbiotic issues. Climate change has a direct bearing on inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, and vice versa. And even if you do take them as distinct issues, as Graf phrases it, “the climate crisis hasn’t gone away just because nobody’s talking about it anymore.”
Alongside cooling public visibility, climate activism looks to have slumped. Fridays for Future, a protest movement championed by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, gained mass traction in 2019, inviting students across the globe to skip school and demonstrate against governmental climate policies. The first global strike took place on September 20, 2019, drawing 1.4 million participants across Germany. In contrast, according to the Berliner Morgenpost, a recent rally held outside the Federal Chancellery last month drew around 60 demonstrators.
In Germany, Luisa Neubauer is widely regarded as the face of the Fridays for Future movement. Growing up in a family of activists – her grandma was involved in the German environmental movement, and her sister is a clean-air activist in London – she initially became engaged with issues like sustainability and women’s rights as a school kid. Her focus on climate change arose when she learned how it’s “destroying so many of our hopes, like the hope to end extreme poverty”. It was fuelled by subdued political reaction. “Obviously, also witnessing how, for so many years, our governments made so many promises to take care of the climate, just for them to ignore those very promises, was very radicalising.”
Asking her about what’s changed since the early days of Fridays for Future prompts an honest reply. “Big changes usually start with naïve people, and I naïvely thought that it’s a bit of a mistake governments didn’t do the climate thing,” she says. “I thought we’d just need to make some noise for a few months.” Seven years on, she’s adjusted her perspective. “I now see how strong those forces are who are willingly leading us into disasters.” Talking about the current coalition reneging on climate policies and backing the fossil fuel industry, as well as the rise of the far right and mob-handed policing at demonstrations, Neubauer doesn’t hold back. “It’s a huge fuck-up, to be very honest. I hope people understand what’s happening right now.”
When households struggle to cover basic expenses, long-term challenges like climate change can seem less immediate, even though their importance remains unchanged.
In many ways, her outlook reflects the evolution of the movement she’s been so central to leading from the get-go. Yes, the initial catalyst that catapulted Fridays for Future into the public eye may have morphed. Climate burnout and social media fatigue are real factors, too, as are recent humanitarian crises like the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which rightly became a focus in the protest landscape – but that doesn’t mean the climate justice movement is any less relevant. Far from it, Neubauer suggests. “Back in 2019, people didn’t know about climate change,” she says, “but there was an outcry, and that’s what’s sustained these movements and networks, as well as the thousands of people who are doing something every day, from organising to mobilising.”
In addition to mentioning how several Fridays for Future-affiliated movements have sprung up, she believes the playing field in today’s Germany is very different. She notes how climate justice has been written into the constitution, that there’s a plan to phase out coal, environmental standards have been ratified and climate change is on the curriculum in schools and universities. All of this is tangible progress. “The reality we’re now looking at has changed because activism works,” she adds.
Yet the figures still suggest a dip in support. “I’m not a huge fan of these polls,” says Neubauer. “There are others that suggest otherwise. It’s a bit of an odd phenomenon of late capitalism that we rank people’s existential sorrows.” Plus, focusing on these figures misses the point. “There’s a general misunderstanding of what a movement can do; it’s not a subscription to mass mobilisation being delivered to your doorstep every week. I think most people agree that climate momentum is good, but momentum is, by definition, something that will, at some point not be there. The absence of a million people striking for the climate is not very surprising, but it was never the idea.”
Instead of measuring engagement with numbers and fearmongering, Neubauer offers a more nuanced alternative. “My vision isn’t for people to worry about the climate every day; that’s not going to change anything. What’s more important than worrying and ranking it a certain way is that we just keep it in our conscience whenever we make decisions, especially politically and economically.” Building climate back into the collective consciousness is where the real work lies.
Turning the Tide: Getting Climate Change Back on the Agenda
It’s not all doom and gloom. There’s still a lot that can be done to slow global warming and offset its impact. For Forner, the emphasis needs to be on political will. While change can be made at the societal and individual levels, it must start at the top. “Personal choice is important when it comes to deciding on diets, modes of transport and other [decisions].” But given the urgency and the trends for climate action from the government weakening, signals for policymakers to change course must be the basis.”
Some of the measures he recommends include raising Germany’s 2030 targets, ending fossil fuel subsidies and phasing out a reliance on gas. He also suggests that the government’s €500 billion special fund earmarked for climate initiatives should be directed towards sustainable infrastructure and limiting emission-intensive investments. There must also be a focus on social justice, ensuring that climate policies and subsidies are fair for lower-income households.
I’d ask him if he’s worried abd what he’ll tell his grandchildren.
Graf agrees, adding that politicians need to move climate policy out of the abstract. Instead of framing it as a fiscal trade-off, he thinks that viewing it as an economic opportunity is the way forward. “The political challenge is therefore not to convince people that climate action matters, but to show that it improves their daily lives through lower energy bills, affordable public transport, secure jobs and greater energy independence.” He says that this messaging has worked up to a point, but it will only succeed when “people see concrete benefits”.
That brings us to the importance of September’s elections. Neubauer believes it’s vital that people vote for parties that will take climate change seriously. However, her opinion differs from Forner’s on what ordinary folk can do. For her, the power still rests with the people. “We shouldn’t get trapped in this idea that it’s about a few people governing,” she says. “It’s about a million people making differences.” For her, there’s still a great deal that can be achieved through solidarity. “The most important thing we can do is show up. Show up to that meeting, to that demonstration, to that neighbourhood gathering.”
Beyond collective action, being proactive in daily life is key too. For example, looking at how your employer supports climate initiatives is one avenue. “Is there someone taking care of the environmental impact of that work? Is there something you can push for? Is there a programme you can do? And if you don’t work in a formal setting, is there some other way you can get active?” She also mentions the role family can play. “If you’re a parent, talk to your child and make sure it grows up with environmental consciousness, and if you’re a child, talk to your parents and make sure they don’t mess up.”
Towards the end of our chat, Neubauer ponders what she’d say to Chancellor Merz if she had five minutes of his time, especially given the coalition’s silence on Germany’s heat-related death toll. “I’d ask him if he’s worried and what he’ll tell his grandchildren,” she says. “My hope doesn’t lie with five minutes of Merz’s attention, but in the five minutes it takes for an average person to make a good decision about showing up in the streets.” Ultimately, she remains hopeful that the current course can be recharted, and while hope is necessary, it’s not enough alone. “Hope isn’t a guarantee that everything will be fine. It’s a promise someone makes to the universe not to give up on this most beautiful planet we have the privilege of visiting for a short time.” After a record-breaking Berlin summer (and the coldest winter in 16 years) and wildfires across Europe, there’s never been a more pressing call to action to make our time count. Because at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.
