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CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate activists form human chain around German parliament

Demonstrators formed a human chain to symbolically lock politicians in the German parliament building in Berlin Friday, as calls by schoolchildren for climate action continued into the capital's summer holiday.

Climate activists form human chain around German parliament
Climate activists at the Bundestag on Friday. Photo: DPA

Demonstrators formed a human chain to symbolically lock politicians in the German parliament building in Berlin
Friday, as calls by schoolchildren for climate action continued into the capital's summer holiday.

The group stretched a bolt of red cloth from hand to hand while holding signs with messages like “2038 is too late” — a reference to the government's planned date for ending electricity generation from coal.

“While the politicians are serving their final minutes before the summer holiday, we're outside saying: People who make no climate policy don't deserve a break!” the “Fridays for Future” movement tweeted.

“That's why we're forming a human chain and demanding that you continue sitting” in the chamber, the account added.

READ ALSO: 'We are unstoppable': Climate activists occupy German coal mine

Launched by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, “Fridays for Future” has seen pupils “strike” against school teaching each Friday for months across Europe.

Around 500 people joined a march to the Reichstag parliament building from the Invalidenpark square, close to the city's Natural History Museum which opens its doors to the activists in weekly discussion forums.

Friday's protest comes one week after tens of thousands of young people from around Europe rallied in the western city of Aachen to demand faster reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, in the movement's biggest German
demonstration yet.

Some of those demonstrators later joined the “Ende Gelaende” civil disobedience action in which activists blockaded a massive open-cast brown coal mine.

Climate change has become a top public concern in Germany, with the Greens party shooting up to poll neck-and-neck with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives for the first time in recent weeks.

READ ALSO: Will Germany soon have its first Green chancellor?

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WEATHER

Denmark strikes new record for most rain in a year

Denmark on Wednesday struck a new record for the total annual precitipation, meteorologists said, noting that further increases in annual rain and snowfall could be expected in future years as a result of climate change.

Denmark strikes new record for most rain in a year

The annual tally of snow and rainfall as of Wednesday was over 907 millimeters (35.7 inches), national meteorological institute DMI said with over a week left in the year.

The previous record since measurements started in 1874 was 905mm, a level reached in 1999 and 2019.

On average, the Scandinavian country sees around 760mm of precipitation annually, but this could increase.

“The warming from anthropogenic climate change gradually also leads to increased precipitation in Denmark,” Rasmus Anker Pedersen, a climate scientist at DMI, told AFP.

According to Pedersen, by the end of the century, annual precipitation is expected to increase by seven percent.

“The change is not uniform over the year — we do not expect a substantial change in the summer precipitation amounts, while the winter precipitation will increase by 12 percent.

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