Climate protests | Environmentalists meet for climate camp on Borkum

Just days after the responsible state authority approved the start of gas production off the coast of Borkum, environmental activists are protesting at a climate camp on the North Sea island. The camp began on Thursday , and a climate strike is planned for Friday at the island's train station. Organizers Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) and the climate movement Fridays for Future expect around 150 participants, according to police. Greenpeace published a legal opinion stating that an agreement between the Netherlands and Germany necessary for the gas project violates the German constitution and international law.

The camp is scheduled to last until Sunday, and climate activist Luisa Neubauer is also expected on the island, according to the DUH. "We made it clear today at our press conference in front of the Ministry of Economic Affairs: There must be no gas drilling off Borkum!" Fridays for Future declared in a post on Instagram. According to photos, around a dozen activists gathered there with signs reading "Borkum and everywhere: No new gas." Currently, "over 200 climate activists are on their way to Borkum," according to a post on an Instagram account about the climate camp.

The protest is directed against a gas extraction project off the North Sea island: The Dutch company One-Dyas plans to extract natural gas in the German-Dutch border region and, according to the Lower Saxony State Office for Mining, Energy and Geology (LBEG), is already doing so in test operations. The gas extraction platform is located on Dutch territory. The drilling will extend partially beneath the seabed into German territory, which is why German approval was required.

On Monday, the state office announced that it had approved immediate implementation, allowing One-Dyas to begin operations. The federal government had already cleared the way at the beginning of July by deciding to sign the so-called "unitarization agreement" with the Netherlands.

The gas production platform is to be supplied with electricity from the "Riffgat" offshore wind farm off Borkum. A submarine cable will be laid, among other things, through specially protected biotopes on the seabed there. The Lower Saxony State Office for Water Management, Coastal Protection and Nature Conservation (NLWKN) has given the green light for this project.

Environmentalists have sharply criticized the gas extraction project, and Lower Saxony's Energy and Climate Protection Minister Christian Meyer (Green Party) has also opposed the plan. Protests are also coming from the island itself: Together with the island community of Juist, the town of Borkum announced on Tuesday that "possible legal remedies" are now being examined.

The critics received a boost from a report by lawyer Roda Verheyen, commissioned by the organization Greenpeace. Verheyen writes that the agreement violates the Paris Climate Agreement and the climate protection mandate enshrined in Article 20a of the German Basic Law. In the report, the lawyer explains that the agreement allows for an unlimited number of further natural gas projects in the German-Dutch border region. However, the development of new fossil oil and gas deposits is "according to unanimous scientific findings incompatible with the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement."

The climate protection mandate in the Basic Law also prohibits "all actions that are per se incompatible with the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement." According to recent international case law, this also constitutes a violation of the obligation derived from general international law to prevent irreversible damage to the climate and the environment, the lawyer continued. Furthermore, the federal government "unconstitutionally failed to conduct the required consultation with the state of Lower Saxony."

According to Verheyen, the Bundestag and Bundesrat must approve the ratification of the treaty. This would allow the Bundestag and Bundesrat to "still prevent" natural gas production, Verheyen writes. "They are also obligated to do so, as the agreement violates both mandatory international law and constitutional law." AFP/nd