Greenpeace: Chancellor's speech reveals catastrophic climate ignorance of the ÖVP

Environmental protection organization locates total failure of the ÖVP in the key future issue of climate protection

Vienna (OTS) – Greenpeace Austria sharply criticized Chancellor Nehammer’s speech “On the future of the nation” today. Lisa Panhuber, spokeswoman for the environmental protection organization, said: “The chancellor’s speech on the future simply didn’t deserve its name. The ÖVP is incapable of taking the climate crisis – the greatest crisis of our time – seriously, let alone recognizing and implementing effective solutions. She showed that once again today.” While ambitious laws are being passed in other EU countries, the ÖVP in Austria, in its last 30 years of government responsibility, has consistently prevented climate protection measures and is apparently also without a climate plan up to 2030.

“Not a word about the Climate Change Act, no answer on how the oil and gas phase-out will work: the speech was a farce. Strong climate and species protection are prerequisites for a future on our planet. Health, secure food supplies, a world free of resource struggles – all of this depends on governments around the world taking effective laws and measures to stop the collapse of ecosystems. Austria must decide to phase out fossil fuels, stop the unbridled consumption of resources and implement a decelerated circular economy. If the ÖVP instead wants to continue to downplay and fuel the climate crisis, that’s a total failure,” Panhuber continued.

Austria lags dramatically behind other countries when it comes to climate protection. In the Climate Change Performance Ranking, we are ranked 32nd, after countries such as Denmark, Morocco and France. While emissions that are harmful to the climate in the EU have fallen by around a quarter since 1990, they are still at almost the same high level in Austria 30 years later.